A2 representation theory feminism and the media

<< Media Studies >>
Feminist perspectives & the
Media
A2 Media Studies
Critical Perspectives - Feminism

Aims/objectives
• Understand relevance to media studies
• Understand key feminist concepts and terms
• Apply some feminist perspectives to own research investigation.
A2 Media Studies

What is Feminism?
On a post it note, write down 2 words you associate with this term?
A2 Media Studies

Feminism is concerned with the ‘analysis
of the social/historical position of women
as subordinated, oppressed or exploited
either within dominant modes of
production [such as capitalism] and/or
the social relations of patriarchy or male
domination’.
A2 Media Studies

In media and cultural studies, the central drive of feminist
perspectives is analysing how representations of women are
constructed in the media: what messages and values
(ideologies) are created, how, why and what their effect is?
Feminist film theories attempt to show how this view of women
is reflected and consolidated by the way they are represented in
film and to try and consider the effects of this on male and
female spectators.
A2 Media Studies

Origins: First Wave Feminism
• Started in the early1900s
• Concerned with creating equality between men and women.
• Based upon A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary
Wollstonecraft, which was written in 1792.
• Focused on legal inequalities such as voting rights and property
ownership
• Brought to public attention through the suffragette movement.
A2 Media Studies

Origins: Second Wave Feminism
Started in the 1960s.
Women now had equal voting rights
Feminists were interested in ensuring equality elsewhere in
women’s lives, such as the workplace and family.
Some second wave feminists were concerned with the impact of
pornography on women since the mass media was becoming a
bigger part of people’s lives.
Associated with the Women’s Liberation Movement.
A2 Media Studies

Origins: Third Wave Feminism
Began in the 1980s and continues to the present day.
Laws are now supposed to ensure equality for women in the areas
the second wave feminist were concerned about.
Concerned with
•negative stereotypes of women,
•their right to control their own sexuality (including how they dress)
and reproductive issues such as abortion and the availability of
contraception.
The most recent example of third wave feminism can be seen in
the SlutWalk movement.
A2 Media Studies

Types of
feminism
Marxist feminism takes a Marxist approach to
the study of women and women’s interests, and
emphasises the way in which women are doubly
exploited – both as workers and as women
Radical feminism tends to focus on the
problem of patriarchy – the system where
men dominate in every way in society such
as the family, the workplace and politics.
For radical feminists, the main focus is on
the problem of men and male-dominated
society
Liberal feminism wants to
ensure that women have
equal opportunities with
men, through steps like
changing to law to stop
sex discrimination,
removing obstacles to
women’s full participation
in society, and better
childcare measures to
allow women to be fully
involved in work.
Black Feminism is
primarily concerned with
black and Asian
women’s experiences of
oppression and
exploitation. It combines
ideas about capitalism,
patriarchy and anti-
racism.
Post modern feminism is
associated with third wave
feminists. It acknowledges the
diversity amongst women and
encourages individual women to
find feminist ideas that combine with
their own experiences of life to
create a brand of feminism suitable
for them.
A2 Media Studies

Early feminist ideas
•Early perspectives suggested that representations of women polarised around two
stereotypes reflecting central cultural values.
•Madonna (as in Mary, the mother of Jesus - not the popstar): saintly, asexual, virgin,
maternal, pure.
•Whore: highly sexual (– sex but not love) dirty, prostitute,
This has roots in Freud’s theory “the Madonna/whore complex”.
It is now seen as reductive by many critics.
A2 Media Studies

Key feminist ideas
Other perspectives include a study of the representation of women in
specific genres: the way in which women are most often passive in the
narrative with the male characters having most narrative agency.
Where women are proactive (film noir being an example) it is usually in
a negative way (femme fatale) and ends in control and punishment.
Horror films may sometimes be read in this way.
A2 Media Studies

What is ‘The Gaze’?
•A highly influential idea, particularly in feminist film
theory.
•It describes how the viewer gazes upon (views) the
people presented and represented.
•The term ‘The Male Gaze’ was popularised by
Laura Mulvey.
A2 Media Studies

Who is Laura Mulvey?
 A Professor of Media and Film at University of
London.
 A successful screenwriter, producer and director,
 She has written and edited many books and
articles on contemporary film and feminist theory
and practice.
 Her most famous work to date is her seminal essay
‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ published
1975
 It has since been highly influential in film criticism.
A2 Media Studies

Who is Laura Mulvey?
 The theory assesses the representation of gender
and the relationship between the text and the
audience from a feminist perspective.
 It is based in a lot of the psychoanalysis work of
individuals such as Sigmund Freud
A2 Media Studies

The Male Gaze
Dominant cinema’s codes and conventions construct specific ways for women to be
looked at.
Put simply, the typical audience member is assumed to be male.
- or “The Camera is Male”
The typical audience member becomes aligned with the film’s male protagonist, by
identification, admiration or aspiration.
Hollywood cinema organises the spectator into the male position so that the spectator
has little choice but to identify with the male protagonist and become complicit with his
objectification of female characters.
Female spectators can either identify with the passive female role, or more often take
the male view.
In films, men look and women are looked at.
Women in film are simply objects for ‘the gaze’ of the protagonist/male audience.
A2 Media Studies

The Male Gaze
Examples:
Megan Fox in Transformers (car breakdown scene)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0V8hDBEVPU
Constructed by The Gaze
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GsRK43Td0U
Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher (Car Wash scene)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYhaRcfCEkI
The Bond Gaze
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfL09c4cw2I
A2 Media Studies

Criticisms of The Male Gaze
A2 Media Studies
Mulvey’s work was based on her own conceptual analysis, rather than
empirical research.
Her work looked at the traditional mainstream films of Hollywood from
1920s-1960s.
Despite being hugely influential, the idea also has many critics. What
problems can you see with the theory?
Critics say it means that female viewers cannot derive any pleasure from
watching Hollywood films.
But critics claim that women can and do enjoy watching films from a male
perspective and Mulvey does not take into account the complex variety of
ways in which audiences consume and enjoy films.

Other types of ‘Gaze’
A2 Media Studies
Progress has been made since Mulvey’s work in the 1960s and we now see
a much more diverse range of gender representations in the media.
As women have gained more political, social and economic status, media
producers have identified them as a valuable market too, leading to the
development of what some call ‘the female gaze’
Diet Coke Advert: The gardener
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuHV4gwSXn4
Others have gone further to identify a ‘queer gaze’ in some media forms.

Further feminist readings of the media
A2 Media Studies
In Killing Us Softly Jean Kilbourne discusses how advertising sells not just
products but also the belief that the most important thing about women is
their appearance. We are shown unattainable images of flawlessness that
are presented as the ‘normal’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy8yLaoWybk&t=213s

A2 Media Studies
Naomi Wolf goes further in her book ‘The
Beauty Myth’ stating that the notion of beauty is
an entirely patriarchal, social construction. In
other words, men in any given culture set rules
about what is considered beautiful and
acceptable.
We can tell that these are constructed because
they vary between different cultures and different
times.
She notes that the more social and legal equality
women have gained, the more they appear to be
oppressed in other ways, especially body image.

A2 Media Studies
“The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the
more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to
weigh upon us. During the past decade, women breached the power
structure; meanwhile, eating disorders rose exponentially and cosmetic
surgery became the fastest-growing specialty. More women have more
money and power and scope and legal recognition than we have ever had
before; but in terms of how we feel about ourselves physically, we may
actually be worse off than our unliberated grandmothers.”
The Beauty Myth (Introduction), Naomi Wolf.

A2 Media Studies

But it is not just male artists’ representation of women that is under
scrutiny.
Beyonce’s Runs the World (girls)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBmMU_iwe6U&ob=av2e
versus
Nineteenpercent’s Who runs the world (lies)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p72UqyVPj54
A2 Media Studies

• Response to Backlash against 60s & 70s fem.
• Recognition of diversity of women black, post-colonial perspectives
• Rejection of dogma (including feminist dogma)
• Gender – less rigid, more fluid; idea that traditional notion of gender is
constructed and imposed by social cultural context
• Empowerment & celebration of femininity
• Women can wield sexual power
• Men have lost essential aspects of masculinity and have become more
vulnerable
• Fuelled by advances in abortion, employment and fertility laws
• Moderation of discourse on oppression
• Traditional feminism perpetuates the idea of women as victims, post-
feminism concentrates on ideas of empowerment and liberation
• Emphasis on choices and freedom of choice
A2 Media Studies
Post feminism/Post Modern Feminism

HeforShe
Emma Watson Speech UN 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0Dg226G2Z8
Campaign Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZptgM-jhZo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFHU32WuDzk
A2 Media Studies

Liesbet van Zoonen
 gender is constructed through discourse, and that its
meaning varies according to cultural and historical
context
 the display of women’s bodies as objects to be looked
at is a core element of western patriarchal culture
in mainstream culture the visual and narrative codes
that are used to construct the male body as spectacle
differ from those used to objectify the female body.
A2 Media Studies

Liesbet van Zoonen
“[There is] a depressing stability in the articulation of
women’s politics and communication…
The underlying frame of reference is that women belong to
the family and domestic life and men to the social world of
politics and work; that femininity is about care, nurturance
and compassion, and that masculinity is about efficiency,
rationality and individuality.”
A2 Media Studies
How can Van Zoonen’s ideas be applied to the set texts
from last year?
Consider: Tide/Wateraid/Formation/Vogue/Humans

bell hooks
 feminism is a struggle to end sexist/ patriarchal
oppression and the ideology of domination
 feminism is a political commitment rather than a lifestyle
choice
 race and class as well as sex determine the extent to
which individuals are exploited, discriminated against or
oppressed. This approach is known as “Intersectionality”
A2 Media Studies
How can hooks’ ideas be applied to the set texts from last year?
Consider:
Wateraid/Formation/Humans

Judith Butler & Gender Performativity
 identity is performatively constructed by the very
‘expressions’ that are said to be its results (it is
manufactured through a set of acts)
 there is no gender identity behind the expressions of
gender
 performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and
a ritual.
A2 Media Studies

A2 Media Studies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo7o2LYATDc

Judith Butler & Gender Performativity
 identity is performatively constructed by the very
‘expressions’ that are said to be its results (it is
manufactured through a set of acts)
 there is no gender identity behind the expressions of
gender
 performativity is not a singular act, but a repetition and
a ritual.
A2 Media Studies
How can Butler’s ideas be applied to the set texts from last
year?
Consider: Tide/Wateraid/Formation/Vogue/Humans

Mulvey: The (Male) Gaze
Jean Kilbourne: Adverts:
flawless, unattainable images
presented as ‘normal’
Naomi Wolf: The Beauty Myth
Van Zoonen: Women and
men represented differently
Women = domestic caring,
nurturing, bodiy as object
Men = efficiency,
individuality, rationality, body
as spectacle
bell hooks: Gender, race
and class, diversity,
Intersectionality
Judith Butler: Queer theory,
gender fluidity Gender
performativity
Apply ideas to Y1 texts

Mulvey: The (Male) Gaze
Jean Kilbourne: Adverts: flawless,
unattainable images presented
as ‘normal’
Naomi Wolf: The Beauty Myth
Van Zoonen: Women and men
represented differently
Women = domestic caring,
nurturing, bodiy as object
Men = efficiency, individuality,
rationality, body as spectacle
bell hooks: Gender, race and
class, diversity, Intersectionality
Judith Butler: Queer theory,
gender fluidity Gender
performativity
Apply ideas to Y1 texts

A2 representation theory feminism and the media

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Mais procurados

Mais procurados (20)

Semelhante a A2 representation theory feminism and the media

Semelhante a A2 representation theory feminism and the media (20)

Mais de KBucket

Mais de KBucket (20)

Último

Último (20)

A2 representation theory feminism and the media