Discuss the way that women are represented in the media. Use the work we have done so far to include a historical example and at least two contemporary ones to cover at least two different media types.
Across the various different types of both past and modern day media, women are and have been represented in a way which follows a particular set of stereotypes.Women are constantly portrayed in the media to be less powerful then men, both in physical aspects and on an intellectual level, for example the secretary's on a lot of TV program's will be women who work lower down the chain of command, than the men within the program.Women are often objectified in certain aspects of the media for the benefit of males, this complies too Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory. This is seen in a lot of modern day music videos as women often can be seen wearing barely any clothing and dancing in a sexual manor for males. For example the girls in Robin Thickes Blurred Lines explicit video are not wearing any clothing to cover their breast areas, whilst they dance around the males as they perform the song with lyrics based around women wanting sex from men, this is clear as the Robin Thicke sings 'I know you want it'.
Additionally women are objectified for male pleasure in other areas of media such as newspapers and magazines. For example in the page 3 off the sun newspaper every week their is a photo of a half naked women, stereo-typically this is for the benefit of males. Various magazines which are clearly designed for men such as Nuts and Zoo also show women in this aspect.
Women on TV are often shown doing the cooking, cleaning and the housework this is seen as a stereotype towards women and feminists would see this as a way of degrading women as they would suggest that men believe for these tasks to be for women and women only. However it is a dominant ideology in society that women often do stay at home and carry out these tasks whilst the male or husband in the household goes out to work. Therefore Jean Baudrillard's cultivation theory applies women in TV as a form of media, as the hyper reality theory would suggest that this is simulating the real world.
When looking at past historical events in the media which show representation of women, there is little difference to how they can often be portrayed in the modern day. I studied a film from 1945 called A Brief Encounter, the women in this film are very emotionally unstable and are often seeking the help of men. It can be argued that to this day women are still often shown in exactly the same way.
However it could be said that the main character in A Brief Encounter, challenges both stereotypes for women around the time of the films release and in the modern day. It is a dominant ideology and has been for years that women often stay at home and look after the house whilst their husbands go out to work, the main women character in A Brief Encounter does the opposite as she goes out everyday either shopping, going to the movies or going out to lunch whilst her husband works. This challenges stereotypes as women around 1945 would of been expected to run around after their husbands.
Furthermore the film Sket also challenges the usual everyday stereotype of women and young girls in modern day society. The girls in this film often use violence against people, and use a lot of bad language. Stereotypically females in the media are usually portrayed as being polite, gentle and non-violent and are not expected to behave in the opposite way, this behaviour would be expected more from a male. Although it could be argued that the female characters in this film are simply acting in a way which would be expected of people who come from their culture and social background. Therefore it can argued that the females in this film conform to David Chandlers theory, as the representation of these characters refers to the construction of reality within their cultural identity.
Overall it would seem that the media has found a stereotypical widely accepted way of showing women, which a lot of society would believe to be the dominant ideology in every day life. This steretypical way of objectifying women, showing women as less powerful and more emotionally unstable in comparison to men, seems to of been the same for many years and it doesn't look as if it is going to make a change anytime in the near future.
Analyse your film opening with regards to genre.
The genre which I chose to create my film under was the crime genre. This genre brings with it the sub genres of crime thriller and crime drama, aspects of both of these sub genres can be seen in my film opening. Creating a film opening following the crime genre meant that my opening could be verisimilitude to events which can happen and do happen in every day modern reality.For example the stabbing of one young man in a brief confrontation in the underpass within my footage. Events like this are often reported on news channels and in newspapers, this means that many people are very aware that things do happen to young males in society, therefore it makes the footage in my film opening seem realistic.
The setting which I used for my film opening, is around a location which seems fairly deprived as there are many small houses crammed together and the scenery seems quite dull. Readers would decode this area to be an area for people with little amount of money (lower class people). Stereo-typically society would assume that crime rates are higher in places like these, as the lower classes are the people who commit most crimes, and therefore are the ones who do the stabbings. This is likely to be a widely accepted dominant ideology I thought that this would be a good setting to use as it would further make the film opening seem realistic to readers.
Furthermore the appearance of the characters in the footage would suggest the genre of the film opening to be crime. Many people in modern day society would believe that young men who commit crimes and are involved in different aspects of criminality, wear tracksuits with hoods on them and trainers as the main character can be seen wearing in my film opening. Additionally some of society will make the stereotypical assumption that young criminals are often black males. In a way my film opening conforms to this stereotype as a young black male can be seen trying to stab another young male character.
Youths of the modern day can often be perceived in the media as young, violent criminals. I have portrayed the characters of my film opening in this exact way, this conforms to Gerbner's cultivation theory as much of society would already expect to see young people behaving in this way and would not be shocked by it, as they have already been largely influenced across all different forms of media such as newspapers, radio, news channels, films etc. The fact that this cultivation theory applies to my film opening enables readers to see that the genre of the film is crime or crime drama, as immediately people will stereotype these characters into the lower class and accept what would be seen as stereotypical behaviour of the youth characters.
Additionally the brief dialogue of the main character Antonio represents the working class youth of today as he says 'yo' when leaving someone a message on their phone after he has tried to ring them. Many readers of today would instantly link dialogue or language like this to lower class people, particularly youths from poor and deprived social backgrounds. It is a dominant ideology that youths from such social backgrounds are often involved in crime and criminality therefore the language of the character can represent the genre of the film to readers. This conforms to Ronald Bathes theory as some people would see my footage as a way of portraying what can be seen in everyday life in the modern world, in terms of youth behaviour.
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