Soundtrack: Incidental Music
Incidental music can indicate to the audience a scene's atmosphere and give them a clue about how they should react emotionally, as well as communincating information about the characters within the scene. For example, listen to the music in this clip from the end of "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly":
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It's a classic western showdown between several alpha males, communicating values of stereotypically dominant masculinity.
Now watch the first 10 seconds of the Dr Who clip again and listen very closely to the incidental music playing in the background as Martha Jones enters.
The use of the same 'spaghetti wastern' style of music tells the audience that this is going to be an old-fashioned good-vs-evil showdown, but the protagonist in this case is female, which runs counter to received ideas about femininity. We are not suggesting that Martha Jones is masculine, but rather that the scene as a whole shows women as being capable of the same strength and determination which is typically expected of men.
Now watch the first 10 seconds of the Dr Who clip again and listen very closely to the incidental music playing in the background as Martha Jones enters.
The use of the same 'spaghetti wastern' style of music tells the audience that this is going to be an old-fashioned good-vs-evil showdown, but the protagonist in this case is female, which runs counter to received ideas about femininity. We are not suggesting that Martha Jones is masculine, but rather that the scene as a whole shows women as being capable of the same strength and determination which is typically expected of men.
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