Meaning and Response: Representation Flashcards
Meaning and Response: Representation: How to Approach
Complete the cloze:
Representations will be shaped, in part, by the _________ in which the films are produced, so in general, the later that the film is made, the more ___________ the representation of social groups will be.
- Society
- Progressive
Meaning and Response: Representation: WJEC Specification
Complete the cloze:
Learners study:
How film creates ________ and generates _______ through _______, ____ _ _____, _____, ____ and __________ (including ______ and _______.)
How all aspects of film for including ________ contribute to the representations of cultures and societies (_____, ______ and ___) including the _________ ________ of those representations.
- Meaning
- Response
- Cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing, sound and performance
- Staging and direction
- Narrative
- Gender, ethnicity, and age
- Ideological nature
Meaning and Response: Representation: How to Approach
What will a truly insightful examination of the representation of any of the social groups (gender, ethnicity age) also include?
Give an example.
- Will include a reference to others.
- Example: In examining gender, older women are often represented very differently to young women, black women differently to Asian women and so on.
Meaning and Response: Representation: Definition
What is representation?
- The way the media represents the world to the audience
Meaning and Response: Representation: Definition
Describe the 3 step process that every filmmaker/film studio takes at the beginning of the process.
- Selection- Choosing what to represent
- Organisation- Structuring that representation
- Focus- encouraging the spectator to pay more attention to certain aspects of the representation than others
Meaning and Response: Representation: Definition
What 9 questions could you ask to analyse the representations within a film?
- Who is doing the representing?
- Who is being represented?
- What social groups are omitted from the representations?
- What messages about particular social groups are being conveyed?
- Which characters or social groups have the power in the representations?
- Do the characters adhere to stereotypes or challenge them?
- Are the characters typical of characters in films of that genre?
- What do the representations tell the audience about society at the time the film was made/ and or set?
- How are elements of film form being used to construct the representations?
Meaning and Response: Representation: Under-representation and inequality
List some of the key finding about speaking/named characters in the 2017 USC /Annenberg Foundation.
- Actors: 68.6% male ; 31.4% female
- Directors: 23 males to one female
- Ethnicity: 70% white characters
- Age: 11.8% were 60+
Meaning and Response: Representation: Under-representation and inequality
Describe what the statistics from the 2017 USC?Annenberg Foundation study suggest .
- The industry feels that American society values certain social groups more than others, i.e young white males. Representation is important, as seeing your likeness reflected on screen, having role models you can identify with or feeling like your experiences are an important story to be told can contribute to increased confidence and feelings of self-worth.
Meaning and Response: Representation: Under-representation and inequality
What aspect of representation in film can contribute to a person’s confidence and feelings of self-worth? What 2 other implications might it have?
- Having role models that audiences can identify with.
1. On how you are perceived
2. How you are treated by other social groups
Meaning and Response: Representation: Stereotyping
Stereotyping in a film is frequently used as a what?
- A form of shorthand
Meaning and Response: Representation: Stereotyping
What can stereotyping achieve, and what are some of the problems with it?
- It quickly and clearly creates a basic understanding of characters for audiences.
- The practice is loaded with problems as social groups are reduced to a set of typical traits that are reductive and dismissive.
Meaning and Response: Representation: Stereotyping
What is binary opposition?
- When two characters or ideologies are set up against one another.
Meaning and Response: Representation: Stereotyping
Who is usually stereotyped, and who does the stereotyping?
- Those with less power
- Senior roles in the film industry with more power
Meaning and Response: Representation: Stereotyping
What does the use of stereotypes legitimise according to Dyer (1998)?
- It legitimises inequality, as stereotypes are a ‘way to ensure unequal power relations are maintained.’
Meaning and Response: Representation: Stereotyping
What does Levi-Strauss (1995) say about stereotyping?
- Representations are deliberately placed in binary opposition to ensure the dominant culture is maintained and the minorities represented are seen as subordinate and marginalised
