The Roles In Media Studies: Moana, Stuart Hall

While over the course of this semester we have touched upon a large majority of what goes into Media Studies as well as what entails genre theory. With that being said, I went into class last week with a more negative mindset than a positive one, knowing we were going to see a Disney animation. Although, I walked away from the lecture and the movie, in a much more positive and enlightened than I ever expected. Much of this enlightenment was due to the connections to which Moana and cultural studies can be related to one another. Although the impact to which genre theory has did not immediately hit me after watching the movie Moanna, the further I analyzed and more deeply interrupted the underlying meaning to which was being presented, the …show more content…
To Hall, “culture is whatever people use to make meaning of their lives, people can interpret the same thing in completely different ways.” While Hall places a heavy emphasis on not only how each of us interpret things in our own way, he also argues that producers and consumers play an active role in media communication. The aspect of culture Hall is attempting to address is that not every message that the media, or in this case the film is trying to get across to us as an audience is being meet. That maybe, the underlying message to which the media, or in this case Disney, it is trying to perceived isn’t the actual message we walk away thinking it is. While for me personally, I walked away thinking this was a genre theory based around individualism vs. community, someone else who watched the same film in the same row two seats to my right might have interpreted Moana in a completely different way. Possible that of how one shouldn’t play around with Mother Nature or the ocean, or how each of ours fate is never determined and can be altered at any given moment in time? While my theory, and the approach to which I took out of the movie is not the same perception to which someone else could have taken from it. To Hall, the aspect of to which culture and the media play attempt to have on us as audience members isn’t always the right or same perception to which we might walk away with. To Hall, genre theorists miss out on the harsh reality that the encoded message trying o be applied, isn’t something that you are entitled, but they attempt to put on