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he/she sees as fit for him/herself in order to transmit his/her identity, would not be a
completely wrong statement for the mechanized person of the 21
st
century.
Characters which are presented one after the other and shown as if they are the reality
which to be reached, direct the individuals’ only truth towards the presented.
Whichever thought the cinema wants to form, characters which have identities that
fit this thought are presented and equipped with objects with symbolic meanings.
The symbolic meanings these characters have turn into judgments which the
individual attributes to everything he/she comes across in his/her daily life. The
images of a policeman, hero, beautiful, ugly, powerful, weak, Turkish, British, and
American always bring determined visions to the individual’s mind. These images
are altered in cinema in time and the altered images also change the individual’s
judgments.
Vampire movie characters are one of the examples that can be given to this
change. The vampire stories, which were ugly, fearful, and repulsive horror classics
in the early times, nowadays take the form, which is adapted to literature and cinema
in an opposite way and is almost identified with the concept of attractiveness. This
change is directly reflected in cinema through the characters and objects. Objects
which are used in order to show the character as repulsive and which do not address
to the tastes of people have yielded to objects which are considered as attractive, in
order to address tastes. While pointed teeth generate a blood sucker and frightening
and a wild animal though, all teeth except for canine teeth have been straightened in
the new generation cinema. It is even possible to see that canine teeth are not seen
and that they only come into surface in the blood sucking scenes. At the same time,
choosing of characters with appearances of handsome/beautiful, which are imposed
on people, is a reason for preference in order to lose the repulsiveness and to distance
from being wild looking. Losing of repulsiveness also prevents fear. When examined
more carefully, new generation vampires are one of the members of the society.
A B
Visual 3
Change in the characters’ appearances is a feature which affects transmission
acceptability. While the outfit with the cape in the Dracula movies of the early times
distanced the character from the society and provided it a new status, the characters
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which keep up with today’s fashion become characters which are unnoticeable
within the society and which are like someone from the society. This change eases
acceptance.
While the way of presentation of clothes in the movies determines the social
status of the character, their brands and styles give information on his/her class
status. The brand and model of the outfits used in the James Bond movies hide within
all messages for presenting Bond as a character with charisma and has the audience
read this.
James Bond Casino Royal movie (2006); Bond and Ms. Lynd train scene, first
conversation;
Ms. Lynd: According to the cut of your suit, you have been to Oxford or a
similar place and naturally you think that all people dress like this. However, you
dress in such a condescending way that I think you do not come from a rich family.
Your schoolmates also never let you forget this situation. This shows that you have
carried the hump of another’s aid grant. What is the brand of your watch? Rolex?
Bond: Omega
Brands (Rolex watch, suit) are symbolic consumption products which give
information on the character’s identity and create an identity to the character. When
evaluating the symbolic meanings of brands, Baudrillard’s “value sign” concept
generates a new conceptualization for this form of transfer. According to Baudrillard,
each commodity has a value sign and this value is determined by rules, codes and
social logic which are dominant on social formation. As in the case of brands which
are accepted as prestige, the sign values of certain objects are higher and the
individual’s relationship with other individuals and social status are determined to a
large extent by these value signs (Şaylan, G., 1999:201). When Baudrillard’s values
sign is thought for the objects’ symbolic values, it comes to the meaning that the
environment which the individual formed has a class within. Therefore, brands are
accepted as symbols, which are accepted as determinants for social class. These
symbols turn into likings which affect and direct the individual’s product preference
selection.
In conclusion, despite the fact that the “reality” seems different between the
cinema and the daily life, when looked into the details, it is seen that symbols which
are used in place of the other or adapted are used. Due to the fact that symbols
transmit what is intended to be transmitted directly and without the need for words,
they are preferred not only in cinema but also in many areas of daily life. Since
cinema is a visual communication area which transmits many things in a short period
of time, it frequently includes symbols.
The acceptable aspect of Baudrillard’s approach, which he presents for the
symbolic meanings of objects;
“This is clear. The content usually hides its real function from us. The
content presents itself as a message where in fact the real message – a visual
statement in connection to it can only be an auxiliary meaning – is a structural
change (on hierarchy, model, habitus) which is deeply realized over human
relations. In an outline, a railway’s message is not the coal or passengers it