GENDERTEXTUAL ANALYSIS AND REPRESENTATION

Why is understanding Representation Important?

Ideologies• Cultural beliefs or ways of looking at things.• Often thought of as common sense.• Things we believe are true but aren’t necessarily true.• Media creates and nurtures these ideas creating

possible false truths for us to identify with.

Textual Analysis

• Literally means analysing texts - in our case the text will be a five minute clip from a television drama.

• Denotation and Connotation.• What lies beneath the text. What ideologies are being created

or reinforced?• How are ‘they’ portraying the world and different social

groups?

GenderThe representation of men and women.Gender is perhaps the basic category we use for sorting human beings, and it is a key issue when discussing representation. Essential elements of our own identity, and the identities we assume other people to have, come from concepts of gender - what does it mean to be a boy or a girl? Many objects, not just humans, are represented by the media as being particularly masculine or feminine - particularly in advertising - and we grow up with an awareness of what constitutes 'appropriate' characteristics for each gender.

Representation of WomenFeminism has been around for over 40 years yet media representations of women are worryingly the same.Representations of women across all media tend tohighlight the following:• beauty (within narrow conventions) • size/physique (again, within narrow conventions) • sexuality (as expressed by the above) • emotional (as opposed to intellectual) dealings • relationships (as opposed to independence/

freedom)

Representation of Women

• Women are often represented as being part of a context (family, friends, colleagues) and working/thinking as part of a team. In drama, they tend to take the role of helper (Propp) or object, passive rather than active.

• Often their passivity extends to victimhood. Men are still represented as TV drama characters up to 3 times more frequently than women, and tend to be the predominant focus of news stories.

Representation of Women

• The representations of women that do make it onto page and screen do tend to be stereotypical, in terms of conforming to societal expectations, and characters who do not fit into the mould tend to be seen as dangerous and deviant.

Representation of Women

• Discussions of women's representation in the media tend to revolve around the focus on physical beauty to the near-exclusion of other values, the lack of powerful female role models, and the extremely artificial nature of such portrayals, which bear little or no relation to the reality experience by women across the planet.

Representation of Women

• Laura Mulvey’s “Male Gaze” theory. Remind yourself of her theory here. Summarise in your own words the extent to which her theory is still relevant in the media today.

Representation of Men'Masculinity' is a concept that is made up of more rigid stereotypes than femininity. Representations of men across all media tend to focus on the following:• Strength - physical and intellectual • Power • Sexual attractiveness (which may

be based on the above) • Physique • Independence (of thought, action)

Representation of Men

• Male characters are often represented as isolated, as not needing to rely on others (the lone hero). If they submit to being part of a family, it is often part of the resolution of a narrative, rather than an integral factor in the initial balance.

• It is interesting to note that the male physique is becoming more important a part of representations of masculinity. Compare Sean Connery as James Bond in Thunderball from 1965, with Daniel Craig as the same character in Casino Royale from 2006.

Representation of Men

Representation of Men

Representation of Men

• Increasingly, men are finding it as difficult to live up to their media representations as women are to theirs. This is partly because of the increased media focus on masculinity - think of the growing market in men's magazines, both lifestyle and health - and the increasing emphasis on even ordinary white collar male workers (who used to sport their beer-gut with pride) having the muscle definition of a professional swimmer. Anorexia in teenage males has increased alarmingly in recent years, and recent high school shootings have been the result of extreme body consciousness among the same demographic group.

Representation of Men

• As media representations of masculinity become more specifically targeted at audiences with product promotion in mind (think of the huge profits now made from male fashion, male skin & hair care products, fitness products such as weights, clothing etc), men are encouraged (just as women have been for many years) to aspire to be like (to look/behave in the same way) the role models they see in magazines. This is often an unrealistic target to set, and awareness of this is growing.