TASK
As part of your research you must analyse representations in the three products you have chosen to research (Film, TV series, Sitcom). You should choose gender as well as two of the other representational groups below to focus your research on:
Class
Disability
Ethnicity
Gender
Sexuality
Age
Religion
Use the note below to help you analyse how your chosen feature film, long-form TV-series (box set) and sitcom compare to the 1960 film 'The Apartment'. You might like to answer the following questions:
How much do each of the products rely on stereotypes?
How have the representations changed over time (since1960 when The Apartment was made)?
Do your products show a more balanced range of character?
Do you products represent particular groups in a more positive or negative way?
We would like you to make this into an "Youtube documentary or Vlog" using clips and a voice over or piece to camera to presentation to illustrate your points.
- Choose clips from your products that illustrate the points you want to make (save them to put in a premiere project)
- Write down your ideas in note form so you can use them as a script for an audio voice recording or video log.
- Record your own ideas on your phone or a college camera
- Edit your voice or video recording together with the clips you cave chosen in order to complete your comparison.
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Representation theory:
STEREOTYPES
Stuart Hall
Hall argues that the mainstream media often uses stereotypes to quickly identify characters and their situations. He says that this can often result in creating two-dimensional characters that reinforce historic prejudice or ideas about:
Class
Ethnicity
Gender
Sexuality
Age
Religion
Hall concludes that stereotypes in the mainstream media present us with an overwhelmingly middle-aged, white, male, middle class, heterosexual, able-bodied and Christian view of the world.
GENDER
The Bechdel test is a very low benchmark to check if a film has and rounded or interesting female characters and relationships. It was developed to show how few movies met the following basic requirement:
1) Two female characters, with names
2) That talk to each other
3) About something other than men
Watch this video explanation:
Everything you need to know about the Bechdel test
The apartment does not Does your filmy Film pass the Bechdel Test? Try to find the scent that does and post it, or a still image of it, onto your blog with an explanation of why it passes.
Do you think your long-form TV series or your sitcom pass the Bechdel test?
CLASS
Social class related to the status or perceived status you hold in society. This is often simplified to generalisations like upper class, middle class or lower class. People in advertising and marketing, target people by their spending power and leisure time. Whereas a Marxist analysis simplifies class to two groups based on people’s relationship to work, ruling class people (bourgeoisie) own their businesses and make profits out of working-class people (proletariat) have to sell their labor for a wage. All of these ideas can help us to analyse media products and generate our own messages in the products we make.
DISABILITY
There are often very few disabled characters in mainstream film and TV. Historically they have been represented in a negative light or as a disfigured villain. Here is a film debating some of the issues around disabled representation.
ETHNICITY
An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other, usually on the basis of a presumed common genealogy or ancestry or on similarities such as common language or dialect, history, society, culture or nation.
SEXUALITY
Your sexuality is defined as your sexual orientation, your sexual activity and your capacity for sexual feelings. Homosexual or heterosexual are examples of your sexuality. The sexual activities you act out and those you consider or desire are examples of your sexuality and capacity for sexuality. there is a list of different terms relating to people's sexual orientation (and genre definition)s) on the stonewall website.
AGE
Analysing the age profile of your products may open up a number of questions. It is likely that the age of the central characters may correlate with their target audience. but it is worth looking at how all the characters are represented. Are old of young people presented in crude stereotypes and what are these? these is quite a lot of research to suggest old people are poorly represented in drama.
RELIGION
It might be that your products have religion as one of the central themes, like in Greenleaf. It could be that religion is completely absent. If you choose to look at this as one of your areas then either scenario tells you something about the world being presented. Are some religious being presented in a more positive light than others? Are stereotypes being used to 'characterise' people in a particular way?
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