hello and welcome to my easy-to-understand guide to props theory Vladimir Propp is a theorist that could pop up at both GCC and a level Media Studies so it's important to know that the good news is it's quite a simple theory to understand now prop is a theorist or was a theorist a long time ago who created this theory about characters that might appear in typical narratives now it's important to remember that his theory is quite old and he didn't specifically come up with this theory in relation to films or TV programs but more about stories and narratives in general we can apply it to more modern media products his theory simply is that he thinks that there are certain character types that pop up in most narratives so you're probably aware of the typical characters that come up in stories your hero your villain you often have a damsel in distress you often have a sidekick character who prop calls the helper he also thinks there is a character called the dispatcher who is the person that often sends the hero on their quest in the first place he also thinks that there are characters that act as donors they are people who donate or give something to the hero to help them on their quest sometimes in narratives we have a false hero somebody who is trying to be the hero somebody who's trying to win but is not really a good guy or a good person now your job when using this theory in an exam situation is to be able to look whatever text is in front of you and try and work out if any of the characters in the text have been represented in a way that fits one of these prop character types can you see who the hero is and how have they been made to look like a hero if you're doing GCC in your quality street text if you are on the edge of caste exam board you'll be able to see that the man in the quality Street advert is in the center of the adverts you've got the women around him around him surrounding him looking up at him as though he's some kind of hero and all of the images kind of point to him in the middle of the picture drawing our attention to him and making him seem very powerful so he's been represented as a kind of hero in this advert and the two women I've been definitely represented as the kind of princess characters the women that he's trying to win over the women that he's trying to decide who he wants to be where they're his prizes for having such great chocolates obviously if you are doing a level I want you to have a think about some of the set texts that you have got for the educast exam board if you have a think about something like kiss of the vampire is it clear who is the hero is it clear who is the sort of damsel in distress princess character and actually what you could find is that some of the women on the film poster look as though they may be a damsel in distress princess character that the hero has to save but the other lady on the poster in the middle it has a much more powerful dominant body language facial expression she stood up she has a man by the throat and so perhaps she is represented in a very unconventional way in relation to props character theory so it's important that you understand those typical character types that prop thinks come up in different narratives and that you can try and apply them to those set texts