Thursday 8th October
Meryl Streep Interview
Key Genre Conventions of an Interview
- Intriguing headlines
- “feminism, family and playing Pankhurst” = alliteration, along side “Suffragette”, a fricative noun = gives more impact due to repetitive sounds and harsh vowels
- Subtitle summary sentence to further inform the reader of content/ blurb
- Name
- Date
- Picture
- Smiling
- Relaxed
- Approachable = someone you want to know more about
- T-shirt as mentioned in title
- Paints positive, quirky picture of her
- Current events
- Streep in a new film, public more aware of her in media
- Feminism = controversial topic, debated more often recently, given historical context with Suffragettes
- Begins with inspirational topic = very influential woman, successful, interesting
- mottos, background, advice, personal relationships
- Quote to introduce new topic of discussion (“Being lady like is underrated”) = readers want to know reason and context
- Swaps between easy, mild questions and quite invasive questions to keep reader interested
- Questions and answers range in complexity, avoids monotone
- Controversial, intriguing topics e.g feminism, imposter syndrome
- Satisfies morbid public interest = questions that fans and general public would want answered, sense of uncovering secrets
- Simplistic layout, gaps between each question = easy to digest, doesn't drag
- Different shades of font = alternating between faded and bold to avoid confusion as to what is the question and what is the answer
- Answer in quotations marks = direct speech, not reported
- Formal questions, elevated lexis
- Jargon appropriate for acting field of work e.g “colleagues”
- Passive voice, only expressing interviewee’s opinion
- Interrogative sentences e.g “What…?” and imperative sentences e.g “Describe…”
- Ends with a humorous comment from Meryl Streep, a sarcastic, rhetorical question that leaves the reader on an amused, open note
How does the Interview inform and entertain its reader?
The text is initiated with an intriguing headline and an interesting insight in the form of a summary subtitle, which offers slightly more information to entice the reader but not give everything away.
Alliteration and a fricative noun are used in the title, “Meryl Streep on feminism, family, and playing Pankhurst in Suffragette.”, which is a clever dynamic of linguistic techniques used to deliver the most impact with repetitive and forceful sounds. This creates a punchy, to-the-point effect, engaging the reader with a direct approach.
A picture is used as a representation of the interviewee; in this case Meryl Streep is shown smiling and relaxed, wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a powerful quotation from the movie ‘Suffragettes’, as promised in the subtitle. This presents Streep in an approachable light, further drawing in the reader with her pleasant and characteristic image.
The author entertains the reader with up to date information, circulated around current events, straight from the horses mouth, as it were. A simplistic layout is used to keep the information quick-fire and therefore keep the reader engaged, using alternating colours to avoid confusion between the interviewers questions and the interviewees answers.
The questions range in complexity and topic in order to capture a wide scope of interests, with information on her home life mixed in with her innermost opinions and views. The questions are kept at a heightened lexis, as a planned script, whilst the answers are more free speech and humorous in some cases, as expected from an interview.
