A2. Explore the different representations of either women or ethnicity in your chosen texts.
Define:
What is representation? - Representations refers to the process
of re-presenting something, usually
used in the context of a social group,
with the producer’s own ideology of
that group encoded into the
representation.
Why is it used? - Representations
are usually based on stereotypes
e.g. women presented as weak, ethnic minority groups presented as villains. Therefore, audiences will already have
an assumption of how a certain group will be presented, making them want to see
the media product. This ensures that the producer
earns a profit. However,
representations can be harmful to
the group that they are representing as audiences may treat people in the same
way that they are in the media product. This can potentially have long-lasting negative effects on the
social group in question, in this case, women.
Argument:
My argument? - I
shall argue that my three chosen texts all use different representations of women to ensure profit for the producers,
however, all three texts approach this in alternative ways. To explore this I will argue that the representations
of women in Spectre and The Selfish Giant are highly conventional, whereas Mad Max: Fury Road is highly atypical in the representation
of women.
Context:
Spectre -
Action/James Bond film, directed by Sam
Mendes. Released in 2015.
The Selfish Giant - Social
realist film, directed by Clio Barnard.
Released in 2013.
Mad Max: Fury Road -
Post-apocalyptic film, directed by George
Miller. Released in 2015.
Plan:
Intro- (AS
ABOVE), use the acronym of DAC.
Spectre- Represents
women in a stereotypical way, Bond
seducing Lucia scene. Bond uses bodily
gestures to force her backwards, uses her for information, etc. Gratification of escapism and voyeurism.
Middle class, white men = target
audience. Women are sexualised.
CONFORMS TO PATRIARCHAL HEGEMONIC
CONTROL. GO BACK TO ARGUMENT.
The Selfish Giant- Absence of
women, can be a form of symbolic
annihilation, however, with the few scenes where women are shown, they are
represented in a stereotypical way. The
broken window scene. Establishing
shot showing a binary opposition.
Shaky cam, positions us with Arbor
comforting his mother. Enigma code,
we do not know for certain what happened. Propp’s
character types partly apply. Women are shown to need men, even young boys,
in order to be well. Target audience =
middle class. Gratification of escapism.
CHALLENGES THE RULING CLASS HEGEMONIC CONTROL. GO BACK TO ARGUMENT.
Mad Max:Fury Road- More
women, than men. Unconventional in
an action movie. Men, are normally seen as the protagonist. Protagonist is a disabled woman with an unconventional
appearance. Steve Neal, repetition
and difference. Introducing the
wives scene. Low angle, tracking shot positions us with Max. Close up of
gun, acts as an action code. Close up sexualised shot of pregnant
belly (Male Gaze), this is
immediately challenged with the mise-en-scene of chastity belt
clattering to the ground, restoring her
bodily autonomy. SUBVERTS PATRIARCHAL
HEGEMONY. Target audience = men aged
between 18-30. Women presented as equal to men. Shows the inequality of men
and women in the media, this film is trying to show that. GO BACK TO ARGUMENT.
Concl- Sum up of
argument. Sum up the representations
in all three of my texts. Which is text is trying to achieve with the use of
different representations. This is the least important aspect of the entire
answer. Do not stress about the conclusion.
The Answer:
Representations refers to
the process of re-presenting something,
usually used in the context of a social group, with the producer’s own ideology of that group encoded into the
representation. Representations are
usually based on stereotypes e.g.
women presented as weak, ethnic minority groups presented as villains. Therefore, audiences will already have
an assumption of how a certain group will be presented, making them want to see
the media product. This ensures that the producer
earns a profit. However, representations can be harmful to the group that they are
representing as audiences may treat people in the same way that they are in the
media product. This can potentially have long-lasting
negative effects on the social group in question, in this case, women. I shall argue that my three chosen
texts all use different representations
of women to ensure profit for the
producers, however, all three texts approach this in alternative ways. To explore this I will argue that the
representations of women in Spectre, an action film, (Mendes, 2015) and The
Selfish Giant, a social realist film, (Barnard, 2013) are highly conventional,
whereas Mad Max: Fury Road, a post-apocalyptic film, (Miller, 2015) is highly
atypical in the representation of women.
Spectre makes heavy use of stereotypical representations of women throughout the film.
Throughout the entirety of the film, there are only 3 named women. This is very
stereotypical of the action genre, and the James Bond franchise itself. For example, one of the many conventions of the Bond films include
the use of Bond girls. This usually
consists of the two women that Bond has sex with during the course of the film.
One of the women he sleeps with at the beginning of the film is named Lucia,
this scene is essential is presenting the representation
of women. When Bond is seducing Lucia, the wide shot of Bond using bodily
gestures to push her backwards towards the mirrored wall demonstrates how
he, the male, is dominant in this
interaction. This is further reinforced
through the close up shot of Bond
pulling her dress off without her expressed, verbal consent. This could be
argued to be promoting a rape culture
which still predominantly exists in our mainstream society today, therefore
promoting the patriarchal ideology of
the producer. Additionally, in
the final wide shot before the hard cut to the next scene we see
Bond’s body completely covering Lucia’s body, so much so that we can now no
longer see her. This once again reinforces the power he has. The costume of his expensive suit has
been deemed to be worth more screen time than the woman, Lucia, by the producer. The male, working class target audience will be familiar with
these ideas and behaviours as they have been echoed throughout the Bond series, this is therefore a clear
use of intertextuality. This makes
the audience feel clever as they have correctly interpreted the producer’s
intentions. This gives the audience the gratification
of both information and voyeurism, as Bond and Lucia are not aware they are
being watched in this intimate scene. Yet
again, reinforcing the patriarchal
hegemonic control that exists in everyday life. This benefits the producer as if this behaviour and
treatment of women continues in society, they can continue to successfully
follow genre paradigmatic features
and gain profit, without being seen
as sexist or xenophobic in anyway.
Therefore, the stereotypical
representations of women are used in an extremely conventional way.
Similarly, in The
Selfish Giant, there is also an absence
of female characters. It can be argued that the producers have deliberately
used symbolic annihilation in order
to concentrate on specific ideologies
that Barnard wanted to present about
the working class, and challenge the
ruling class hegemonic control
experienced today. This may be done to shock the middle class target audience into action to fight the stigma behind the working classes, and to help those less fortunate than them.
Despite this lack of female characters, they still fulfill a role to drive the narrative forward in a stereotypical way the representation of women is currently
used for. For example, the broken
window scene is a key scene in exploring the representation of women. The wide
establishing shot for this scene immediately shows a binary opposition of old vs new, this is clear through the horse
and cart present amongst a council estate. Furthermore,
the absence of a father figure/male
figure in the household means that the young
protagonist has had to fulfill this role. This is made clear through the shaky handheld camera positioning us
with Arbor as he uses bodily gestures
and facial expressions to comfort
his mother in any way he can. Swifty, Arbor’s friend also helps his mother in
anyway he can. The mid-shot of Swifty
sweeping the shattered glass highlights this. This therefore presents the audience with the ideology that when a woman is without a male partner, this has to
be substituted by another male, no matter the age. This highlights how women are seen as fragile and weak, and that for
them to be fulfilled or comforted in anyway, women need men. This therefore reinforces the stereotypical patriarchal
ideology of being that the nuclear
family is essential, and that those families without it are in a lower
social position. Once again, this
provides the middle class audience with
the gratification of escapism as they only have to witness this event, they
do not have to experience it themselves. This therefore shows the representation of women to be highly stereotypical of the genre, as in similar social realist films e.g. Kes (1969), women experience symbolic annihilation also.
In contrast to both
previous texts, Mad Max: Fury Road completely
subverts stereotypical representations of women in the highly atypical post-apocalyptic film released in 2015. The oscar nominated film is very subversive of generic paradigms in many
ways. For example, most action films
star a male, muscular, physically
attractive protagonist. Mad Max: Fury Road does this. However, alongside
Max, the other protagonist and
arguably the star of the official movie poster, is a disabled, stereotypically unattractive woman named Furiosa. This
can be an excellent example of Steve
Neal’s repetition and difference as Mad Max: Fury Road contains many conventional features of the genre e.g. one dictator, hot setting,
golden colours, etc. Which are seen in other examples such as ‘Waterworld’ (1995). However, the producers have altered things slightly
to provide an element of surprise for audiences without them being bored by the
same film being repeated, whilst also ensuring
profit and critical success. A key scene in exploring the subversive nature of the representation of
women is the introducing the wives scene at the beginning of the film. The initial low angle, tracking
establishing shot immediately positions
the audience with the male
protagonist. As the scene develops we are aware that there is tension
rising through the non-diegetic anxiety
inducing soundtrack alongside the action
code of the close up of a gun. When the extremely stereotypically attractive women first appear in the film, Max’s facial expression of him licking his lips
is not directed at the women, but rather the water he needs for survival. A
clear, yet comedic way, of displaying Mazlow’s
hierarchy of needs. The water he needs it placed before his possible sexual
desires. Furthermore, the close up tracking shot of the pregnant
belly of one of the wives can be argued to play into Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory, however, this is then immediately harshly contrasted with the close up of the the wife removing her
chastity belt with the V8 cult symbol
clearly displayed. The semiotics of the
V8 and pleonastic sound of the belt hitting the ground illustrates how she
is restoring her own bodily autonomy.
This is directly and extremely clearly subverting
patriarchal hegemony, as the females have the ability to restore their own
freedom. This therefore shows how
the stereotypical representations of
women commonly seen in action films and
post-apocalyptic films are being
deeply challenged by the producers. Despite this clear atypical representation, the producers received extreme success in
regards of profit. This demonstrates
how stereotypical representations
may not always be necessary to ensure profit
from audiences, as the film made over $380 million in profit alone.
In conclusion, all three
of my chosen texts use representations
of certain social groups, in this
women, to their own advantage in order to primarily produce profit or promote different, more concentrated ideologies. Spectre and The Selfish
Giant conform to traditional stereotypes
about women and base the few women present in the media product in a conventional way. Whereas, in contrast to this Mad Max: Fury Road presents an extremely atypical representation of
women, through its use of transgression
to highlight the inequalities that men and women face in contemporary society which is allowed and accepted due to the dominated patriarchal hegemonic control.
Thanks Jessie for this excellent submission. And just so students reading this are aware: you definitely do not need to go in to this much detail on your plan for your actual exam. You'll quickly run out of time!