Contextual Studies: Representation-Gender

Casanova'73
Flea Bag

Critical Contexts
Ideology
Pluralism

Meditation
What we see is not objective reality or truth, but firstly the filmmakers version of reality: What the have mediated.
The process of mediation- the editorial decision-making process- directly affects representation: through judgement and selection editorialises how gender, race and class are presented.
We as the audience are also complicit in mediation, through our understanding and reading.

Reception Theory
How we as the audience mediate texts, and the factors that might influence us
Like race, there is a biological/genetic component to definition of 'gender' (in sex terms)
But gender can also be social (and legal) construct: how we are seen by society, or identity we choose to adopt.
TV and film historically relied on gender stereotypes (ideology/mediation)

`Gender Representation
Housewife
Masculine hero
femme fatale
Libertine

Encoded in mise-en-scene

 Gaze Theory 
Preposed by feminist film critic Laura Mulvey (Visual and Other Pleasures, 1975)
Default viewpoint in visual culture is masculine: the male gaze
Determines how we see; what we see
Mise en scene and framing
Mediation and freudian voyeurism

Peeping Tom Film

Casanova 73 (Galton & Simpson)
Single season (7 episode) BBC sitcom
First three episodes aired pre-watershed
Criticism of 'sexual context' and sexual objectification

Feminist Theory
How are women represented in the media
How patriarchal ideology is expressed in culture

How women are visualised (design, costume etc.)
First wave feminism-Political equality (suffragette movements)
Second wave feminism- economic & sexual equality (60s-90s)
Third wave feminism-Diversity, fluidity but still collective action
Post Feminism-individuality

The Bechdel Test
The drama has to have two women in it and they have to have a conversation thats not about a man

'Agency' has become new criterion for analysing representation
To what extent character creates, pushes and changes plot


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