REPORTAGEM: As Vozes da Magia

São vozes que dão vida a célebres desenhos animados que tantas vezes transportam crianças e adultos para um mundo de fantasia e de ilusão. O que a maioria de nós esquece facilmente é que, por detrás dessa fantasia, existe um trabalho infindável de pessoas que dão o seu melhor para que, dia após dia, a magia e o encanto se mantenham.



Alguns preferem viver no anonimato e ser pessoas comuns. Outros preferem ser reconhecidos pelo que fazem e ter algum protagonismo devido ao investimento que os Estúdios fazem no seu trabalho. Seja como for, a verdade é que os artistas de dobragem são muitas vezes esquecidos e que a maioria de nós nem pára para pensar “de quem será aquela voz?”.
“O Rei Leão” foi o primeiro filme da Walt Disney dobrado em português e teve, em 1994, um sucesso estrondoso. Desde os mais novos aos mais velhos, vários foram aqueles que se deixaram fascinar pelo pequeno Simba e pela ternura e humor que envolvia a história. No interior da Santa- Claus, uma empresa de audiovisuais em Cascais, descobre-se uma das principais vozes desse mítico filme. Actualmente com 27 anos, Tiago Caetano, sócio da Mastershot, uma empresa de produção audiovisual, deu voz ao pequeno Simba com apenas 15 anos de idade. Tiago explica então como tudo começou: “ Quando veio a Rua Sésamo para cá, aquele episódio piloto, precisavam de uns miúdos que soubessem jogar à bola e, como a minha escola era mesmo ao lado dos estúdios da RTP, foram lá arranjar uns miúdos para fazer uns testes…fomos uns quantos e só fiquei eu!”

“Acho que tive sorte: estava no local certo à hora certa!”
Tiago Caetano


Começou então como figurante na Rua Sésamo e, entretanto, depois de o realizador, António Feio, falar com os seus pais, iniciou-se nas dobragens, aos nove anos de idade. Após cerca de quatro anos de Rua Sésamo, Tiago concorreu ao casting para fazer a voz do pequeno Simba e, mais uma vez, teve a sorte de ser escolhido.

No que diz respeito à cena mais triste da história, Tiago nem hesita em responder: “Foi aquela parte em que o pai do Simba morre, enfim, aquela parte em que toda a gente chora…eu não chorei, mas que foi a mais triste, foi…”. De resto, quase todas as cenas foram engraçadas, mas Tiago recorda uma em particular: “Quando o Simba está a fugir das hienas no cemitério dos elefantes e desce pela coluna de um mamute, eu tinha de soluçar e então, como eu era pequenino, o truque foi virarem-me ao contrário e baterem-me nas costas! Ao fim de algumas tentativas, saiu na perfeição!”.
Para Tiago, uma criança na altura, o mediatismo do filme teve o seu quê de chocante e foi um enorme motivo de orgulho: “Havia actores já conhecidos, figuras públicas e eu lá, meio pequenininho, no meio deles, a dar entrevistas às revistas e tal…a ante-estreia no Tivoli foi uma coisa em grande!”. Durante algum tempo, as idas ao cinema com os amigos foram uma constante. “Ia quase todas as semanas e levava muitos amigos para ouvirem como tinha ficado a minha voz”, confessa Tiago, esboçando um sorriso e um olhar saudoso.

“Foi giro poder ir ao cinema com o pessoal todo e ouvir a minha voz pela primeira vez!”
Tiago Caetano

Para este jovem, as dobragens deram-lhe, desde muito cedo, e apesar de os cachets não serem nada “por aí além”, uma independência que lhe permitia comprar aquilo de que mais gostava, que na altura se resumia basicamente a “pranchas de surf e uns pares de ténis”. De qualquer modo, Tiago mostra-se satisfeito ao dizer que, assim, os seus pais escusavam de suportar esses gastos.
Mas essa satisfação desaparece, quando se fala de um dos sonhos deste jovem empresário. Aí, a expressão muda e o olhar já não é de saudade mas sim de uma certa revolta. “Tenho pena de não continuar a fazer filmes para cinema, mas Portugal é um país de interesses e os filmes vão todos para o mesmo estúdio, para aquela família, e não saem dali”, revela Tiago.
Hoje em dia, o que vende os filmes são os nomes conhecidos e os mais recentes são feitos, segundo Tiago, por “aqueles actorzinhos da moda, que fazem com que se vá ao cinema para se ouvir determinada voz e não para ver o filme”. Actualmente, poucas são as oportunidades para fazer castings, algo que entristece Tiago: “O pior é que eu e os meus colegas, que fazem dobragens há tanto tempo quanto eu, nem sequer temos a oportunidade de concorrer…Eu até poderia não ficar, mas, pelo menos, tentava e dava-se assim também uma oportunidade de escolha às entidades que têm de escolher e não aos estúdios que só escolhem a sua família, os seus compadres e os seus amigos!”.



“Como sou um bocado orgulhoso, sou incapaz de pedir por favor para me deixarem fazer um casting…Não faço!”
Tiago Caetano

A sorte de Tiago, actualmente a gravar a série de desenhos animados “Boing Boing” (RTP2), é conseguir ter ainda, mesmo já sendo adulto, um registo de criança. Tiago quase aposta: “ Hoje, se tentasse fazer a voz do Simba, é claro que não ia ficar igual porque eu na altura ainda nem tinha mudado a voz mas acho que se treinasse um bocadinho ia ficar muito parecido mesmo!”. Hoje em dia, raros são os estúdios que contratam crianças para fazerem dobragens. Tempo é dinheiro e, com adultos a fazerem vozes de crianças, é tudo muito mais rápido. Para Tiago, isso tem uma grande desvantagem: “Perde-se aquela ingenuidade da voz da criança, que é quase impossível nós termos…”. Para além disso, não é feita nenhum tipo de preparação em termos de personagens. “A única coisa que fazemos antes de gravar, é ler os textos para aí uma hora antes e ver o filme original, com as vozes originais. Não há uma preparação das personagens como se faz em teatro ou cinema. A personagem construímos nós, à medida que a história vai avançando, é que vamos vendo como a voz soa melhor,” revela o jovem.
Para Tiago, o actor de dobragens deve permanecer no anonimato e sentar-se na sala de cinema com a família ou com os amigos a ver o seu trabalho, ou melhor, a ouvir.
Já José Luís Alves, 47 anos, engenheiro electrónico e responsável pela produção de diversos documentários e desenhos animados para a televisão portuguesa, entre eles “O Rei Leão”, opina de uma forma diferente: “Se participam no filme figuras importantes, é claro que tem de haver uma maior publicidade, para que haja mais público no cinema, nem que seja por mera curiosidade, para ver como é que a Catarina Furtado ou o Diogo Infante, por exemplo, ficam a fazer dobragens!”.
Ligado às dobragens desde os tempos em que trabalhou na conhecida empresa brasileira Herbert Richards, há quase 29 anos atrás, é com saudade que recorda as gravações de “O Rei Leão”: “Houve um espírito de camaradagem enorme, desde a parte artística à parte técnica… estavam todos muito eufóricos!”. Na ante-estreia no Tivoli, José Luís confessa que as lágrimas lhe vieram aos olhos, depois de um projecto tão trabalhoso mas, simultaneamente, tão empolgante.

“Foi assim tipo…um sonho realizado…foi um sentimento único na altura!”
José Luís Alves


Telmo Miranda também participou neste grande sucesso da Walt Disney. Actualmente com 33 anos, sendo cantor no programa Fátima (SIC), actor de dobragens (grava a série Abre-te Sésamo e locuções para TV Cabo, nomeadamente para os canais Discovery e História) e director da World Cruisers Agency, Telmo revela que foi com “O Rei Leão” que começou nestas andanças, mas que ainda não era bem um actor de dobragens: “Estive ligado durante algum tempo mais à parte musical do que à parte de diálogos e também dirigi os cantores para as dobragens, inicialmente na Disney e depois noutras companhias”. Tendo em conta que foi no início da sua carreira, “O Rei Leão” traz-lhe boas recordações: “Eu não gostava muito de me ouvir, mas foi muito engraçado porque, na ante-estreia, fizeram uma montagem de como se faz o processo de selecção para escolher as vozes e mostraram, de personagem para personagem, todas as vozes da Europa que fazem essa mesma personagem, ou seja…é quase como nos estarmos a ouvir noutras línguas, porque os timbres são parecidíssimos!”.

“Ainda hoje, tenho algumas dificuldades em ouvir-me…”
Telmo Miranda

Noção de ritmo, boa dicção e domínio do vocabulário são três requisitos fundamentais para um actor de dobragens, sensível o suficiente para perceber o que as personagens querem transmitir e para interpretar a frase o melhor possível, alterando a voz conforme lhe pareça mais adequado.
Famoso ou desconhecido, sentado na escuridão do cinema ou nas luzes da ribalta, o actor de dobragens tem, ainda hoje, uma missão crucial: criar um mundo de fantasia e manter o brilho no olhar das crianças.

"At last...my arm is complete again!"

“Achas que és capaz de cantar…?” Bastou esta pergunta, feita por Tim Burton a Johnny Depp, para que se aliasse a fome à vontade de comer e Burton produzisse, finalmente, um musical, tendo como protagonista o seu actor de eleição e dando origem a uma obra única e singular.

“Sweeney Todd” mostra-nos uma cidade de Londres sombria, suja, desprezível e sem qualquer tipo de alegria, uma cidade pouco convidativa e maravilhosamente caracterizada, como já é habitual nas obras de Tim Burton (basta relembrar êxitos como “Eduardo Mãos-de-Tesoura” ou “A Lenda do Cavaleiro sem Cabeça”). Burton esmerou-se, mais uma vez, na caracterização das personagens e do espaço, criando uma atmosfera de depressão, de tristeza, de mágoas mal curadas. Mas, se todo este ambiente é taciturno e algo sinistro, em coerência com o estado de espírito da personagem central, a força desta obra revela-se uma verdadeira paixão.

Johnny Depp surge, mais uma vez, com uma figura surpreendente e em nada semelhante a papéis de “menino bonito” como chegou a interpretar em “A mulher do Astronauta” ou até mesmo em “À procura da Terra do Nunca”. Quando se pensa que pouco mais pode fazer para reforçar o bom actor que é, eis que surge como Benjamin Barker, um talentoso barbeiro que perdeu a sua mulher e filha para um Juiz invejoso e arrogante que, não suportando a felicidade alheia, o mandou injustamente para a prisão. Quando regressa à sua cidade natal, Barker é um homem de olhar fantasmagórico, um homem amargurado pela vida que adopta o nome de Sweeney Todd. Com uma mente angustiada e tenebrosa, Todd volta à sua actividade de barbeiro, não para embelezar os homens, mas sim para se vingar de todos aqueles que o afastaram da sua família. Cruza-se então com Mrs. Lovett, dona da loja das “piores empadas de Londres”, que se torna sua aliada na sede de vingança. E dá-se então início a um verdadeiro jogo de contrastes cromáticos: as cores alegres só são usadas quando tal se justifica, nomeadamente nos “flashbacks” da vida passada do barbeiro e nas projecções de Mrs. Lovett para o futuro, já para não falar do sangue que jorra das gargantas dos malfadados clientes sempre que Todd corta uma garganta. Para além disso, e marcando a diferença com um ar quase vampiresco, Todd contrasta com o estilo “snob” dos restantes habitantes da Cidade e, ao mesmo tempo que se funde na escuridão desta, destaca-se de todo o cenário pela força da sua personalidade, pela sua excentricidade, pela sua alma. A par de toda esta história, surge como pseudo-novidade o facto de se tratar de um musical (e digo pseudo-novidade porque Tim Burton já introduziu algumas cenas musicais em filmes como, por exemplo, “Charlie e a Fábrica de Chocolate”), com letras recheadas de um humor sádico e simplesmente delicioso. As personagens são altamente dramáticas e com gestos exagerados e teatrais que dão ênfase a cada ponto da história. E se alguém ainda tinha dúvidas quanto à versatilidade de Johnny Depp, creio que ficam totalmente dissipadas. Mesmo com um aspecto amargurado e envelhecido, o actor canta e encanta, com uma voz profunda que se enquadra perfeitamente no ambiente gótico no qual a acção se desenvolve. De salientar são também as participações de Sacha Baron Cohen, num papel cómico como sempre, e de Ed Sanders, um talento infantil bastante promissor, já para não falar de Helena Bonham Carter, provavelmente a única actriz à altura de desempenhar um papel tão lunático como este, cuja voz encaixa na perfeição com a de Johnny Depp.

Um filme de exageros. Uma história de amor, vingança e tragédia, que nos envolve do primeiro ao último minuto.

Madeleine McCann: Greek Tragedy

Introduction
The disappearance of 4-year-old Madeleine McCann caused a media storm in both Portugal and the United Kingdom with extensive coverage all over the world, too. Despite not being a precedent (children have disappeared in foreign countries numerous times before), the case gained such intense and profound representation in the media that it became known as the case “Maddy”. It generated international media attention provoked mostly by criticism on the Portuguese-led police investigation, the unseen publicity campaign taken up by the parents, and the subsequent naming of the parents as suspects allegedly involved in the abduction or presumable death of their daughter.

1.Historical Background
Madeleine McCann disappeared on the evening of May 3rd 2007 in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz while on holiday with her parents and her two siblings. The parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, said that they had left their children unsupervised while they ate at a restaurant a hundred meters away, but that they were also making regular half-hour trips to check on them. The initial investigation by the Portuguese police concluded that she had been abducted but subsequently stated a hypothesis that she might have died in her room. Nonetheless, police admitted in August that the investigation was at a dead end. In September Kate and Gerry McCann were given arguido (suspect) status, but were allowed to return to Great Britain. The investigation involved the cooperation of the British and Portuguese police and demonstrated the differing methodologies employed by each, which also provoked numerous comments in the media.

2.Objective and methodology
The objective of the following analysis is to show the specific pattern followed by the British media (purposely or not) to portray the story. The observation of two British online editions the Guardian Unlimited and the Daily Mirror have demonstrated the active use of techniques and compositions typical not of news stories but of the world of drama and theatre art. Bearing in mind that the case “Maddy” exists in a paradigm of resembling stories, this conclusion shows that media often exploits stories with big emotional charge not to fulfill the fundamental journalistic function to inform, but rather as means for entertainment. Utilizing the well-known structure and elements of the ancient Greek tragedy, the discourse of the Guardian Unlimited and the Daily Mirror is strongly reminiscent of the common antique notion of catharsis. The idea of the catharsis drama is that the horror and grief of the theatre play deeply involves the spectators in the action, and by making them fear, ultimately purifies them. The analysis of the Guardian Unlimited and the Daily Mirror has showed that British media borrows this millennium-old practice and reproduces it today, thus turning its readers into spectators. Nonetheless, the new relationship forged between media and its audience is not initiated unilaterally. What we have is not the usual one-way communicator-recipient relation, but rather a multilateral response system provided by the opportunities of Internet blogging and foruming.
The analysis of the two newspapers covers a total of two weeks, the first one (May 5-11) encompassing the period immediately after the disappearance of Madeleine, and the other (September 7-13) covering the time after the parents’ naming of suspects and the following public reactions in the United Kingdom. It includes a register of the amount and frequency of publications concerning the case, a comparative analysis between the elements of the Greek tragedy according to Aristotle’s Poetica, as well as an examination of the specific characteristics of Internet-based media and the differences of style between a quality British newspaper (the Guardian Unlimited) and a tabloid (the Daily Mirror).

3.Web-based media: characteristics
An important note to this analysis is that web-based media has and usually takes advantage of the many opportunities that Internet can offer. This means that web-based editions are naturally free from printing and distribution costs and allowed to propagate much more content (both in size and number) than traditional newspapers. In contrast to paper media, which is usually limited to only a single issue for the day, both the Guardian Unlimited and the Daily Mirror at times publish as many as 5 reports per day on the case “Maddy”.
Usually these reports do not offer much new information but, resembling the style of television news broadcasts, retell and rephrase the events of the day or the story background. This constant rephrasing and re-publishing of the same story owes its explanation not to journalistic habits but rather to the requirements of the market. One purpose of the repetition is to make sure that no reader has accidentally missed it while clicking on the web page. Another goal is to turn the story into a top-story by creating the impression that there is a constant flow of “things to say” about it. Retelling the story repeatedly puts it on the very highest top of the media agenda thus compelling the readers to think that it must be exclusively important. Paper editions rely more on the size and font of the headline as well as the striking appearance of the article in comparison to the rest of the texts on the page or on other pages of the issue. For web-based editions this context is more irrelevant because a story is usually presented by itself. They have to use different methods to make one story stand out, and one such method is the repetition.
A principal characteristic of web journalism, which makes it essentially different from other forms of journalism, is its immediacy. According to James Stovall, “web’s qualities offer an immediacy that broadcasting cannot match in four important ways”, and these are variety, expansion, capacity (quality), and immediacy with context (2004: 8). These features not only improve the position of web journalism in the conditions of relentless competition, but also change the way journalism is made and perceived. This type of journalism gains more and more credibility, despite the occasional absence of verified sources confirming it. The immediacy boosts its trustworthiness because it creates the impression that the story is followed as it happens (not by summaries like in other media). Furthermore, another specific attribute of web journalism is that “web is the most permanent of media in the sense that it does not deteriorate. Nothing need be lost.” (Stovall, 2004: 9).

4.Daily Mirror and Guardian: style differences
Another important aspect of this study highlights the differences of style and target audience between the two newspapers being analyzed. The Manchester Guardian was founded in 1821, announcing that it would help enforce the principles of civil and religious liberty, and those of political economy. Today it is a national newspaper with an average daily circulation of about 356, 000 copies, which places it fourth among the quality British editions1. Its ideology is usually in sympathy with the centre-left. The Guardian Unlimited website has received numerous awards, such as Best Newspaper (Webby Awards, 2005 and 2006) and Best Electronic Daily Newspaper (British Press Awards, for six years in a row). This impressive background reveals the degree of respect and influence that this newspaper has in the United Kingdom, suggesting that its attitude towards reporting news is determinedly serious.
The Daily Mirror, on the other hand, is a tabloid newspaper established by the famous Lord Northcliffe in 1903 “as a paper for women and run by women”2. Therefore it focuses a lot more on emotional responses and on the fate of women, which explains to a certain degree the newspaper’s preoccupation with the figure of Kate McCann. Its daily circulation is about 1, 537, 000 copies (which is approximately 5 times that of Guardian). A typical characteristic of Daily Mirror is that it expresses very unambiguously its position about current affairs, politics, laws, etc., in contrast to the more “reserved” Guardian. Considering its tabloid nature, Daily Mirror is much more inclined to having extreme opinions.

The catharsis discourse in analysis
1.General discourse characteristics
At first the journalistic discourse in both newspapers is mostly what has come to be seen as the adequate and proper discourse for stories of that type, i.e. what John Langer calls “victim stories” (1998: 114). According to Langer, victim stories are that kind of stories which “focus on individuals who, in the process of going about their daily affairs, encounter an unanticipated turn of events which ensnares them in a state of crisis from which they cannot emerge using their own efforts and resources” (1998: 114). The story of Kate and Gerry McCann fits extremely well this archetype. We can find even more striking similarity between the image of the parents constructed by the British media and Vladimir Propp’s folk tale categorization of the so called “victim hero tale” (1998: 122). The distraught parents are the victims of a terrible misfortune, but even so they are strong and decisive. They take the course of things into their own hands but, according to the unalterable framework of the victim story, fail to overcome the calamity.
This type of discourse finds its roots in very old forms of story-telling, such as folk tales, legends, myths, and finally the main focus of our study, which is the classical Greek tragedy. As Jack Lule puts it: “Journalists are part of a long story-telling tradition that includes fleet-footed messengers, minstrels, troubadours, carriers, couriers, criers, poets…” (2001: 3), i.e. telling stories is no new thing in the world. Thus, when we analyze the construction of news stories applicable are both Vladimir Propp’s morphological approach to folk tales and Jack Lule’s interpretation of myths as archetypal stories. Another entrance point to analyzing media stories is through the catharsis discourse utilized in Greek tragedy. The purpose of our analysis is to prove that this type of discourse is becoming more popular in media stories because it reaches a higher degree of intensity and involvement of the audience. While the myth and the folk tale premises a certain passiveness of the public (by setting the categories of the teller and his listeners), the theatre discourse engages the audience in a stronger relationship. It is the product of a further state of convergence between information and entertainment (the so called infotainment).
At a later stage of the development of the story, especially after harsh criticism that newspapers take advantage of the tragedy in order to achieve higher sales share, the Guardian Unlimited returns to its cooler, impartial, news-like, reporting discourse. What is especially notable is the frequency of phrases such as “reports say”, “it has been reported”, “there were reports of” without citing concrete sources. The frequent use of these expressions create the notion that the Guardian Unlimited is just a link in the chain of news reporting and is not responsible for what is being reported elsewhere. The Guardian Unlimited is simply a messenger. However, despite trying to restore the unbiased reporting tone, it still at times allows a discourse which sides with the McCanns and portrays them as the victims of unjust Portuguese attitude.
The Daily Mirror, conversely, even intensifies the emotional mood by openly antagonizing the McCanns, on one side, and the Portuguese police and media, on the other side. In contrast to the Guardian Unlimited, whose strongest concentration on the story takes place in the week following the disappearance of Madeleine, in the Daily Mirror the period with the highest frequency of publications about the case is in the week after police declared the parents suspects. Which shows that the Guardian Unlimited focuses more on sympathizing with the family, whereas the Daily Mirror concentrates on backing the family in their assumed battle with the foreign.

2.The catharsis spectacle in modern-day media
In its initial reports on the disappearance of Madeleine both the Guardian Unlimited and the Daily Mirror accentuated on the grief of the parents and the horror of the event. In this fashion they fulfilled the role of catharsis for the readers just as the antique Greek tragedy acted for its spectators. What we observe is a theatre play unfolding itself on the pages of the Guardian Unlimited and the Daily Mirror. It includes all of the elements that Aristotle’s Poetics deems necessary in a tragedy: plot, character, diction, thought, song, and spectacle.
a)plot – according to Aristotle, the perfect tragedy should “imitate actions which excite pity and fear, this being the distinctive mark of tragic imitation”[13] and later adds that “pity is aroused by unmerited misfortune, fear by the misfortune of a man like ourselves” [13]. The action which causes pity and fear is the disappearance of a little girl, interpreted in view to the sudden, incomprehensible, and absolute loss for an ordinary parental couple “like ourselves”. The additional plot twist, which provokes an escalation of the sensation of fear, is the worsening situation of the victim parents who have to fight against false allegations.
Edith Hall points out the recurrence in ancient Greek tragedies of the so called “displacement” plots, which are “plots involving contested ethnicity and contested rights to citizenship”, and also of “themes of exile and loss of civic rights” (1997: 98). This type of plot is clearly visible in the analysis of the Guardian Unlimited and the Daily Mirror treatment of the case. They construct the story/plot as follows: the McCann parents are on exile in a foreign and hostile country (Portugal), they constantly suffer bad consequences as result of their (British) ethnicity, and they are denied basic citizen’s rights (proper attitude from police and media).
“The stress of coping with the disappearance of a child would be hard enough for any parent - but Kate and Gerry McCann have also had to reckon with the slurs of Portugal's media. Despite the couple always insisting they were not involved in four-year-old Madeleine's disappearance, local newspapers and TV stations have waged a relentless, hurtful - and often bizarre - smear campaign against them.” (The Daily Mirror, 8 September 2007)
“In contrast to normal British police procedure, Portuguese officers did not issue a description of Madeleine's clothing.” (The Guardian Unlimited, 8 May 2007)
“It's a tall order given the incompetence of the Portuguese police who manage to make Inspector Clouseau look like The Sweeney. Nor can it be of much comfort to the McCanns to learn that in Portugal there is no sex-offender register.”(The Daily Mirror, 9 May 2007)
“The force has come under intense criticism for its handling of the case but refuses to reveal details of the investigation amid an information blackout because of unusual Portuguese laws.” (The Guardian Unlimited, 9 May 2007)
According to Hall, “tragedy…both produces and reproduces the ideology of the civic community” (1997: 95). The Athenian tragic poet and his audience were politically equal, but they were defined by their Athenian citizenship. Therefore many of the tragic plots targeted home audiences, which could identify ethnically with the protagonist. The achievement of social and psychological bonding between spectator and character was carried out through the inherent perception of the binary category home/good against foreign/evil. The fundament of constructing a civic community lies upon this principle. Likewise, as the Athenian tragedy negotiated social boundaries such as “citizen/non-citizen, Athenian Greek/non-Athenian Greek, and Greek/barbarian” (1997: 96), the British media in the case “Maddy” focuses on the opposition of British/Portuguese. Sometimes it goes even further, not defining the opponent side as Portuguese, but simply as the other, the foreign, thus provoking a very basic identification instinct and implicating the opposition category of British/barbarian.
“Locals jeer McCanns
Jeers and shouts greeted Kate McCann as she arrived looking drawn and tired yesterday at the police station for another round of questioning. But among the crowd of 400 people lining the cobbled street, one British voice cut through the noise. "We believe you, Kate," shouted Leroy Stone, from Cardiff, as he held his three-year-old daughter Holly.” (The Daily Mirror, 8 September 2007)
“Senior officers in the UK have privately expressed astonishment at the "hopeless" Portuguese handling of the case. Three liaison officers sent to help the McCanns are also understood to have been "banging their heads against a brick wall". An insider said: "They have been putting questions on behalf of the family but getting zero response.” (The Daily Mirror, 10 May 2007)
b)character – according to Encarta Reference Library, “only when spectators share with the playwright a particular social vision and system of class-based values can they empathize with the fall of the protagonist (central character) from an elevated position into bleak despair or annihilation.”3 The main character here is naturally the mother, coming from the envious position of wife and mother in a respectable and wealthy family when suddenly her luck recedes to utter misery. The spectators identify themselves with the protagonist and therefore sympathize with him/her. They feel insecure and afraid because random and inexplicable disasters, such as the one depicted, can happen to anyone including them even if they did nothing to deserve it.
In his Poetics Aristotle indicates four necessary components which construct the tragic character: it must be good, it must have propriety, it must be true to life, and it must be consistent [15]. A well-constructed character allows for the profound and thorough empathy of the audience with it, which is ultimately the goal of the tragic play. Utilizing this approach (consciously or not) the Guardian Unlimited and the Daily Mirror construct the perfect tragic character in the person of Kate McCann. They fulfill the image that the audience as a collective representative of the civic community expects from the figure of a desperate mother. Kate is continuously described with tears streaming down her face, clutching Madeleine’s cuddly toy, praying, “her face crumpled with emotion, clasping tightly to the hand of a female friend” (The Guardian Unlimited, 10 May 2007). At the same time British newspapers permanently stress on her courage, thus building an exemplary victim hero tale.
“AS EACH day passes, the courage of Maddy McCann's mother becomes more and more heartbreaking.” (The Daily Mirror, 9 May 2007)
Her name has been numerously placed in phrases, such as “brave Kate”. She has also been constantly complimented on her self-possession and composure, but always accompanied with the conviction that this is just a pretense and in reality she is still the victim.
"She may seem focused in public," her old friend Jill Renwick said. "But in private she is a broken woman. She is devastated by what has happened, can't speak about it sometimes. (The Guardian Unlimited, 8 September 2007)
Her victim hero status allows for a certain amount of strength, which can be admired at by the public, but the journalistic tragedy cannot permit it to increase too much in scale, because it will destroy the notion of helplessness and victimization.
While concentrating exceptionally on portraying the grief of the parents, the two newspapers make constant attempts to escape from the conventional story-telling methods and to add more dynamics to the story. Hence, they try to include scenery details, dialogue, and a look into the inner world of the characters. A salient example is one of the Guardian Unlimited publications on 5 May 2007:
“The telephone rang at around 11pm at Trish Cameron's home near Glasgow. She picked it up to hear the voice of her younger brother. "He was distraught, breaking his heart," Mrs Cameron said. "He said: 'Madeleine's been abducted, she's been abducted.'"
Hundreds of miles away in Portugal's western Algarve Gerald McCann, whose job as a heart surgeon demands a calm, steady nerve, had lost any semblance of control and was crying down the telephone to his older sister.”
Or the Daily Mirror on 13 September 2007:
“Kate and Gerry McCann wake up each morning and, momentarily, struggle to focus. A second passes as they lie side by side and then, with crushing familiarity, the horror of their waking nightmare floods back.”
c)diction and thought – Aristotle emphasizes the importance of “expression of the meaning in words” [6], which is the fourth element which constitutes the classical Greek tragedy. He states that “diction should be elaborated in the pauses of the action, where there is no expression of character or thought” [24]. This is specifically the place, which primary discourse occupies in the publications of the Guardian Unlimited and the Daily Mirror. In the pauses between informative, background and character description media always gives excerpts of primary discourse, which provides the real feeling of contact and presence of both audience and characters in the same realm.
Aristotle goes on by explaining that “under thought is included every effect which has to be produced by speech, the subdivisions being: proof and refutation; the excitation of the feelings, such as [56b] pity, fear, anger, and the like; the suggestion of importance or its opposite.” [19].
The considerable occurrence of diction and thought in the journalistic discourse concerning the case “Maddy” is displayed by a great amount of direct discourse representations in the publications. As many as possible direct quotations from the parents and their spokesmen are supplied in every journalistic piece about the story. The appeal of Kate McCann to Madeleine’s abductor was given sizeable space in both newspapers in a succession of articles over several days.
By constantly including quotations of relatives, neighbours and colleagues the direct discourse takes over the indirect discourse. In other words, the quotations tell the story. The intervention of a journalist is practically needless, because the words of the affected tell all that is necessary for the public to know. Besides providing dynamics and spectacle, quotations also add to the sense of reality and make the story more veritable. While journalists (being still in the field of journalism, and not literature) must restrain from giving an emotional assessment of the events, they can always utilize quotations to appeal to the feelings of the public. Or, to put it more bluntly, they put lines in the mouths of their actors, which can in turn stimulate the emotions of the audience.
It closely resembles the rumouring of stories around the local neighbourhood, fundamentally proved by the presence of an extraordinary amount of quotes by actual neighbours of the family.
Another characteristic of quotations is that they can make up a story when there is no event to be reported. This is exactly the case during most of the development of the “Madeleine story”. Facts are scarce: first, because of Portuguese law forbidding police to talk about the investigation, and second, because there are no events occurring. In order to keep the story going, journalists resort to endless interviews with the victims, their supporters and enemies.
d)song – the choric song is one of the most essential and idiosyncratic components of the Greek tragedy. Unlike the folk tale and the myth, which need to use other methods, the Greek chorus is the mechanism through which the tragedy accomplishes such full incorporation of the audience into the world of the narrative. The chorus plays a major role to “help the audience become involved in the process of responding” (Easterling, 1997: 164).
According to Aristotle the chorus “should be regarded as one of the actors; it should be an integral part of the whole, and share in the action” [18]. It cannot be defined unequivocally since it engages in many roles and serves a multitude of functions simultaneously. P. E. Easterling focuses his attention on the nature of the chorus and concludes that most often it acts as “a sympathetic group of relative outsiders” who can “offer some sort of model for the audience in the theatre” (1997: 158). Later he adds that “one of the major functions of the chorus…is to act as a group of “built-in” witnesses, giving collective and usually normative responses to the events of the play” (163). The first and foremost task of the chorus can be explained within the recurrent need attributed in legends, myths, folk tales, and drama for the society to constantly reestablish its social world and respectively its conventions.
All these art forms act as archetypal stories which offer exemplary models. That is, “they provide examples of good and evil, right and wrong, bravery and cowardice. They are models of social life and models for social life” (Lule, 2001: 15). The tragic plot draws its structure and themes from the same pattern myths are based on and with the same purpose. In the words of Edith Hall “through some recurrent types of plot-pattern tragedy affirmed in its citizen spectators’ imaginations the social world in which they lived” (1997: 93).
Modern-day media borrows its story-telling practice from these traditional art forms and serves the same goal. It is needed to help the existing social organization reassert itself. This is the reason why it employs social categories and arranges them in a binary system. It sets categories of good and evil and suggests proper ways of behaviour, reactions, and models of thinking. This persistent pattern can be explained in terms of Carl Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious, which is ultimately the duty of the Greek chorus to represent and reproduce in the process of the play.
The discourse of the Guardian Unlimited and the Daily Mirror also utilizes the idea of the tragic chorus. This group of “built-in witnesses” is substituted by actual witnesses (relatives, colleagues, neighbours, police officers, families sharing same fate, columnists, etc.). Their constant involvement in the action enhances it, providing an expression of the public opinion. The journalistic chorus may take different stances towards the protagonist at different times but what is important is that it is always cohesive and unified, as Easterling points out, “the tragic chorus is a group of twelve or fifteen people and not a single figure gives its behaviour more scope to fluctuate” (1997: 164).
For example, in the few days immediately after Madeleine’s disappearance the reports are full with descriptions of the emotional state of the parents, given by relatives. Beyond doubt the public knows how parents, whose child has just vanished, ought to feel, according to social imperatives. Yet, it is important for the audience to see these emotions being displayed thoroughly in order to verify their righteousness and appropriateness. This explains the total absorption of media attention with the grief of the parents, it being reaffirmed and reconstituted by both own journalistic language (in news or opinion articles) and primary discourse belonging to near relatives.
"He was distraught, breaking his heart," Mrs Cameron said.” (The Guardian Unlimited, 5 May 2007)
“My daughter can hardly speak. She is distraught, she is crying and in shock." (The Guardian Unlimited, 5 May 2007)
“FOR the past six days, time has stood still for Kate McCann.
Since discovering her daughter Madeleine missing at 10pm last Thursday we have seen her face frozen with grief and fear.” (The Daily Mirror, 9 May 2007)
Easterling notes a curious aspect of the chorus’s role in the Greek tragedy, he observes that it is immaterial whether the spectators can see or hear for themselves the cause of the tragic, ”what they can certainly see and reflect on is a group of people witnessing the horrific sight of what is being displayed to them, and what matters dramatically is that it is a publicly shared disaster” (1997: 162).
Meanwhile we can observe a continuous flow of remarks about Madeleine’s appearance and previous life, whose goal is to sentimentalize the reports. The audience needs proper name and image for the object of its grief, its personification being absolutely indispensable. Plus, a journalist’s necessity, in order to build a good story/performance, is to ensure the goodness of the protagonists (first rule of constructing the tragic character, according to Aristotle). This is an essential prerequisite to rouse the public’s sympathy and also to guarantee that the disaster occurs not because of flaws of the protagonists but due to the “’unwritten and unshakeable laws’ of the gods” (Hall, 1997: 95).
"She is an absolutely beautiful wee blonde girl with blue green eyes," said Mrs Cameron.” (The Guardian Unlimited, 5 May 2007)
"They are a really nice family and good neighbours. They are delightful. We see them take their bikes up and down and going for walks. Madeleine is a very happy-go-lucky little girl". (The Guardian Unlimited, 5 May 2007)
"They are highly responsible parents who are devoted to their family. I can only imagine what they are like at the moment." (The Guardian Unlimited, 5 May 2007)
The inclusion of these witnesses’ reports functions the same way the ancient Greek chorus did in the past, its main goal to “offer possible models for the onlookers’ emotional responses, pity for Cassandra, for example, or grief for the murdered king in Agamemnon” (Easterling, 1997: 163).
However, “the chorus combines witnessing with trying to understand, and its guidance is intellectual or even philosophical as well as emotional” (Easterling, 1997: 163). Therefore, witnesses’ accounts are not sufficient to explain to the audience the course of the action. In journalistic terms this “intellectual” or “philosophical” function is usually taken up by columnists and opinion articles.
The Daily Mirror splits this role between the “Voice of the Mirror”, which is usually unsigned and expresses an overall editorial stance, and its regular columnists. Their involvement is typically brief and psychologically striking. They use short, easily memorizable, propaganda-like phrases. Presumably, they articulate the attitude of the British majority. Several of the headlines are: “Wait and pray” (Voice of the Mirror, 9 May 2007), “Optimism amid the torment of “If Onlys” (Sue Carroll, 9 May 2007), “Right not to berate” (Brian Reade, 10 May 2007), “The cruelest of twists” (Sue Carroll, 8 September 2007).
The Guardian Unlimited columnists manifest their special interest in the story mostly after the course of events show the unscrupulousness of media attention and chiefly discuss and criticize the nature of media involvement. This is demonstrated by a string of headlines, such as “The British media does not do responsibility. It does stories” (Simon Jenkins, 18 May 2007), “In chatrooms and message boards, Madeleine hysteria grips the world” (Emma Brockes, 19 May 2007), “When the press plays judge and jury” (Bob Woffinden, 4 June 2007), “For their own sake, parents should sometimes be seen and not heard” (Mark Lawson, 31 August 2007), “I hang my head in shame at what my trade has made of the McCann story” (Max Hastings, 10 September 2007). Their comments are (as suggested by the serious nature of the Guardian) extensive, argumentative, and usually present genuine pieces of philosophical and intellectual judgment.
spectacle – fulfilled by the technological opportunities of present day media – photos, sketches, posters, maps, etc. Its purpose is to enhance the visual perception of the readers, but it is not central in influencing their attitude. It is chiefly a supporting and a subordinate method. In this case, we have to highlight the difference between paper editions and web journalism. Newspapers have a lot of space to dedicate to Maddie’s disappearance and, according to the editorial ideologies, can “shock” the reader with maps, posters and big photos on the same page. Web based media don’t have the same impact because, when people search for something on the Internet, they are not paying enough attention to the photographs or to the maps; they are focused on the text itself. So, the spectacle power in what concerns web journalism is concentrated on the expressions and on the words used in the articles, namely adjectives and quotations that reinforce the victim idea and that construct the perfect victim story. The spectacle is achieved trough the exploitation of the McCann’s suffer and trough the supporting articles that reveal the couple as the unhappiest couple in the entire world, victim of a terrible misfortune.

e)Conclusion
Having all 6 elements, which Aristotle’s Poetics deem necessary in a tragedy, the Madeleine story acts on the readers the same way the ancient Antigone influenced the Greek public.
In the words of Peter Burian “romance, fairy tale, and legendary history offer a large number and variety of stories in which royal children are exposed, survive, and eventually return to claim their birthright” (1997: 186). The Madeleine story could be treated as just another tale of this type. What is different, however, is that art forms are the products of our imagination, while the Madeleine narrative is a consequence of real life event. Burian goes on to explain that “the logic of the plot coincides with clear moral and even social predispositions. We are invited to expect the child not only to live but to obtain what is rightfully his or hers by birth.” (1997: 186). We did expect the same of Madeleine in the initial development of the story, which explains to a certain degree the media employment of mythological discourse. At this point some of the British media (e.g. the Guardian Unlimited) has realized that the exploitation of this discursive practice has gone too far and tries to return to its reporting and un-theatrical discourse. The Daily Mirror, on the other hand, still continues, in the habit of popular and sensationalist press, to utilize a somewhat manipulative catharsis discourse.
In present day post-modern society we witness a wave of emotionally oriented production, in which media is most engaged. There are whole industries directed towards “feeling manufacturing” (an obvious example is Hollywood and soap operas). News media regards the catharsis discourse as an avenue towards surviving in a world of competition. Nevertheless, it is a dangerous avenue, because it sidetracks media from its main purpose – to portray a true and unbiased picture of the world (to a relative extent, of course, since there is no absolute truth).

After all, as Jostein Gripsurd puts it, the coverage of Madeleine’s disappearance and all other stories of the same type, are all interweaved in the inclination of human beings to see melodrama as a “’sense-making system’ in a desacralized modern society” (1992, 87). Regardless whether it is the classical ancient, medieval, industrial, or post-modern society, “what the world (the news) is really about, is emotions, fundamental and strong: love, hate, grief, joy, lust and disgust. Such emotions are shared by all human beings, regardless of social positions, and so is ‘general morality’” (Gripsurd: 1992, 87).