Tackling the exam
This topic is new to OCR AS level Unit 2731: Textual Analysis, as an optional topic on Section B. The first exam session in January 2003 for this year’s AS students.
Exam requirements
• Choose two specific episodes from two different sitcoms on British television (so this includes US sitcoms shown on British TV – you could do one of each)
• Study how gender is represented in the two programmes
• Compare the similarities and differences between the gender representation in two programmes.
• The OCR specification lists the following possible areas for questions:
Representation of the construction of gender in characters; construction of characters by appearance and dialogue; the characters’ function in the themes and narratives of the programmes; stereotypes and archetypes; casting issues; characters’ values and beliefs and how they are positioned by the narrative and preferred reading of the programme.
Top tips for the exam
• You need to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the processes of representation in media texts: do this by comparing the messages, values and social signification, in respect of gender, in two texts (you can choose US or British programmes, or a combination of the two).
• Be clear about what the concept of representation is, and how you can analyse it in television texts.
• You can study the institutional, social and cultural contexts of the TV sitcom as part of your preparation for this topic, but don’t get too bogged down in this – remember that you need to focus your answers firmly on a comparison of two texts and on demonstrating your conceptual knowledge and understanding.
• Study a variety of programmes at home (on terrestrial TV, or on Paramount Channel and UK Gold – many are on VHS and DVD and available in local libraries) but (if your teacher hasn’t already done this for you) choose two episodes to study in depth for the exam answer. You can briefly mention other programmes – as long as you answer the question.
• Be thoroughly prepared for the demands of timed answers (45 marks in 45 minutes) and on structuring an answer to an exam question. Address the key words in the question straight away in the first paragraph and ‘touch base’ in each paragraph, finishing with a conclusion which refers to the specific wording of the question.
• An answer on the history of the sitcom or a summary of TV gender representation through the decades will not earn you marks, no matter how good it is. Answer the question set and offer lots of examples to back up your points.
• Bear in mind that characters in sitcoms are the result of a variety of processes of construction – ideological, institutional and production processes (such as in the writing, casting, acting, direction, narrative, mise-en-scène, including costume, make-up, audience interpretations etc.) and are not self-determining entities. No matter how strong a star persona might be, they are following a script and are directed by a director – so beware of producing character sketches or descriptions of characters as if they were real people!
• You need to research and provide the following details in your answer, to show attention to detail:
– title of each programme and date or title of episode
– names of writer, director, producer, main actors’ names (previous roles where relevant)
– production company name and other programmes made by them, if relevant to your point
– channel of broadcast and time in schedule (original or subsequent)
– names of any writers whose critical work is quoted and their sources.
• Don’t be deceived by the comic aspect of the topic into using slang or a casual mode of address. Write formally and attend to issues of presentation, spelling, grammar, punctuation and so on.
Vivienne Clark is Principal Examiner for the Textual Analysis paper for OCR Media Studies
Tuesday 7 December 2010
Studying the Simpsons: Gender, sitcom, satire
Whether you’re studying gender and sitcom for OCR, researching your Med5 Independent Study or your WJEC ME4 essay, The Simpsons will tell you everything you need to know. Rob McInnes shows you how to unpick the magic and mechanics of the world’s favourite TV family.
One of the challenges to Media Studies students is to find your way through a warren of indigestible ‘theory’ while being required to produce coherent exam responses. For the Textual Analysis Paper of OCR’s AS Media exam, you will need to demonstrate an understanding of the mechanics of media texts. For example:
– You will have to study two complete episodes of two situation comedies.
– In the exam you do not have to discuss the history of situation comedy, or generalise about the nature of the genre.
– The exam question will ask you to focus only on the ways in which each programme constructs its representations of males and females, although it may ask you to relate this to other elements of the sitcom, such as ideas about comedy or narrative.
A long time ago, on a TV set far away…
Forget M*A*S*H, Frasier and Friends, it is The Simpsons that is well on the way to becoming the longest running sitcom ever. It is already the longest running prime-time animation television series – although it wasn’t the first. That achievement belongs to another half-hour ‘family’ comedy first produced by independent studio, Hanna-Barbera, over forty years ago: The Flintstones, the first animated sitcom to be broadcast in prime-time (between 6.00 and 10pm), the most competitive period of American network scheduling. Back in 1960, the year it was first broadcast, The Flintstones had been seen as a risky venture, having been rejected by every network and many advertising sponsors before eventually finding a home on ABC – one of the USA’s three main television networks. The success of the show for adult audiences is probably down to its use of the already well-established format of the sitcom.
Take a successful formula…
By the end of the 1950s sitcoms such as I Love Lucy in the USA and Life with The Lyons in the UK had helped establish a successful formula based on familiar characters in predictable settings, recorded in confined studio sets, with a small audience providing immediate responses to the gags. The characters of Fred and Wilma Flintstone and Barney and Betty Rubble were based on The Honeymooners, two neighbouring couples featuring in long sketches on The Jackie Gleason Show. A year or so later, Hanna and Barbera used the same technique with Top Cat, modelled on Sgt. Bilko and other characters in The Phil Silvers Show. The ‘limited animation’ technique permitted many more minutes of animation to be produced than before and was essentially what made the Hanna-Barbera shows financially viable for television. By animating as few frames as possible, and by utilising stock expressions, a growing library of familiar sound effects, repetitive musical cues and by imitating conventional studio camera angles (together with the artificial laugh track that came to be known as ‘canned laughter’), television animation could bring something new to the sitcom genre.
Massive marketing to multiple audiences
Years after Hanna-Barbera had proved that prime-time animation could rework the sitcom format as a cartoon, few people could have anticipated the impact, influence and resonance of the series that grew from the crudely-realised quickie sequences created by Matt Groening as ‘bumpers’ (between the ad breaks and the sketches) for The Tracy Ullman Show. The Simpsons was one of the first big successes for the new American Fox network, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation; and the company immediately picked up on the show’s appeal and marketed it aggressively. Similarly in Britain, the programme spearheaded the launch of the new Sky One satellite channel (also a part of the Murdoch media empire) where for some time it was the only place to see it; this helped lend it early cult status. However, both Fox and the show’s writers carefully cultivated a range of target audiences, from the youngest children who were attracted to the bright colour palette, slapstick visuals and prominence of Bart (an anagram of ‘brat’) to the sophisticated media-literate college students who were provided with an apparently endless stream of in-jokes and layered pop culture references to movies, comics and old TV series.
Add everybody’s favourite family guy
The breadth of the show’s appeal has led to some interesting critics and surprising champions. Famously, George Bush Snr. publicly expressed his desire for American families to be more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons. Conversely, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Wales has more recently described the programme as:
one of the most subtle pieces of propaganda around in the cause of sense, humility and virtue.
Like Williams, psychologists and sociologists across the western world have been drawn to the family’s almost mythological ordinariness, frequently focusing on the character of Homer himself. Over the years, the programme’s storylines have featured Homer increasingly heavily, perhaps because he so readily embodies the concept of the ‘everyman’, an ordinary blue-collar (working-class) character whose motives for any action are always self-serving and built upon a sound basis of laziness and stupidity. In an early episode in which he thinks he is dying from poisoned fish, Homer shares the totality of his wisdom with his son:
Bart, I want to share something with you – the three little sentences that will get you through life. Number One, ‘Cover for me’. Number Two, ‘Oh Good idea boss.’ Number Three, ‘It was like that when I got here.’
Yet despite his less-than-conscientious attitude to life and work, Homer also manages to appear a loyal and loving husband and father, whose lack of self-awareness prevents him from ever seeming really dislikeable.
A recipe for trash – or insightful social satire?
The Simpsons might be said to be guided by a ‘trash aesthetic’ that mocks both ‘high art’ and celebrates and revels in popular culture. The caricatured nature of the inhabitants of Springfield provide the programme’s writers with a constant flow of opportunities for satire and parody. Subsidiary characters often provide either joke-driven cameos or the motor for an entire story. Reverend Lovejoy and Ned Flanders together are used to lampoon attitudes to religion, in ways that other USA television series rarely attempt. Comic Book Guy and Professor Frink demonstrate the show’s preoccupation both with obscure movie parody and the obsessive nature of movie, TV and comic fans. But however delightful these incidental pleasures may be, the show’s major satirical concerns are reserved for its primary characters.
The eighth season episode ‘Homer’s Phobia’ is an interesting example of mainstream television’s potential to explore controversial subject matter. The episode has been amongst the most controversial of the show’s run to date (see side-bar on page 24).
Case study: ‘Homer’s phobia’
The family befriend John, the owner of ‘Cockamamie’ a store in the Springfield Mall full of camp and nostalgic merchandise. John is voiced by film director John Waters, famous for both low-budget ‘trash’ movies and mainstream features such as Hairspray. Blissfully ignorant of John’s sexuality (‘Doesn’t he seem a little … um, festive to you?’ Marge quizzes Homer early on), Homer enjoys his company without realising that John is attracted to the family’s ‘camp’ virtues; their kitchen décor, their record collection, etc. Homer’s usual simpleton persona is morphed into bigot for the purposes of the episode’s satirical tone. On learning from Marge that John’s ‘family won’t be coming over’ he retreats into an absurd caricature of homophobic extremism and refuses to join Bart, Lisa and Marge on their trips out to visit the dark, sordid underbelly of Springfield’s society. However, worse is to come – Homer imagines that Bart is displaying signs of gayness and in keeping with many bigoted perceptions of homosexuality as a pathological problem or disease, becomes totally pre-occupied with ‘curing’ him.
Homer then attempts to ensure Bart does not ‘turn’ by sitting him in front of an roadside billboard depicting scantily clad women advertising Laramie cigarettes for two hours; he then takes him to a steel mill, only to discover that the entire workforce are gay and spend their rest breaks platform dancing (‘We work hard – we play hard!’). Drowning his sorrows at Moe’s, Homer is reassured by Moe and Barney that today’s society has a ‘swishifying effect’ on the young and that the only way to ‘cure’ him of queer tendencies is to take him hunting (‘Shooting a deer will make him a man.’). In locating this scene in the bar, ‘Homer’s Phobia’ takes the series’ traditional settings (the Simpsons’ kitchen and the bar) and reminds us how conventionally they represent male and female environments. The audience has to confront and question its own assumptions about gendered behaviour, and indeed about representation itself. Homer’s hunting trip almost ends in disaster as, failing to find a deer in the wild, Bart is taken to a reindeer enclosure and expected to shoot a captive animal. When the animals stampede, they all end up having to be rescued by John with the aid of a miniature robot Father Christmas – ‘the reindeer’s cruel master’. John adds:
Well, Homer, I won your respect, and all I had to do was save your life. Now if every gay man could just do the same, you’d be set.
The episode hints at the difficulties of confronting deep-rooted prejudices, but offers the hope that exposing those prejudices may eventually break them down. In America, homophobia still remains an ‘acceptable’ prejudice among many sectors of society, not least fundamentalist religious groups. This contrasts interestingly with racism which, after decades of civil rights lobbying and consciousness-raising, is now unacceptable and condemned. Try comparing homophobic and racist issues in your own school or college environment. How much more common is homophobic bullying than its racist counterpart? Gay issues have recently taken centre stage in the States with a legal battle raging in California where San Francisco judges granted marriage licences to gay and lesbian couples. Earlier this year, President George Bush stepped in, threatening a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages.
And satire is …?
‘Homer’s Phobia’ raises the issue of homophobia in a satirical way; that is, it holds a mirror up to human behaviour in order to illustrate our weakness and contradictions. The best satire can sometimes be so subtle it’s barely noticeable. For example, in 1729, in his short publication A Modest Proposal author Jonathan Swift argued that eating children would solve most of the problems of poverty in Ireland. He subtitled the piece:
A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public.
A self-contained essay, it contains few hints that the idea might not be serious, or that his ‘proposal’ was asking its readers to question the notion that logic and reason should entirely govern human behaviour. Reading it now, you might be forgiven for thinking it a product of some deranged eighteenth-century proto-fascist; its internal logic is so well-structured and its arguments made to sound so reasonable.
Swift demonstrated that for satire to be effective it has to risk both offending and outraging people and being misunderstood. Above all it has to encourage the reader/viewer/audience to think for themselves, rather than accept its apparent, superficial principles.
However, satire on television is trickier, due to the weight of audience numbers, the large sums of money involved and the vested interests and political agendas of media owners. Mike Scully, executive producer of The Simpsons for many years, notes how the programme makes regular jokes at the expense of the Fox network that produces and distributes the show:
We have a tendency to bite the hand that feeds us. But they understand that it’s part of the fun of the show.
Scully says The Simpsons is unique for an American network programme in that it is rarely interfered with:
… on most shows you have to accept the input of the network and the studio, their notes on the things they want to be changed. Normally there would be around 12 people going over your script, telling you what’s wrong with it and how to fix it, and we don’t have that. We’re completely autonomous.
However, the ‘Homer’s Phobia’ episode had:
probably the most censor notes of any show we’ve had – two solid pages of single spaced notes. But most of the edge of the show was still there.
Is satire dangerous? Till Death Us Do Part
A satire invariably requires key characters to behave in necessarily negative ways. This often provokes conflicting audience reactions, particularly towards a popular character. This problem is exaggerated when a character is perceived as a role model. Debates about how far The Simpsons provide negative role models will draw upon viewers’ responses to the programme’s representations and values. They certainly echo earlier debates around programmes such as Till Death Us Do Part which featured an irascible bigot, Alf Garnett who, in 1960s’ Britain, prompted serious controversy about his depiction of bigotry and intolerance on-screen. In that programme his character was frequently shown to be the ‘loser’ in most arguments and his views were counter-balanced by the remainder of the regular characters, particularly his daughter and her fiancé. The problem was that Garnett (played by Warren Mitchell, who periodically revives the character) simply had all the funniest lines. The humour could therefore easily be seen as celebrating the very thing that it condemned. The BBC and writer Johnny Speight defended the programme but when a more conservative Director General arrived at the BBC, the series was taken off-air for some years.
As with Till Death Us Do Part, ‘Homer’s Phobia’ deliberately accentuates its central character’s ignorance and prejudice at the risk of alienating some of its Homer fans and of confirming the prejudices already held by some viewers. Certainly, websites such as ‘The Simpsons Archive’ reveal some dramatically differing readings of the episode. Some posts praise the episode for the very reasons others condemn it.
‘Homer’s Phobia’ demonstrates both how effective television comedy can be at revealing social attitudes towards gender and sexuality and how intricate are the processes of constructing representations in a medium that is too often considered throwaway and superficial. Time for homework, anyone?
Rob McInnes if Head of Media Studies at Forest Hill School, South London.
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 10, December 2004
One of the challenges to Media Studies students is to find your way through a warren of indigestible ‘theory’ while being required to produce coherent exam responses. For the Textual Analysis Paper of OCR’s AS Media exam, you will need to demonstrate an understanding of the mechanics of media texts. For example:
– You will have to study two complete episodes of two situation comedies.
– In the exam you do not have to discuss the history of situation comedy, or generalise about the nature of the genre.
– The exam question will ask you to focus only on the ways in which each programme constructs its representations of males and females, although it may ask you to relate this to other elements of the sitcom, such as ideas about comedy or narrative.
A long time ago, on a TV set far away…
Forget M*A*S*H, Frasier and Friends, it is The Simpsons that is well on the way to becoming the longest running sitcom ever. It is already the longest running prime-time animation television series – although it wasn’t the first. That achievement belongs to another half-hour ‘family’ comedy first produced by independent studio, Hanna-Barbera, over forty years ago: The Flintstones, the first animated sitcom to be broadcast in prime-time (between 6.00 and 10pm), the most competitive period of American network scheduling. Back in 1960, the year it was first broadcast, The Flintstones had been seen as a risky venture, having been rejected by every network and many advertising sponsors before eventually finding a home on ABC – one of the USA’s three main television networks. The success of the show for adult audiences is probably down to its use of the already well-established format of the sitcom.
Take a successful formula…
By the end of the 1950s sitcoms such as I Love Lucy in the USA and Life with The Lyons in the UK had helped establish a successful formula based on familiar characters in predictable settings, recorded in confined studio sets, with a small audience providing immediate responses to the gags. The characters of Fred and Wilma Flintstone and Barney and Betty Rubble were based on The Honeymooners, two neighbouring couples featuring in long sketches on The Jackie Gleason Show. A year or so later, Hanna and Barbera used the same technique with Top Cat, modelled on Sgt. Bilko and other characters in The Phil Silvers Show. The ‘limited animation’ technique permitted many more minutes of animation to be produced than before and was essentially what made the Hanna-Barbera shows financially viable for television. By animating as few frames as possible, and by utilising stock expressions, a growing library of familiar sound effects, repetitive musical cues and by imitating conventional studio camera angles (together with the artificial laugh track that came to be known as ‘canned laughter’), television animation could bring something new to the sitcom genre.
Massive marketing to multiple audiences
Years after Hanna-Barbera had proved that prime-time animation could rework the sitcom format as a cartoon, few people could have anticipated the impact, influence and resonance of the series that grew from the crudely-realised quickie sequences created by Matt Groening as ‘bumpers’ (between the ad breaks and the sketches) for The Tracy Ullman Show. The Simpsons was one of the first big successes for the new American Fox network, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation; and the company immediately picked up on the show’s appeal and marketed it aggressively. Similarly in Britain, the programme spearheaded the launch of the new Sky One satellite channel (also a part of the Murdoch media empire) where for some time it was the only place to see it; this helped lend it early cult status. However, both Fox and the show’s writers carefully cultivated a range of target audiences, from the youngest children who were attracted to the bright colour palette, slapstick visuals and prominence of Bart (an anagram of ‘brat’) to the sophisticated media-literate college students who were provided with an apparently endless stream of in-jokes and layered pop culture references to movies, comics and old TV series.
Add everybody’s favourite family guy
The breadth of the show’s appeal has led to some interesting critics and surprising champions. Famously, George Bush Snr. publicly expressed his desire for American families to be more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons. Conversely, Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Wales has more recently described the programme as:
one of the most subtle pieces of propaganda around in the cause of sense, humility and virtue.
Like Williams, psychologists and sociologists across the western world have been drawn to the family’s almost mythological ordinariness, frequently focusing on the character of Homer himself. Over the years, the programme’s storylines have featured Homer increasingly heavily, perhaps because he so readily embodies the concept of the ‘everyman’, an ordinary blue-collar (working-class) character whose motives for any action are always self-serving and built upon a sound basis of laziness and stupidity. In an early episode in which he thinks he is dying from poisoned fish, Homer shares the totality of his wisdom with his son:
Bart, I want to share something with you – the three little sentences that will get you through life. Number One, ‘Cover for me’. Number Two, ‘Oh Good idea boss.’ Number Three, ‘It was like that when I got here.’
Yet despite his less-than-conscientious attitude to life and work, Homer also manages to appear a loyal and loving husband and father, whose lack of self-awareness prevents him from ever seeming really dislikeable.
A recipe for trash – or insightful social satire?
The Simpsons might be said to be guided by a ‘trash aesthetic’ that mocks both ‘high art’ and celebrates and revels in popular culture. The caricatured nature of the inhabitants of Springfield provide the programme’s writers with a constant flow of opportunities for satire and parody. Subsidiary characters often provide either joke-driven cameos or the motor for an entire story. Reverend Lovejoy and Ned Flanders together are used to lampoon attitudes to religion, in ways that other USA television series rarely attempt. Comic Book Guy and Professor Frink demonstrate the show’s preoccupation both with obscure movie parody and the obsessive nature of movie, TV and comic fans. But however delightful these incidental pleasures may be, the show’s major satirical concerns are reserved for its primary characters.
The eighth season episode ‘Homer’s Phobia’ is an interesting example of mainstream television’s potential to explore controversial subject matter. The episode has been amongst the most controversial of the show’s run to date (see side-bar on page 24).
Case study: ‘Homer’s phobia’
The family befriend John, the owner of ‘Cockamamie’ a store in the Springfield Mall full of camp and nostalgic merchandise. John is voiced by film director John Waters, famous for both low-budget ‘trash’ movies and mainstream features such as Hairspray. Blissfully ignorant of John’s sexuality (‘Doesn’t he seem a little … um, festive to you?’ Marge quizzes Homer early on), Homer enjoys his company without realising that John is attracted to the family’s ‘camp’ virtues; their kitchen décor, their record collection, etc. Homer’s usual simpleton persona is morphed into bigot for the purposes of the episode’s satirical tone. On learning from Marge that John’s ‘family won’t be coming over’ he retreats into an absurd caricature of homophobic extremism and refuses to join Bart, Lisa and Marge on their trips out to visit the dark, sordid underbelly of Springfield’s society. However, worse is to come – Homer imagines that Bart is displaying signs of gayness and in keeping with many bigoted perceptions of homosexuality as a pathological problem or disease, becomes totally pre-occupied with ‘curing’ him.
Homer then attempts to ensure Bart does not ‘turn’ by sitting him in front of an roadside billboard depicting scantily clad women advertising Laramie cigarettes for two hours; he then takes him to a steel mill, only to discover that the entire workforce are gay and spend their rest breaks platform dancing (‘We work hard – we play hard!’). Drowning his sorrows at Moe’s, Homer is reassured by Moe and Barney that today’s society has a ‘swishifying effect’ on the young and that the only way to ‘cure’ him of queer tendencies is to take him hunting (‘Shooting a deer will make him a man.’). In locating this scene in the bar, ‘Homer’s Phobia’ takes the series’ traditional settings (the Simpsons’ kitchen and the bar) and reminds us how conventionally they represent male and female environments. The audience has to confront and question its own assumptions about gendered behaviour, and indeed about representation itself. Homer’s hunting trip almost ends in disaster as, failing to find a deer in the wild, Bart is taken to a reindeer enclosure and expected to shoot a captive animal. When the animals stampede, they all end up having to be rescued by John with the aid of a miniature robot Father Christmas – ‘the reindeer’s cruel master’. John adds:
Well, Homer, I won your respect, and all I had to do was save your life. Now if every gay man could just do the same, you’d be set.
The episode hints at the difficulties of confronting deep-rooted prejudices, but offers the hope that exposing those prejudices may eventually break them down. In America, homophobia still remains an ‘acceptable’ prejudice among many sectors of society, not least fundamentalist religious groups. This contrasts interestingly with racism which, after decades of civil rights lobbying and consciousness-raising, is now unacceptable and condemned. Try comparing homophobic and racist issues in your own school or college environment. How much more common is homophobic bullying than its racist counterpart? Gay issues have recently taken centre stage in the States with a legal battle raging in California where San Francisco judges granted marriage licences to gay and lesbian couples. Earlier this year, President George Bush stepped in, threatening a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriages.
And satire is …?
‘Homer’s Phobia’ raises the issue of homophobia in a satirical way; that is, it holds a mirror up to human behaviour in order to illustrate our weakness and contradictions. The best satire can sometimes be so subtle it’s barely noticeable. For example, in 1729, in his short publication A Modest Proposal author Jonathan Swift argued that eating children would solve most of the problems of poverty in Ireland. He subtitled the piece:
A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the public.
A self-contained essay, it contains few hints that the idea might not be serious, or that his ‘proposal’ was asking its readers to question the notion that logic and reason should entirely govern human behaviour. Reading it now, you might be forgiven for thinking it a product of some deranged eighteenth-century proto-fascist; its internal logic is so well-structured and its arguments made to sound so reasonable.
Swift demonstrated that for satire to be effective it has to risk both offending and outraging people and being misunderstood. Above all it has to encourage the reader/viewer/audience to think for themselves, rather than accept its apparent, superficial principles.
However, satire on television is trickier, due to the weight of audience numbers, the large sums of money involved and the vested interests and political agendas of media owners. Mike Scully, executive producer of The Simpsons for many years, notes how the programme makes regular jokes at the expense of the Fox network that produces and distributes the show:
We have a tendency to bite the hand that feeds us. But they understand that it’s part of the fun of the show.
Scully says The Simpsons is unique for an American network programme in that it is rarely interfered with:
… on most shows you have to accept the input of the network and the studio, their notes on the things they want to be changed. Normally there would be around 12 people going over your script, telling you what’s wrong with it and how to fix it, and we don’t have that. We’re completely autonomous.
However, the ‘Homer’s Phobia’ episode had:
probably the most censor notes of any show we’ve had – two solid pages of single spaced notes. But most of the edge of the show was still there.
Is satire dangerous? Till Death Us Do Part
A satire invariably requires key characters to behave in necessarily negative ways. This often provokes conflicting audience reactions, particularly towards a popular character. This problem is exaggerated when a character is perceived as a role model. Debates about how far The Simpsons provide negative role models will draw upon viewers’ responses to the programme’s representations and values. They certainly echo earlier debates around programmes such as Till Death Us Do Part which featured an irascible bigot, Alf Garnett who, in 1960s’ Britain, prompted serious controversy about his depiction of bigotry and intolerance on-screen. In that programme his character was frequently shown to be the ‘loser’ in most arguments and his views were counter-balanced by the remainder of the regular characters, particularly his daughter and her fiancé. The problem was that Garnett (played by Warren Mitchell, who periodically revives the character) simply had all the funniest lines. The humour could therefore easily be seen as celebrating the very thing that it condemned. The BBC and writer Johnny Speight defended the programme but when a more conservative Director General arrived at the BBC, the series was taken off-air for some years.
As with Till Death Us Do Part, ‘Homer’s Phobia’ deliberately accentuates its central character’s ignorance and prejudice at the risk of alienating some of its Homer fans and of confirming the prejudices already held by some viewers. Certainly, websites such as ‘The Simpsons Archive’ reveal some dramatically differing readings of the episode. Some posts praise the episode for the very reasons others condemn it.
‘Homer’s Phobia’ demonstrates both how effective television comedy can be at revealing social attitudes towards gender and sexuality and how intricate are the processes of constructing representations in a medium that is too often considered throwaway and superficial. Time for homework, anyone?
Rob McInnes if Head of Media Studies at Forest Hill School, South London.
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 10, December 2004
Monday 6 December 2010
Is reality becoming more real? The rise and rise of UGC: Notes and questions
Notes
Examples:
- The 4 police caught on camera beating up a man
- The tsunami had accidental journalism- people's holiday videos became accounts and news footage providing information for the event.
- Seung-Hui Cho and Jamal- filmed the event rather than saved his life to get good footage of the event
- Mumbai bombings were covered by Flickr and Twitter- the live element of twitter made the information current and up to date-accessed by the world
- Hudson river plane crash- Janis Krun tweeted how she was to help the suvivors
Insitution benefit:
- As there are many money making sites, institutions just have to buy sites rather than launching new ones
Audience benefit:
- The help of social networking sites allowed people's UGC help survivors find their families.
- Niche topic on the e-media platform become acessible to a wide audience
- Subordinated groups now have a voice in the media today
Issues and debates:
- The impact of reality TV on the real world- people would rather film events to be famous than save their own lives.
- Mediation- does seing unmediated content still convey meaning. Does this mean we lose trust in mediated and therefore professional content?
- Media and ownership- could this freedom of UGC mean certain groups will try and take over- e.g. discriminative groups
SHEP
Social: anyone can be a producer- doesn't matter about your background
Historical: news use to come from journalists and professionals, but now ordinary people can produce content for news
Economical: It is clearly cost free for ordinary people to produce their own content. This means that some people will lose jobs due to the fewer needed journalists.
Political: The governement will have less control over the media as individuals create their own. This means content will have different ideologies and conflicts- some content could also be offencive causig political problems
Questions
1. "Citizen journalist", "grassroots journalists", or "accidental journalists" is when news or media content is created by normal people.
2. The first example of UGC:
Four police were caught attacking a man
Someone recorded the event on their mobile
It became the first piece of UCG- aired on the news
A form of information for masses
3. Organisations have provided forms of participation such as: message boards, chat rooms, Q&A, polls, have your says, and blogs with comments enabled.
4. The main difference between professional footage and UCG is the quality- it is poor which makes it more realistic and therefore more emotive.
5. A gate keeper controls what is news worthy and worth broadcasting.
6. Gate keepers now need to focus on the content thats is on the web (e-media).
7. More people producing their own content means there is less need for the professional journalists- they have to get paid while UCG producers don't- however they can make money if they want to.
Is reality becoming more real? The rise and rise of UGC
Sara Mills explores the rise of the citizen journalist and considers the impact of user-generated content on news stories, the news agenda, and the role of the professionals.
Once, it was all quite simple…the big institutions created the news and broadcast it to a variously passive and receptive audience. Now new technologies mean that the audience are no longer passive receivers of news. The audience have become ‘users’ and the users have become publishers. Audiences now create their own content. We are in the era of user generated content (UGC) where the old divide between institution and audience is being eroded.
Key to this change has been the development of new technologies such as video phones and the growth of the internet and user-dominated sites. Both who makes the news and what makes the news have been radically altered by this growth of media technologies and the rise of the ‘citizen journalist’.
We first felt the effects of the new technologies way back in 1991. Video cameras had become more common and more people could afford them…unfortunately for four Los Angeles police officers! Having caught Rodney King, an African-American, after a high speed chase, the officers surrounded him, tasered him and beat him with clubs. The event was filmed by an onlooker from his apartment window. The home-video footage made prime-time news and became an international media sensation, and a focus for complaints about police racism towards African-Americans. Four officers were charged with assault and use of excessive force, but in 1992 they were acquitted of the charges. This acquittal, in the face of the video footage which clearly showed the beatings, sparked huge civil unrest. There were six days of riots, 53 people died, and around 4000 people were injured. The costs of the damage, looting and clear-up came in at up to a billion dollars. If George Holliday hadn’t been looking out of his apartment window and made a grab for his video camera at the time Rodney King was apprehended, none of this would have happened. King’s beating would be just another hidden incident with no consequences. The film footage can be still be viewed. Try looking on YouTube under ‘What started the LA riots.’ But be warned – it makes for very uncomfortable viewing, and even today, it is easy to see why this minute and half of blurry, poor-quality film had such a huge impact.
This was one of the first examples of the news being generated by ‘ordinary people,’ now commonly known as ‘citizen journalists’, ‘grassroots journalists’, or even ‘accidental journalists’. As technology improved over the years, incidents of this kind have become more and more common. Millions of people have constant access to filming capability through their mobiles, and footage can be uploaded and rapidly distributed on the internet. The power to make and break news has moved beyond the traditional news institutions.
It is not only in providing footage for the news that citizen journalists have come to the forefront. UGC now plays a huge role in many aspects of the media. Most news organisations include formats for participation: message boards, chat rooms, Q&A, polls, have your says, and blogs with comments enabled. Social media sites are also built around UGC as seen in the four biggest social networking sites: Bebo, MySpace, YouTube and Facebook. People also turn to UGC sites to access news: Wikipedia news, Google news and YouTube score highly in terms of where people go to get their news.
The natural disaster of the Asian Tsunami on December 26th 2004 was another turning point for UGC. Much of the early footage of events was provided from citizen journalists, or ‘accidental journalists,’ providing on-the-spot witness accounts of events as they unfolded. Tourists who would otherwise have been happily filming holiday moments were suddenly recording one of the worst natural disasters in recent times. In addition, in the days after the disaster, social networking sites provided witness accounts for a world-wide audience, helped survivors and family members get in touch and acted as a forum all those involved to share their experiences.
A second terrible event, the London bombings on July 5th 2005, provided another opportunity for citizen journalists to influence the mainstream news agenda. No one was closer to events than those caught up in the bombings, and the footage they provided from their mobile phones was raw and uncompromising. This first-hand view, rather than professionally shot footage from behind police lines, is often more hard-hitting and emotive. An audience used to relatively unmediated reality through the prevalence of reality TV can now see similarly unmediated footage on the news.
The desire for everyone to tell their own story and have their own moment of fame may explain the huge popularity of Facebook, MySpace and other such sites. It also had a more negative outcome in the package of writings, photos and video footage that 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, mailed into NBC News. Between his first attack, when he shot two people, he sent the package from a local post office, before going on to kill a further 30 people. In his so-called ‘manifesto’ Cho showed his paranoia and obsession, likening himself to Jesus Christ. The reporting of the terrible events at Virginia Tech that day was also affected by citizen journalism, and the footage that student Jamal Albarghouti shot on his mobile phone video camera. Rather than concentrate on saving his own life, he recorded events from his position lying on the ground near the firing. The footage, available on YouTube and CNN brought events home to a worldwide audience. We now expect passers by, witnesses, or even victims, to whip out their camera phones and record events, an instinct almost as powerful as that to save their own or others’ lives. Perhaps the news now seems old-fashioned and somehow staged if it lacks the raw, grainy low-quality footage provided by citizen journalists.
Twitter and flickr came to the forefront during the Mumbai bombings in India in late November 2008. As bombs exploded across the city, the world’s media got up-to date with events through reports on Twitter and Flickr. There were questions raised, however, that by broadcasting their tweets, people may have been putting their own and others’ lives at risk.
It was on Twitter again that the story of the Hudson River plane crash on January 15th 2009 was broken to the world. With a dramatic picture of a plane half sinking in the river, and passengers crowded on the wing awaiting rescue Janis Krun tweeted:
There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.
The picture is still available on Twitpic, under ‘Janis Krun’s tweet.’ While national news organisations quickly swung into action, it was the citizen journalist, empowered by social networking sites, that first broke the story.
So who’s keeping the gate?
Are the gatekeepers still fulfilling their old function of deciding what is and isn’t news, and what will and won’t be broadcast? In some ways, yes. You can send in as much UGC to the major news organisations as you want, with no guarantee that any of it will ever be aired. In fact, last year a BBC spokesperson reported that a large proportion of photos sent in to the news unit were of kittens. While this may represent the interest of the audience, or users, it still doesn’t turn the fact that your kitten is really cute into ‘news.’
The way around the gatekeepers is with the independent media on the web. The blogosphere, for example, provides an opportunity for independent, often minority and niche views and news to reach a wide audience. In fact uniting disparate people in ‘micro-communities’ is one of the web’s greatest abilities. How else would all those ice fans communicate without the ‘Ice Chewers Bulletin Board?’ And the only place for those who like to see pictures of dogs in bee costumes is, of course, ‘Beedogs.com: the premier online repository for pictures of dogs in bee costumes.’
On a more serious note, the change in the landscape of the news means that groups who had little access to self-representation before, such as youth groups, low income groups, and various minority groups may, through citizen journalism, begin to find that they too have a voice.
What about the professionals?
Do journalists fear for their jobs now everyone is producing content? It is likely that in future there will be fewer and fewer permanent trained staff at news organisations, leaving a smaller core staff who will manage and process UGC from citizen journalists, sometimes known as ‘crowd sourcing.’ Some believe that the mediators and moderators might eventually disappear too, leaving a world where the media is, finally, unmediated. This does raise concerns however. Without moderation sites could be overrun by bigots or fools, by those who shout loudest, and those who have little else to do but make posts The risk of being dominated by defamatory or racist or other hate-fuelled content raises questions about unmoderated content: ‘free speech’ is great as long as you agree with what everybody is saying!
If there will be fewer jobs for trained journalists, will there also be less profit for the big institutions? This seems unlikely. Although how to ‘monetarise’ UGC – how to make money for both the generator and the host of the content – is still being debated, bigger institutions have been buying up social networking sites for the last few years. Rather than launch their own challenge, they simply buy the site. Flickr is now owned by Yahoo!, YouTube was bought by Google, Microsoft invested in Facebook, and News Corp., owned by Murdoch, bought MySpace.
There is a whole new world out there. With it comes new responsibility. There is enormous potential to expand our view of the world and our understanding of what is happening. Our collective knowledge, and wisdom, should grow. On the other hand, in twenty years time, the news could be overrun by pictures of people’s kittens and a few bigots shouting across message boards at each other.
Sara Mills teaches Media Studies at Helston Community College, Cornwall, and is an AQA examiner.
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 30, December 2009.
top
Once, it was all quite simple…the big institutions created the news and broadcast it to a variously passive and receptive audience. Now new technologies mean that the audience are no longer passive receivers of news. The audience have become ‘users’ and the users have become publishers. Audiences now create their own content. We are in the era of user generated content (UGC) where the old divide between institution and audience is being eroded.
Key to this change has been the development of new technologies such as video phones and the growth of the internet and user-dominated sites. Both who makes the news and what makes the news have been radically altered by this growth of media technologies and the rise of the ‘citizen journalist’.
We first felt the effects of the new technologies way back in 1991. Video cameras had become more common and more people could afford them…unfortunately for four Los Angeles police officers! Having caught Rodney King, an African-American, after a high speed chase, the officers surrounded him, tasered him and beat him with clubs. The event was filmed by an onlooker from his apartment window. The home-video footage made prime-time news and became an international media sensation, and a focus for complaints about police racism towards African-Americans. Four officers were charged with assault and use of excessive force, but in 1992 they were acquitted of the charges. This acquittal, in the face of the video footage which clearly showed the beatings, sparked huge civil unrest. There were six days of riots, 53 people died, and around 4000 people were injured. The costs of the damage, looting and clear-up came in at up to a billion dollars. If George Holliday hadn’t been looking out of his apartment window and made a grab for his video camera at the time Rodney King was apprehended, none of this would have happened. King’s beating would be just another hidden incident with no consequences. The film footage can be still be viewed. Try looking on YouTube under ‘What started the LA riots.’ But be warned – it makes for very uncomfortable viewing, and even today, it is easy to see why this minute and half of blurry, poor-quality film had such a huge impact.
This was one of the first examples of the news being generated by ‘ordinary people,’ now commonly known as ‘citizen journalists’, ‘grassroots journalists’, or even ‘accidental journalists’. As technology improved over the years, incidents of this kind have become more and more common. Millions of people have constant access to filming capability through their mobiles, and footage can be uploaded and rapidly distributed on the internet. The power to make and break news has moved beyond the traditional news institutions.
It is not only in providing footage for the news that citizen journalists have come to the forefront. UGC now plays a huge role in many aspects of the media. Most news organisations include formats for participation: message boards, chat rooms, Q&A, polls, have your says, and blogs with comments enabled. Social media sites are also built around UGC as seen in the four biggest social networking sites: Bebo, MySpace, YouTube and Facebook. People also turn to UGC sites to access news: Wikipedia news, Google news and YouTube score highly in terms of where people go to get their news.
The natural disaster of the Asian Tsunami on December 26th 2004 was another turning point for UGC. Much of the early footage of events was provided from citizen journalists, or ‘accidental journalists,’ providing on-the-spot witness accounts of events as they unfolded. Tourists who would otherwise have been happily filming holiday moments were suddenly recording one of the worst natural disasters in recent times. In addition, in the days after the disaster, social networking sites provided witness accounts for a world-wide audience, helped survivors and family members get in touch and acted as a forum all those involved to share their experiences.
A second terrible event, the London bombings on July 5th 2005, provided another opportunity for citizen journalists to influence the mainstream news agenda. No one was closer to events than those caught up in the bombings, and the footage they provided from their mobile phones was raw and uncompromising. This first-hand view, rather than professionally shot footage from behind police lines, is often more hard-hitting and emotive. An audience used to relatively unmediated reality through the prevalence of reality TV can now see similarly unmediated footage on the news.
The desire for everyone to tell their own story and have their own moment of fame may explain the huge popularity of Facebook, MySpace and other such sites. It also had a more negative outcome in the package of writings, photos and video footage that 23-year-old Seung-Hui Cho, an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, mailed into NBC News. Between his first attack, when he shot two people, he sent the package from a local post office, before going on to kill a further 30 people. In his so-called ‘manifesto’ Cho showed his paranoia and obsession, likening himself to Jesus Christ. The reporting of the terrible events at Virginia Tech that day was also affected by citizen journalism, and the footage that student Jamal Albarghouti shot on his mobile phone video camera. Rather than concentrate on saving his own life, he recorded events from his position lying on the ground near the firing. The footage, available on YouTube and CNN brought events home to a worldwide audience. We now expect passers by, witnesses, or even victims, to whip out their camera phones and record events, an instinct almost as powerful as that to save their own or others’ lives. Perhaps the news now seems old-fashioned and somehow staged if it lacks the raw, grainy low-quality footage provided by citizen journalists.
Twitter and flickr came to the forefront during the Mumbai bombings in India in late November 2008. As bombs exploded across the city, the world’s media got up-to date with events through reports on Twitter and Flickr. There were questions raised, however, that by broadcasting their tweets, people may have been putting their own and others’ lives at risk.
It was on Twitter again that the story of the Hudson River plane crash on January 15th 2009 was broken to the world. With a dramatic picture of a plane half sinking in the river, and passengers crowded on the wing awaiting rescue Janis Krun tweeted:
There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.
The picture is still available on Twitpic, under ‘Janis Krun’s tweet.’ While national news organisations quickly swung into action, it was the citizen journalist, empowered by social networking sites, that first broke the story.
So who’s keeping the gate?
Are the gatekeepers still fulfilling their old function of deciding what is and isn’t news, and what will and won’t be broadcast? In some ways, yes. You can send in as much UGC to the major news organisations as you want, with no guarantee that any of it will ever be aired. In fact, last year a BBC spokesperson reported that a large proportion of photos sent in to the news unit were of kittens. While this may represent the interest of the audience, or users, it still doesn’t turn the fact that your kitten is really cute into ‘news.’
The way around the gatekeepers is with the independent media on the web. The blogosphere, for example, provides an opportunity for independent, often minority and niche views and news to reach a wide audience. In fact uniting disparate people in ‘micro-communities’ is one of the web’s greatest abilities. How else would all those ice fans communicate without the ‘Ice Chewers Bulletin Board?’ And the only place for those who like to see pictures of dogs in bee costumes is, of course, ‘Beedogs.com: the premier online repository for pictures of dogs in bee costumes.’
On a more serious note, the change in the landscape of the news means that groups who had little access to self-representation before, such as youth groups, low income groups, and various minority groups may, through citizen journalism, begin to find that they too have a voice.
What about the professionals?
Do journalists fear for their jobs now everyone is producing content? It is likely that in future there will be fewer and fewer permanent trained staff at news organisations, leaving a smaller core staff who will manage and process UGC from citizen journalists, sometimes known as ‘crowd sourcing.’ Some believe that the mediators and moderators might eventually disappear too, leaving a world where the media is, finally, unmediated. This does raise concerns however. Without moderation sites could be overrun by bigots or fools, by those who shout loudest, and those who have little else to do but make posts The risk of being dominated by defamatory or racist or other hate-fuelled content raises questions about unmoderated content: ‘free speech’ is great as long as you agree with what everybody is saying!
If there will be fewer jobs for trained journalists, will there also be less profit for the big institutions? This seems unlikely. Although how to ‘monetarise’ UGC – how to make money for both the generator and the host of the content – is still being debated, bigger institutions have been buying up social networking sites for the last few years. Rather than launch their own challenge, they simply buy the site. Flickr is now owned by Yahoo!, YouTube was bought by Google, Microsoft invested in Facebook, and News Corp., owned by Murdoch, bought MySpace.
There is a whole new world out there. With it comes new responsibility. There is enormous potential to expand our view of the world and our understanding of what is happening. Our collective knowledge, and wisdom, should grow. On the other hand, in twenty years time, the news could be overrun by pictures of people’s kittens and a few bigots shouting across message boards at each other.
Sara Mills teaches Media Studies at Helston Community College, Cornwall, and is an AQA examiner.
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 30, December 2009.
top
Wednesday 17 November 2010
Q7. The texts and their readings
The Simpsons
Source: http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/father-knows-best.htm
Therefore the dominant reading is to see the family as a perfect one.
If there is an alternative reading, it would be that the family are too ideal and therefore unrealistic.
Audiences might take the dominant reading of the text which is to get humor and entertainment from a dysfunctional family- a modern representation of famlies.
Evidence: "With its subversive humor and delightful wit, the series has made an indelible imprint on American pop culture, and the family members have become television icons"
Source: http://www.thesimpsons.com/about/
Oppositional readings would be that it offends an audience with some of its humor and characters.
Evidence: "Bart's rebellious nature, which frequently resulted in no punishment for his misbehavior, led some parents and conservatives to characterize him as a poor role model for children. In schools, educators claimed that Bart was a "threat to learning" because of his "underachiever and proud of it" attitude and negative attitude regarding his education"
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons#Criticism_and_controversy
Everybody Hates Chris
The dominant reading is to find the family entertaining and a exaggerated representation of a black family.
Evidence: "the show provides a very real look at growing up in America - a challenge that demands a discussion of race and class often absent from television today. EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS provides this forum for all generations and does it with great humor and humanity - both embodied by Tyler James Williams, a young man who stands tall among the talents of television."
An oppositional reading would be that the family are represented negativly as they are aggressive and abusive- a stereotype of black people
Hannah Montana
Dominant reading is to take sides with the protagonist (Miley Stuart), and see the brother and sometimes the father as a antagonist (become obsticles for the protagonist).
The oppositional reading might be that the protagonist can appear selfish and unjust within the family as the text is surrounded by her.
Father knows best
"Father Knows Best was the ideal. That was the family we all wanted and no one got. Role models are a good thing, but sometimes I wonder if all those perfect people don't set the bar too high and ultimately leave people feeling cheated somehow."
Source: http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/father-knows-best.htm
Therefore the dominant reading is to see the family as a perfect one.
If there is an alternative reading, it would be that the family are too ideal and therefore unrealistic.
Q6. Primary Target audiences
The Simpsons
Family audience- Texts surrounds a family (audience identification)
More male than female audience- mature cartoon shows
Everybody Hates Chris
Mainly black but other ethic groups- Surrounds a black family (audience identification)
Both male and female audiences- identify with both parents
Hannah Montana
Female teen audience- identify with protagonist
Father knows best
Family audience- mostly females
1950's houswife would be watching while male would be working
Family audience- Texts surrounds a family (audience identification)
More male than female audience- mature cartoon shows
Everybody Hates Chris
Mainly black but other ethic groups- Surrounds a black family (audience identification)
Both male and female audiences- identify with both parents
Hannah Montana
Female teen audience- identify with protagonist
Father knows best
Family audience- mostly females
1950's houswife would be watching while male would be working
Monday 15 November 2010
Q5. Historical Representations of Families
1950's
Married couples with kids- house wife mum and working dad- this reinforced a patriarchal society that existed at the time.
1960's
2 member families- no kids, working man and housewife woman. A range of families e.g. homosexual families. Th ebegining of the feminist movement
1970's
Fewer people got married and there were many divorces. This is because women had more job oppotunities and more rights, therfore didn't have to rely on a husband to survive- a continuation of the feminst movement.
1990's
Very few traditional nuclear families- many extended families e.g. step family members, grandparents ect.
2000's:
Complex and dysfuctional families
Overall changes
From the 1950s to present, families have gone from a traditional nuclear family, to single families to a more complex structured family.
This reflects changes of the patriarchal society due to feminism. Women broke out of their roles of houswives and began to work, changing the family structure in society.
However many modern texts still have the traditional nuclear family, but they are represented as dysfunctional and non-working. this may be because it aims to target a wider audience- people can relate to inditicual characters or the family as a whole.
Married couples with kids- house wife mum and working dad- this reinforced a patriarchal society that existed at the time.
1960's
2 member families- no kids, working man and housewife woman. A range of families e.g. homosexual families. Th ebegining of the feminist movement
1970's
Fewer people got married and there were many divorces. This is because women had more job oppotunities and more rights, therfore didn't have to rely on a husband to survive- a continuation of the feminst movement.
1990's
Very few traditional nuclear families- many extended families e.g. step family members, grandparents ect.
2000's:
Complex and dysfuctional families
Overall changes
From the 1950s to present, families have gone from a traditional nuclear family, to single families to a more complex structured family.
This reflects changes of the patriarchal society due to feminism. Women broke out of their roles of houswives and began to work, changing the family structure in society.
However many modern texts still have the traditional nuclear family, but they are represented as dysfunctional and non-working. this may be because it aims to target a wider audience- people can relate to inditicual characters or the family as a whole.
Q4. Alternative Representations
There is no mother figure in Hannah Montana which subverts stereotypes of a traditional "nuclear family".
In contrast, Everybody Hates Chris challenges the stereotypes of a black family structure. Though the mother and father sometimes fight, the father still lives with the family which subverts black stereotypes. The mother is also a dominant character in the family rather than being subordinated again subverting stereotypes.
These alternative representations aim to reflect modern society realistically: not every family is a traditional one.
In contrast, Everybody Hates Chris challenges the stereotypes of a black family structure. Though the mother and father sometimes fight, the father still lives with the family which subverts black stereotypes. The mother is also a dominant character in the family rather than being subordinated again subverting stereotypes.
These alternative representations aim to reflect modern society realistically: not every family is a traditional one.
Father knows best
1. How are the famlies in these texts represented typically? How is this representation constructed?
The text presents this family through a patriarchal society. The father is the breadwinner who goes to to work, the daughter is mature and caring like the mother, the older son wants to be like the dad (they both dress the same). They have a little girl who
2. What insitutions are involved in these texts and do they affect the representations of these families?
The text presents this family through a patriarchal society. The father is the breadwinner who goes to to work, the daughter is mature and caring like the mother, the older son wants to be like the dad (they both dress the same). They have a little girl who
2. What insitutions are involved in these texts and do they affect the representations of these families?
NBC (now ABC) aired the show, they are a large American network owned by Viacom. As they are a large institution they would have represented the family in a dominat way- a patrarchal society.
3. The role of politics and the media
Again as the institution is large they would have been owned by an elite group who would have enforced a dominate ideology- hegemony.
Hannah Montana (The Stuwarts)
1. How are the famlies in these texts represented typically? How is this representation constructed?
This text shows the family from the teenagers POV rather than a traditional parent POV. Miley always gets what she wants in the family possibly because she is the protagonist and the text is surrounded by her.
Miley: Smart, cheeky, always gets into fights with her brother- a dominat representation of a sister (but usually wins)
Always gets what she wants from her dad by sweet talking- typical stereotype of teen daughters
Jackson: Annoying brother, immature older brohter- typical stereotype of teen boys
Robbie: Easily persuaded by children, lonely, mother and father like qualitues
2. What insitutions are involved in these texts and do they affect the representations of these families?
Hannah Montana is aired on Disney Channel: This is an independant broadcasting company and therefore has its own ideologies presented in its texts. Though the family unconventionally has no mother figure (as she died), it doesn't make it the focus of the text- suggesting that life's difficulties don't always have to be the main focus (postive and optimistic ideologies for young audiences.)
3. The role of politics and the media
Hannah Montana: The father figure plays both parental role e.g. at times he is immature, childish and lazy like stereotypical representations but at times he plays a sensible caring parent (mother like qualities- therefore an androgenous character).
This text shows the family from the teenagers POV rather than a traditional parent POV. Miley always gets what she wants in the family possibly because she is the protagonist and the text is surrounded by her.
Miley: Smart, cheeky, always gets into fights with her brother- a dominat representation of a sister (but usually wins)
Always gets what she wants from her dad by sweet talking- typical stereotype of teen daughters
Jackson: Annoying brother, immature older brohter- typical stereotype of teen boys
Robbie: Easily persuaded by children, lonely, mother and father like qualitues
2. What insitutions are involved in these texts and do they affect the representations of these families?
Hannah Montana is aired on Disney Channel: This is an independant broadcasting company and therefore has its own ideologies presented in its texts. Though the family unconventionally has no mother figure (as she died), it doesn't make it the focus of the text- suggesting that life's difficulties don't always have to be the main focus (postive and optimistic ideologies for young audiences.)
3. The role of politics and the media
Hannah Montana: The father figure plays both parental role e.g. at times he is immature, childish and lazy like stereotypical representations but at times he plays a sensible caring parent (mother like qualities- therefore an androgenous character).
Everybody Hates Chris (The Rocks)
1. How are the famlies in these texts represented typically? How is this representation constructed?
2. What insitutions are involved in these texts and do they affect the representations of these families?
Everybody Hates Chris was broadcasted in Channel 5, MTV Base, MTV UK and Comedy Central: MTV Base has a black ethinic audience, and therefore the text attempts to reflect a steeotypical black family, though exaggerated. All these channels are commercial channels and are able to produce "risky" niche programmes due to the large profits.
3. The role of politics and the media
2. What insitutions are involved in these texts and do they affect the representations of these families?
Everybody Hates Chris was broadcasted in Channel 5, MTV Base, MTV UK and Comedy Central: MTV Base has a black ethinic audience, and therefore the text attempts to reflect a steeotypical black family, though exaggerated. All these channels are commercial channels and are able to produce "risky" niche programmes due to the large profits.
3. The role of politics and the media
This texts appeals to a niche audience due to its representation of ethinc minorities and subordinated groups. However, as the producer of this text is Chris Rock- a well know black comedian, the text was much more recognised for this and therefore became popular.
The Simpsons
1. How are the famlies in these texts represented typically? How is this representation constructed?
The characters are a dominant representation of a family, and the text reinforces this patriarchal society by exaggeraing the stereotypes...
Marge: Very motherly and caring/ stereotypical housewife role/looks after the children
Homer: Immature, irresponsible father/ breadwinner/ yet lazy and simplistic charater
Bart: Mischevious young boy/ childish/ naughty
Lisa: Smart daughter/ sensible/ cares about her education
Maggie: Innocent baby/doesn't do much/ now and then surprises the audience with maturity
2. What insitutions are involved in these texts and do they affect the representations of these families?
The Simpsons is currently broadcast on Channel 4: A terrestrial channel which is accessible to anyone with a TV- this reflects it use of traditional and paticharchal representations of a channel, but are sometimes challenged for humor.
3. The role of politics and the media
The Simpsons: The family representations reflect dominant representations in historical examples e.g. patriarchal society (females are motherly housewives and males are the family money makers). However, these ideologies are challenged e.g. at times the female characters control the father figures/ the fathers are lazy and immature.
The characters are a dominant representation of a family, and the text reinforces this patriarchal society by exaggeraing the stereotypes...
Marge: Very motherly and caring/ stereotypical housewife role/looks after the children
Homer: Immature, irresponsible father/ breadwinner/ yet lazy and simplistic charater
Bart: Mischevious young boy/ childish/ naughty
Lisa: Smart daughter/ sensible/ cares about her education
Maggie: Innocent baby/doesn't do much/ now and then surprises the audience with maturity
2. What insitutions are involved in these texts and do they affect the representations of these families?
The Simpsons is currently broadcast on Channel 4: A terrestrial channel which is accessible to anyone with a TV- this reflects it use of traditional and paticharchal representations of a channel, but are sometimes challenged for humor.
3. The role of politics and the media
The Simpsons: The family representations reflect dominant representations in historical examples e.g. patriarchal society (females are motherly housewives and males are the family money makers). However, these ideologies are challenged e.g. at times the female characters control the father figures/ the fathers are lazy and immature.
Tuesday 9 November 2010
The representation of families in American TV sitcoms
I have chosen to study this topic, because sitcoms are very popular and well known amongst a wide range of audiences. The families in these texts are "traditional" with both mother and father with children and family pets however they are dysfunctinal with exaggerated stereotypes that are well known in society.
All three texts are the broadcast platform:
The Simpsons (1989-present)
Everybody Hates Chris (2005-2009)
Hannah Montanna (2006-present)
Father knows best (1954-1960)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y1__b6uyxg
All three texts are the broadcast platform:
The Simpsons (1989-present)
Everybody Hates Chris (2005-2009)
Hannah Montanna (2006-present)
Father knows best (1954-1960)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y1__b6uyxg
Theorists
Gaye Tuchman: Symbolic annihilation of women
"largely ignoring women or portraying them in stereotypical roles of victims and/or consumer, the mass media symolically annihilate women"
Source: Book Lane Crothers, Charles Lockheart, "Culture ans Politics: A Reader"
David Gauntlett: Gender representations in the media
Laura Mulvey: Male Gaze
"Mainstream film satisfies especially the male spectator by projecting his desires on the screen. Women are regarded as objects of fetishistic display for male viewer's pleasure"
Source: Book, Carolina Hein, "Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
Judith Butler: Gender and Sex
"When the relevant "culture" that "constructs" gender is understod in terms of such a law or set of laws, then it seems that gender is determined and fixed as it was under the biology-is-destiny formulation"
Source: Book, Judith Butler, "Gender Trouble: Feminism and subversion of identity"
Stuart Hall: Marxist theorist/Cultural Representations
"the media appear to reflect reality whilst in fact they construct it."
"In a key paper, 'Encoding/Decoding', Stuart Hall (1980), argued that the dominant ideology is typically inscribed as the 'preferred reading' in a media text, but that this is not automatically adopted by readers"
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/marxism/marxism11.html
Antonio Gramsci: Hegemony
"The term hergemony has come to be synonimous with the idea of domination of one group over another"
Gramsci at the margins: subjectvitity and subalternity in a theory of hergemony by Kyle Smith, 2010, http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/research/gramsci-journal/articles/6-Smith-Eng.pdf
"Hergemony is a more sensitive and therefore a more useful critical term that "domination" which fails to acknowledge the active role of subordinate people in the operation of power"
Antonio Gramsci By Steve Jones, 2006, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PULFz85FDMYC&dq=antonio+gramsci+hegemony&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Anthony Giddens: Structuration
"Structuration theory: the concepts of "structure", "system" and "duality of sturcture"".
"the basic domain of...social sciences...is neither the experience of the actor nor the existance of any form of societial totality"
"Human actitvities are recursive...They are not brought into being by social actors but continually recreated by themselves as actors."
The constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration By Anthony Giddens, http://www.s-as-p.org/files_workshop/lausanne_whittington.pdf
"largely ignoring women or portraying them in stereotypical roles of victims and/or consumer, the mass media symolically annihilate women"
Source: Book Lane Crothers, Charles Lockheart, "Culture ans Politics: A Reader"
David Gauntlett: Gender representations in the media
Laura Mulvey: Male Gaze
"Mainstream film satisfies especially the male spectator by projecting his desires on the screen. Women are regarded as objects of fetishistic display for male viewer's pleasure"
Source: Book, Carolina Hein, "Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"
Judith Butler: Gender and Sex
"When the relevant "culture" that "constructs" gender is understod in terms of such a law or set of laws, then it seems that gender is determined and fixed as it was under the biology-is-destiny formulation"
Source: Book, Judith Butler, "Gender Trouble: Feminism and subversion of identity"
Stuart Hall: Marxist theorist/Cultural Representations
"the media appear to reflect reality whilst in fact they construct it."
"In a key paper, 'Encoding/Decoding', Stuart Hall (1980), argued that the dominant ideology is typically inscribed as the 'preferred reading' in a media text, but that this is not automatically adopted by readers"
http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/marxism/marxism11.html
Antonio Gramsci: Hegemony
"The term hergemony has come to be synonimous with the idea of domination of one group over another"
Gramsci at the margins: subjectvitity and subalternity in a theory of hergemony by Kyle Smith, 2010, http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/research/gramsci-journal/articles/6-Smith-Eng.pdf
"Hergemony is a more sensitive and therefore a more useful critical term that "domination" which fails to acknowledge the active role of subordinate people in the operation of power"
Antonio Gramsci By Steve Jones, 2006, http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PULFz85FDMYC&dq=antonio+gramsci+hegemony&source=gbs_navlinks_s
Anthony Giddens: Structuration
"Structuration theory: the concepts of "structure", "system" and "duality of sturcture"".
"the basic domain of...social sciences...is neither the experience of the actor nor the existance of any form of societial totality"
"Human actitvities are recursive...They are not brought into being by social actors but continually recreated by themselves as actors."
The constitution of society: outline of the theory of structuration By Anthony Giddens, http://www.s-as-p.org/files_workshop/lausanne_whittington.pdf
Manuel Alvarado
"Television is... the most rewarding medium to use when teaching representations of class because of the contradictions which involve a mass medium attempting to reach all the parts of its class-differentiated audience simultaneously... Its representations of class can perhaps best be approached by teaching how class relations are represented and mediated within different TV genres and forms" (Alvarado et al. 1987: 153)
"Four Key Themes in Racial Representations: exotic, dangerous, humorous, pitied" (Alvarado et al. 1987: 153)
Source: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/MC30820/represent.html
Nick Lacey: Media Concepts and semiotics
"At the heart of semiotics is the study of language and how it is the dominant influence shaping human beings' perception of and thoughts about the world."
Image and representation: key concepts in media studies By Nick Lacey
Richard Dyer: Representations of gay people in our culture
Marshall McLuhan: "The Medium is the message" and "globall village"
"If the work of the city is the remaking or translating of man into a more suitable form than his nomadic ancestors achieved, then might not our current translation of our entire lives into the spiritual form of information seem to make of the entire globe, and of the human family, a single consciousness?"
"To the mind of the modern girl, legs, like busts, are power points, which she has been taught to tailor, but as parts of the success kit rather than erotically or sensuously. She swings her legs from the hip . . . she knows that a "long-legged girl can go places." As such, her legs are not intimately associated with her taste or with her unique self but are merely display objects like the grille on a car. They are date-bated power levers for the management of the male audience"
Todd Kappelman, "Marshall McLuhan: "The Medium is the Message"", http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/mcluhan.html#text7
Theodor Adorno
"NEGATIVE DIALECTICS: Adorno believes that the standard mode of human understanding is identity thinking, which means that a particular object is understood in terms of a universal concept. The meaning of an object is grasped when it has been categorized, subsumed under a general concept heading. In opposition to identity thinking, Adorno posits negative dialectics, or non-identity thinking. He seeks to reveal the falseness of claims of identity thinking by enacting a critical consciousness which perceives that a concept cannot identify its true object."
"CRITICAL THEORY: Critical theory is based on the understanding of society as a dialectical entity, and the conviction that "teaching about society can only be developed in the most tightly integrated connection of disciplines; above all, economics, psychology, history and philosophy" (O'Connor 7)."
"AESTHETIC THEORY: Adorno asserts the "priority of the object in art," or what is called a materialist aesthetic, in contrast to the idealist aesthetic of Kant which privileges the subject over the object (Jarvis 99)."
Wednesday 27 October 2010
How are dominant ideologies of Hip Hop Music videos challeneged in alternative texts?
Firstly, black males in hip hop music videos represented as violence and gang relation. However in this video challenges this ideology and this is signified by the lyrics of the song that oppose these things. The music is an alternative representation as it lacks hip hop music video iconographies such as guns and weapons that would signify violence and gang culture. On the other hand, it could be argued that the text almost parodies the gang crime with the artists: a group of people enforcing their beliefs to wider audiences, however their message is positive instead of a dominant message enforcing capitalism for example.
Secondly, the idea of money and getting “rich quick” is another ideology represented in the hip hop genre as a positive. In contrast, this text doesn’t even bring up the subject of money which instantly signifies it is an alternative representation of the hip hop culture.
Texts from the hip hop genre rely heavily on black stereotypes which are usually negative. Similarly, this text reinforces black stereotypes such as clothing- hoodies, caps and big glasses- and crime which is signified by one of the members of the group getting chased and caught by the police. However, it could be argued that the clothing is used as a way of engaging a hip hop audience, as it is associated with the genre, but then uses this stereotype to challenge other links and associations that come with it, such as violence and sexism. Therefore they represent black people and the genre as having a good side signified by them helping the community in the text.
Male characters in the hip hop genre are presented in negative ways such has: sexist, misogynistic, promiscuous, authoritative, arrogant and narcissistic. In contrast none of these stereotypes are shown, but challenged in the text through the use of the song. This is signified through the equal treatment of the male and female gender in particular the group itself that has a female artist in it. On the other hand, it could be argued that the group represent themselves as authoritative as they have control as an inspirational group with a positive- they could be regarded as leaders in this text instead of followers.
Tuesday 26 October 2010
How has Mulvey's Male Gaze Theory been constructed in Sin City?
One of the conventions adopted is low key lighting. The lighting in this shot focuses on the character
On the other hand it could be suggested she is objectified through the use of film elements: throughout this clip, many shots of 
dancing on the bar. For example a medium shot focuses on her hips and bum, which fetishises parts of her body, which again reinforces the male gaze theory. Another is the use of slow motion while the camera pans up her body, which is voyeuristic and objectifies her which reflects the intended male audience.
Another convention of noir is the femme fatale which translates deadly woman. Though
One of the props that
A particular shot of 
hting is focused on her body. The combination of the shot with the lighting could signify her god-like or divine quality in a sexually tempting way. This voyeuristic element adds to the Male Gaze theory too. Also the low angle shot could signify her sexual dominance over the male gazers that the audience are intended to identify with.
In binary opposition to this, a high angle shot of three men in a row drinking beer at the same time. This could signify the intended male gazing audience for Nancy’s character and the film itself. This again is reflected with the zoom on another male character which could signify he is the intended male audience of the film. However, if the film is suggesting females hold sexual power over males it could suggest the zoom signifies women target males as sexual predators, again reinforcing the femme fatale convention of film noir.
In conclusion, the film mainly reinforces the male gaze theory, through reinforcing some of the ideologies and conventions of the noir era. This makes the text a post modern film and possibly uses retro sexism to exploit female representation and sexuality from the past. The film uses the mise en scene to present females as sexual objects such as lighting and props and editing effects such a slow motion. However it is arguable wheather they are sexually objectified or self objectified, either way it is all for the male gaze.
Saturday 23 October 2010
Perfecting your production work.
Lecturer: Pete Fraser
How to get the most out of your practical projects.
Research
Look at real examples
Record evidence
Research every angle
Conventions, audience and institutions
Planning
Record planning- visuals
Show process of your journey
Plan for what could go wrong- criticise idea
Blogging
Evidence
Storyboarding
Any visuals
Begin with a 25 word pitch- to aviod complexity
Feedback- Teachers and peers
Read it, respond to it
Relevant websites
http://www.artofthetitle.com/
http://petesmediablog.blogspot.com/
How to get the most out of your practical projects.
Research
Look at real examples
Record evidence
Research every angle
Conventions, audience and institutions
Planning
Record planning- visuals
Show process of your journey
Plan for what could go wrong- criticise idea
Blogging
Evidence
Storyboarding
Any visuals
Begin with a 25 word pitch- to aviod complexity
Feedback- Teachers and peers
Read it, respond to it
Relevant websites
http://www.artofthetitle.com/
http://petesmediablog.blogspot.com/
Online media, Cleggmania, and the Cowell Factor.
Lecturer:Dr Julian McDougall
How do online media and convergence impact on the ways audiences and producers use and create media?
There are links between online media, reality TV and democracy.
Web 2.0 interativity allowed more public freedom of speech- more democracy?
David Gauntlett (Not the same video, but still relevant!)
"The changing place of media in everyday life: traditional media consumption compared with the more creative and flexible uses of media which are becoming more common today. At under seven minutes, this is the compact, fast version of a one-hour lecture. This version has more interesting visuals and some other tweaks to make it better."
Relevant Authors:
Don Gillmar
David Gauntlett
Sonia Livingstone
David Buckingham
Annette Hill (Reality TV)
Micheal Wesch
Henry Jenkins
Graeme Turner
How do online media and convergence impact on the ways audiences and producers use and create media?
There are links between online media, reality TV and democracy.
Web 2.0 interativity allowed more public freedom of speech- more democracy?
David Gauntlett (Not the same video, but still relevant!)
"The changing place of media in everyday life: traditional media consumption compared with the more creative and flexible uses of media which are becoming more common today. At under seven minutes, this is the compact, fast version of a one-hour lecture. This version has more interesting visuals and some other tweaks to make it better."
Relevant Authors:
Don Gillmar
David Gauntlett
Sonia Livingstone
David Buckingham
Annette Hill (Reality TV)
Micheal Wesch
Henry Jenkins
Graeme Turner
Chewing gum for the brain: Why do people talk such rubbish about Media Studies?
Lecturer: Professor David Buckingham:
Articles
Gove's plans send out an anti-education message
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/apr/13/gove-education-plans
Students were studying The Simpsons as basic means of understanding the subject
Tories to tackle Media Studies Menace
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/tories-to-tackle-the-media-studies-menace-1772933.html
The ideas that media studies is a "soft" subject (pratical and vocational subject) were making schools in league tables appear better than they are.
Wothless qualifications give false hope to state students
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jan/22/deceive-children-worthless-qualifications
The idea that high achieving state school students do "soft" subjects and give them false hope.
Arguments against Media Studies:
"Dons despair as students spurn science inferior of Media Studies"
Argues tha media studies isnt a real subject
"Studens Misled over jobs in the media"
Argues it isn't easy to get jobs
Is it academic? Is it a soft option? Does it provide jobs?
History of Media studies:
Matthew Arnold, Frank and Queenie Leavis used Media studies for new generations to criticise popular culture, to better society- help them get better job, improve civilisation.
Articles
Gove's plans send out an anti-education message
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/apr/13/gove-education-plans
Students were studying The Simpsons as basic means of understanding the subject
Tories to tackle Media Studies Menace
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/tories-to-tackle-the-media-studies-menace-1772933.html
The ideas that media studies is a "soft" subject (pratical and vocational subject) were making schools in league tables appear better than they are.
Wothless qualifications give false hope to state students
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jan/22/deceive-children-worthless-qualifications
The idea that high achieving state school students do "soft" subjects and give them false hope.
Arguments against Media Studies:
"Dons despair as students spurn science inferior of Media Studies"
Argues tha media studies isnt a real subject
"Studens Misled over jobs in the media"
Argues it isn't easy to get jobs
Is it academic? Is it a soft option? Does it provide jobs?
History of Media studies:
Matthew Arnold, Frank and Queenie Leavis used Media studies for new generations to criticise popular culture, to better society- help them get better job, improve civilisation.
Saturday 16 October 2010
Post- feminism and Popular Culture in Chick Lit
"scenarios and dilemmas facing the young women characters in the narratives of contemporary popular culture (especially so-called chick lit)."
"Individuals must now choose the kind of life they want to live. Girls must have a lifeplan. They must become more reflexive in regard to every aspect of their lives, from making the right choice in marriage, to taking responsibility for their own working lives,and not being dependent on a job for life or on the stable and reliable operations of a large-scale bureaucracy which in the past would have allocated its employees specific,and possibly unchanging, roles."
Post- feminism and Popular Culture in Lads Mags
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-481677/Women-blame-lads-mags-sexual-exploitation--just-guilty.html
An article discussing sexual objectifcation and self objectification of women
"If we turn attention to some of the participatory dynamics in leisure and everyday
life which see young women endorse (or else refuse to condemn) the ironic normalisation of pornography, where they indicate their approval of and desire to be pin up girls for the centrefolds of the soft porn “lad mags"
"we are witness to a hyper-culture of commercial sexuality, one aspect of which is the repudiation of a feminism invoked only to be summarily dismissed (see also Rosalind Gill 2003)"
Post- feminism and Popular Culture in Car Advert
"This advert appears to suggest that yes, this is a self-consciously “sexist ad,” feminist critiques of it are deliberately evoked."
"Feminism is “taken into account,” but only to be shown to be no longer necessary. Why? Because there is no exploitation here, there is nothing remotely naıve about this striptease. She seems to be doing it out of choice, and for her own enjoyment; the advert works on the basis of its audience knowing Claudia to be one of the world’s most famous and highly paid supermodels."
"Once again, the shadow of disapproval is introduced (the striptease as site of female exploitation), only instantly to be dismissed as belonging to the past, to a time when feminists used to object to such imagery. "
Post-feminism and Popular Culture: Wonderbra Advert
"The Wonderbra advert showing the model Eva Herzigova looking down admiringly at her substantial cleavage enhanced by the lacy pyrotechnics of the Wonderbra, was through the mid-1990s positioned in major high street locations in the UK on full size billboards."
"The composition of the image had such a textbook “sexist ad” dimension that one could be forgiven for supposing some familiarity with both cultural studies and with feministcritiques of advertising (Judith Williamson 1987)."
"It was, in a sense, taking feminism into account by showing it to be a thing of the past, by provocatively “enacting sexism” while at the same time playing with those debates in film theory about women as the object of the gaze (Laura Mulvey 1975) and even with female desire (Rosalind Coward 1984;Teresa de Lauretis 1988)."
Post- feminism and Popular Culture in Bridget Jones' Diary
"My argument is that post-feminism positively draws on and invokes feminism as that which can be taken into account, to suggest that equality is achieved...""This is a movement detectable across popular culture, a site where “power … is remade at various junctures within everyday life"
"the shrill championing of young women as a “metaphor for social change” on the pages of the right wing press in the UK, in particular the Daily Mail."
The Four Concepts of Post-Feminism
1. Post-feminism as backlash to feminism:
From what I have read about Post-feminism, it is the idea that we have reached equality against men, and this era moves on from that gender war.
2. Post-feminism as a colloquialism:
It's a similar idea to the "moving on from feminism". Though the movement has been controversial, it's still lingering around in society by announcing we are in its post era.
3. The ambiguity of the prefix “post”:
It's not clear what post feminism is- is it that we have reached equality and now we are moving on, or is it that the feminist era has died and equality hasn't been achieved and probably won't be?
4. A more positive look at post-feminism:
As society has often looked down at the idea of of feminism, post- feminism almost encourages a positive look on feminism saying "we've got what we wanted now, it's over" to society.
From what I have read about Post-feminism, it is the idea that we have reached equality against men, and this era moves on from that gender war.
2. Post-feminism as a colloquialism:
It's a similar idea to the "moving on from feminism". Though the movement has been controversial, it's still lingering around in society by announcing we are in its post era.
3. The ambiguity of the prefix “post”:
It's not clear what post feminism is- is it that we have reached equality and now we are moving on, or is it that the feminist era has died and equality hasn't been achieved and probably won't be?
4. A more positive look at post-feminism:
As society has often looked down at the idea of of feminism, post- feminism almost encourages a positive look on feminism saying "we've got what we wanted now, it's over" to society.
Gender in Advertising
1. What sort of images of women and men dominated advertising pre-1970s? Why was this the case?
Before the 1970's women were represented in magazines as people who did unpaid work, or worked in very stereotypical jobs such as hairdresseres. On the TV, women were represent as housewives, usually shown within the house, advertising household objects, however the housewife stereotype had declined in the 50's. This was dominating the media as it was reflecting the patriarchal society that existed before the feminist era.
2. How did the advertising of the 1970’s continue to perpetuate the stereotype of women, despite depicting women in a greater range of roles?
Though jobs for women were increasing, the media still stereotyped men and women's roles as housewives and businessmen. Men were the authoritative ones who did the voice overs, still reinforcing this patriarchal society.
3. Can Gaye Tuchman’s quote regarding under-representation and the ‘symbolic annihilation of women’ still be applied in 21st Century advertising? If so, how?
Symbolic annihilation of women can still be applied to today. Though there is a bigger range of representations of women in the media compared to the pre-70's, there are still particular representations and stereotypes of women that dominate- mainly women as sexual objects, and still the maternal and domestic women (cleaning and kids toys advert: Women are still the main sex in them). This means society still subordinates women into these roles, and means women who challenge that aren't taken seriously. On the other hand, some may think that women aren't symbolically annihilated, as they choose to sexually objectify themselves instead of the media forcing it apon them.
4. Do you agree that adverts, such as those for the 1990’s Boots No. 7, ‘It’s not make-up. It’s ammunition.’ campaign, are post-feminist (thereby representing women as better than men?). Explain your answer.
5. Is the representation of women by the media accountable for the results of a survey in which ‘women were up to ten times more likely than men to be unhappy with their body image’?
Due to the dominant representation of females as sex object, I would think this causes women to feel there is a "certain way" they should look. The media constructs ideal women for the male gaze, and not only puts pressure on women, but also makes males believe that women should also be this ideal woman.
6. Is the contemporary representation of men in advertising perhaps also a negative one where they too are treated as sex objects?
Though feminists would believe this is proving more equality of men and women, I think it would create similar problems that it has with women. This could cause men to become unhappy with their body image too.
Before the 1970's women were represented in magazines as people who did unpaid work, or worked in very stereotypical jobs such as hairdresseres. On the TV, women were represent as housewives, usually shown within the house, advertising household objects, however the housewife stereotype had declined in the 50's. This was dominating the media as it was reflecting the patriarchal society that existed before the feminist era.
2. How did the advertising of the 1970’s continue to perpetuate the stereotype of women, despite depicting women in a greater range of roles?
Though jobs for women were increasing, the media still stereotyped men and women's roles as housewives and businessmen. Men were the authoritative ones who did the voice overs, still reinforcing this patriarchal society.
3. Can Gaye Tuchman’s quote regarding under-representation and the ‘symbolic annihilation of women’ still be applied in 21st Century advertising? If so, how?
Symbolic annihilation of women can still be applied to today. Though there is a bigger range of representations of women in the media compared to the pre-70's, there are still particular representations and stereotypes of women that dominate- mainly women as sexual objects, and still the maternal and domestic women (cleaning and kids toys advert: Women are still the main sex in them). This means society still subordinates women into these roles, and means women who challenge that aren't taken seriously. On the other hand, some may think that women aren't symbolically annihilated, as they choose to sexually objectify themselves instead of the media forcing it apon them.
4. Do you agree that adverts, such as those for the 1990’s Boots No. 7, ‘It’s not make-up. It’s ammunition.’ campaign, are post-feminist (thereby representing women as better than men?). Explain your answer.
5. Is the representation of women by the media accountable for the results of a survey in which ‘women were up to ten times more likely than men to be unhappy with their body image’?
Due to the dominant representation of females as sex object, I would think this causes women to feel there is a "certain way" they should look. The media constructs ideal women for the male gaze, and not only puts pressure on women, but also makes males believe that women should also be this ideal woman.
6. Is the contemporary representation of men in advertising perhaps also a negative one where they too are treated as sex objects?
Though feminists would believe this is proving more equality of men and women, I think it would create similar problems that it has with women. This could cause men to become unhappy with their body image too.
Monday 11 October 2010
Post-feminist Advert
Though this text fetishieses the female body, you don't get a sense of male gaze (mulvey), but rather a female audience, due to the female target audience the product being advertised. The women in the text are not subordinated but they have objectified themselves, which is a dominant representation, though they haven't done it in a sexualised way. I would therefore say this is a positive representation. However, some may argue this is misrepresentation of women, as we still like in a relevativly patriarchal society.
Shampoo Advert 1950's- Historical Representation of Men
D&G Advert- Representation and Sexual Objectification of Men
The advert begins with 2 shots of the male before a shot of the female. This connotes the text is male gaze (Mulvey) but interestingly for male and female audiences. This sexually objectifies the male which is an alternative expectation, challenging the stereotype of males. Another example of this is a medium shot of the male character, fetishising his genital area. Though it is covered up, you can still inmterpret the ideologies of the text- male, not objectifcation .
Tommy Hilfiger- Contemporary Representations of Men
This contemporary text reinforces some traditional stereotypes of men, but also presenting some new stereotypes. The traditional stereotypes are the womanising male character, seen in this text. Flashbacks of the protagonist (who is a celebrity), shows him sexually engaging with a women, who if fetishied instead of the protagonist, reinforcing the male gaze theory (Mulvey). The new representation of men, is the glamourous, celebrity male, who is intrested in body image which is a stereotype of women, suggesting an androgynous male who embodies both male and female traits. This is signified by the stroung use of lighting, such as top lighting of the male and female charater which is very glamourous. Also the prop-the plane in the background- strongly connotes wealth and glamour. This texts could be suggesting the users of the product will be treated like celebrities, especially by women.
Ford Advert 1950's - Dominant Representation of Women
This advert strongly reinforces a patriarchal society and the female expectations that go with it. The protgaonist is a housewife which is a female stereotype, signified through the setting of a kitchen and costume. Feminists would say the text is a negative or restricting representation of women as they are restricted to the kitchen and their stereotypes in society. Though she is "good looking", she represents the Angel of the Angel Whore character, so she is not sexually objectified. This could suggest the text is a positive representation of women, because she is not reduced to an object of male gaze (Mulvey).
Cigarette Advert 1950's- Positive Representation of Women
This is a more positive representation of women as they are equalised to men. Not only does the woman smoke the cigarette like the man, she does the physical sporting activities too. The female smoking the cigarette could be considered as a phallic symbol signifying her female dominance or equivalence. Sporting and physical activities are a male stereotype, however the female is engaging in these activities too. This challenges female expectations and gender roles and female stereotypes, particularly in the 1950’s, would be housewives and mothers and therefore challenges the subordination of women and a patriarchal society.
Pepsi Advert 1960's- Negative Representation of Women
I picked this Pepsi advert to reflect a negative representation of women, due to the way they are presented. Firstly, lots of close up shots of their faces are used, signifying their sexual objectification through vouyerism rather than self objectification, also representing women as a passive gender. Later in the text, it could be argued that the straws are phallic symbols, again suggesting women are sexual objects. There is a shot that zooms into the face of a woman drinking from the straw, highlighting a women's sexual objectification. Another close up shot of a woman drinking from a straw, shows her facial expressions to be happy, signifying women are easily pleased-by a cup of pepsi. This text therefore subordinates women as passive sexual objects.
Friday 8 October 2010
What are the different representations of women in adverts and how are they signified?
The representation of women can be positive: challenging the roles and expectations of women or negative: reinforcing a patriarchal society. This essay questions how and why these representations are constructed in an advert for Gucci Guilty Perfume and Stella Artois beer.
Firstly the Gucci advert is in widescreen which connotes a dramatic cinematic experience to engage its audience. More attention is gained by the female character first seen in the text and her protagonist is signified through this. The protagonist has female dominance which is signified through the use of colour- everything is in black and white while her hair is gold/blonde. This colour connotes gold, power and divinity signifying her importance in the text.
The use of intertextuality in this text will appeal to a particular audience. The film references a great deal to the neo film noir Sin City, with the use of colour and the female dominant femme fatale character. Sin City appeals to a male audience due to the action genre, this trailer could also appeal to the same audience due to the intertextuality. In terms of the Uses and Gratifications theory, a female audience might realise and accept the protagonist in the text is a form of escapism and also a male gaze, by theorist Mulvey, and therefore might aspire, from Young and Rubicam's 4Cs, to be the object of male gaze too.
Though the protagonist is an object of male gaze, it could be suggested that she sexually objectifies herself to tease the audience. The protagonist puts her leg into the frame of the shot. As she puts into the frame, it signifies self objectification, allowing the audience to fetishise her body. Another shot, a high angle, of their sexual activities signifies CCTV and spying which is voyeuristic. The fact she is on top signifies her control of the situation for both the male character and the audience.
Not only does the protagonist exert her feminity through self objectification she also presents herself as an anarchic character signified by adopting male stereotypes. The advert begins with a long shot of an unknown character speeding down the motorway, which stereotypically would be expected to be a male character. However, the audience's expectations are challenged when a medium shot of the driver shows to be a female.
In contrast, women are negatively represented in the Stella Artois text. The most obvious editing technique used in the advert is the split screen: one side shows the female getting dressed and the other side is of the beer getting "prepared". This use of split screen signifies that neither the beer nor the woman know they have been placed side by side. This puts the audience in position of control as they can voyeur the woman, in a socially acceptable way. Audiences may identify this control as patriarchy, and also identify with the unknown male character whose presence is felt within the text. This text then reinforces the idea of a patriarchal society and that women are subordinated by men.
Not only does the female share the screen with the beer, but the screen is split equally between the two "objects" which connotes the woman is equally objectified to the status of beer. It is suggested the audience is male due to the female and beer subject. Though the advert is targeted at men, it also negatively stereotypes men as people who have little respect for women which however is a dominant representation.
A range of close up shots of the female are used to fetishise her body. There is a close up shot of the female's leg slowly and elegantly rising from the bath tub. On one hand this could signify femininity and her control over it which is the oppositional reading. However, the more dominant reading is that her legs are an important part of the female body and connotes a male audience who can voyeur her body.
The text near the beginning of the trailer says "the preparation" which is an enigma code as the audience question "what event is the preparation for?". It is signified through the shots that the woman and beer preparation is for the male through the use of action codes. Action codes of both the preparation of the woman and the glass of beer are the same.
Women are represented as people who prioritise their looks and appearance, and this ad reinforces this ideology. Action codes including close ups of her: brushing her hair, doing her make up and putting on heels strongly represent women as image conscious. It could be said that the advert reinforces this representation, which is always seen in the media. Funnily enough, it could also be said that the media itself is the cause of this representation as this ideal, perfect woman is always represented in the media, and women feel they have to aspire to it.
In conclusion, both texts females are the protagonists and are sexually objectified for male audiences to fetishise and vouyer their bodies. However, while Gucci’s advert’s protagonist controls her sexuality through self objectification, the Stella Artois’ protagonist is objectified by an unknown but present male character.
In the Gucci’s ad, there are many examples in the text that signify the protagonist’s female dominance, but it is arguable whether this could be seen as a positive representation. The dominant reading is that the protagonist exerts her female dominance over the male challenging the historical patriarchal society and even subordinating males as easily manipulated and easily tempted by women and sex and this would favour feminism. However the oppositional reading which would favour the ideologies of the Stella Artois advert, might be that females can control their sexuality, but it is still for the male gaze and male dominant society.
Firstly the Gucci advert is in widescreen which connotes a dramatic cinematic experience to engage its audience. More attention is gained by the female character first seen in the text and her protagonist is signified through this. The protagonist has female dominance which is signified through the use of colour- everything is in black and white while her hair is gold/blonde. This colour connotes gold, power and divinity signifying her importance in the text.
The use of intertextuality in this text will appeal to a particular audience. The film references a great deal to the neo film noir Sin City, with the use of colour and the female dominant femme fatale character. Sin City appeals to a male audience due to the action genre, this trailer could also appeal to the same audience due to the intertextuality. In terms of the Uses and Gratifications theory, a female audience might realise and accept the protagonist in the text is a form of escapism and also a male gaze, by theorist Mulvey, and therefore might aspire, from Young and Rubicam's 4Cs, to be the object of male gaze too.
Though the protagonist is an object of male gaze, it could be suggested that she sexually objectifies herself to tease the audience. The protagonist puts her leg into the frame of the shot. As she puts into the frame, it signifies self objectification, allowing the audience to fetishise her body. Another shot, a high angle, of their sexual activities signifies CCTV and spying which is voyeuristic. The fact she is on top signifies her control of the situation for both the male character and the audience.
Not only does the protagonist exert her feminity through self objectification she also presents herself as an anarchic character signified by adopting male stereotypes. The advert begins with a long shot of an unknown character speeding down the motorway, which stereotypically would be expected to be a male character. However, the audience's expectations are challenged when a medium shot of the driver shows to be a female.
In contrast, women are negatively represented in the Stella Artois text. The most obvious editing technique used in the advert is the split screen: one side shows the female getting dressed and the other side is of the beer getting "prepared". This use of split screen signifies that neither the beer nor the woman know they have been placed side by side. This puts the audience in position of control as they can voyeur the woman, in a socially acceptable way. Audiences may identify this control as patriarchy, and also identify with the unknown male character whose presence is felt within the text. This text then reinforces the idea of a patriarchal society and that women are subordinated by men.
Not only does the female share the screen with the beer, but the screen is split equally between the two "objects" which connotes the woman is equally objectified to the status of beer. It is suggested the audience is male due to the female and beer subject. Though the advert is targeted at men, it also negatively stereotypes men as people who have little respect for women which however is a dominant representation.
A range of close up shots of the female are used to fetishise her body. There is a close up shot of the female's leg slowly and elegantly rising from the bath tub. On one hand this could signify femininity and her control over it which is the oppositional reading. However, the more dominant reading is that her legs are an important part of the female body and connotes a male audience who can voyeur her body.
The text near the beginning of the trailer says "the preparation" which is an enigma code as the audience question "what event is the preparation for?". It is signified through the shots that the woman and beer preparation is for the male through the use of action codes. Action codes of both the preparation of the woman and the glass of beer are the same.
Women are represented as people who prioritise their looks and appearance, and this ad reinforces this ideology. Action codes including close ups of her: brushing her hair, doing her make up and putting on heels strongly represent women as image conscious. It could be said that the advert reinforces this representation, which is always seen in the media. Funnily enough, it could also be said that the media itself is the cause of this representation as this ideal, perfect woman is always represented in the media, and women feel they have to aspire to it.
In conclusion, both texts females are the protagonists and are sexually objectified for male audiences to fetishise and vouyer their bodies. However, while Gucci’s advert’s protagonist controls her sexuality through self objectification, the Stella Artois’ protagonist is objectified by an unknown but present male character.
In the Gucci’s ad, there are many examples in the text that signify the protagonist’s female dominance, but it is arguable whether this could be seen as a positive representation. The dominant reading is that the protagonist exerts her female dominance over the male challenging the historical patriarchal society and even subordinating males as easily manipulated and easily tempted by women and sex and this would favour feminism. However the oppositional reading which would favour the ideologies of the Stella Artois advert, might be that females can control their sexuality, but it is still for the male gaze and male dominant society.
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Tuesday 28 September 2010
Media 100: What is it?
Media 100 is a list of the top 100 people in the Media Industry, including: Television, Radio, Press & publishing, Digital media, Media business, and Advertising Marketing & PR.
The members have been added to the list due to their political, economical and cultural input to society and the idustry.
Only 18 members of the media 100 are female (18%).
Female Jobs: Controller, Chief exectutive, Chairman, Director, Chief exectutive, Controller of film and drama,chairman and chief executive, corporate marketing director and head of marketing, director of vision, chairman and chief executive, chief executive, controller, editor, head of E4, digital champion, co-founder/chief executive and actor.
This suggests that women still are subordinated in the elite society, by dominant males forcing them to gain limited recognition by society for their political, economical and cultural input. This would be in favour of the hergemony theory and would implying women are misrepresented in the list.
The members have been added to the list due to their political, economical and cultural input to society and the idustry.
Only 18 members of the media 100 are female (18%).
Female Jobs: Controller, Chief exectutive, Chairman, Director, Chief exectutive, Controller of film and drama,chairman and chief executive, corporate marketing director and head of marketing, director of vision, chairman and chief executive, chief executive, controller, editor, head of E4, digital champion, co-founder/chief executive and actor.
This suggests that women still are subordinated in the elite society, by dominant males forcing them to gain limited recognition by society for their political, economical and cultural input. This would be in favour of the hergemony theory and would implying women are misrepresented in the list.
Media 100 Panellists
Peter Barron is editor of Newsnight.
Peter Bennett-Jones is founder and chairman of Tiger Aspect Group and talent agency PBJ Management
Brent Hoberman is founder and executive chairman of online interiors website mydeco.
Tessa Jowell is minister for the Olympics and London with direct responsibility for the delivery of the government's programme for the 2012 games. Tessa Jowell is minister for the Olympics and London with direct responsibility for the delivery of the government's programme for the 2012 games.
Siobhan Kenny is director of communications at publisher Harper Collins UK. 
Andrew Neil is publisher of the Barclay brothers' Press Holdings Group, owners of the Spectator, Spectator Business and Apollo magazines.
Trevor Phillips is chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the independent statutory body created to eliminate discrimination and reduce equality. 
Chris Powell is chairman of Nesta, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, a publicly and privately funded body to encourage innovation in the UK. 
Janine Gibson is executive editor of guardian.co.uk and editor-in-chief of MediaGuardian. 
Jane Martinson is editor of MediaGuardian. She was previously the Guardian's associate City editor.
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