Gender and sexuality in the media

Lesson 15SOC 86 – Popular CultureRobert Wonser 1

Gender and the MediaAccording to the reflection hypothesis

the media only give the public what it expects, wants, or demands. •In other words, the media content mirrors the behaviors and relationships, and values and norms most prevalent in society.

Is the media’s reflection more like this or this? 2

However, far from passively reflecting culture, the media actively shape and create culture. •Ex: the nightly news – how much news can fit into 22 minutes? they set the agenda for public opinion. “The way the media choose themes, structure the dialogue, and control the debate—a process which involves crucial omissions—is a major aspect of their influence.”

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The Role of the MediaIn addition to their role as definers

of the important, the media are also the chief sources of information for most people, as well as the focus of their leisure activity.

Evidence indicates many media consumers (esp. heavy TV viewers) tend to uncritically accept media content as fact.•Mean world syndrome

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Symbolic Annihilation

Although there’s always intervening variables (e.g. kinds of shows, and behavior of real-life role models), the media do influence our worldview, including personal aspirations and expectations for achievements, as well as our perceptions of others.

Symbolic annihilation refers to the media’s traditional ignoring, trivializing or condemning of women.

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The Male Gaze

The Male Gaze is the idea that women are portrayed in art, in advertising, and on screen from a man’s point of view, as objects to be looked at.

Fetishism of commodities

takes on a whole

new meaning

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The Smurfette Principle The tendency for works of fiction to have exactly

one female amongst an ensemble of male characters, in spite of the fact that roughly one half of the population is female.

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Speaking of Smurfette…

What do all of these Smurfs have in common except one?

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Should this be surprising when…

The word ‘bacon’ is used more often than sexism and sexist?

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Manic Pixie Dream Girl

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl (MPDG) is a stock character type in films.

Film critic Nathan Rabin, who coined the term after seeing Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown (2005), describes the MPDG as "that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

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MPDGs are said to help their men without pursuing their own happiness, and such characters never grow up, thus their men never grow up.

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MPDG

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The Bechdel Test

Passes the test if:

2 or more women in it who have names

they have to talk to each other

about something besides a man

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Prominent Messages in TV Women are less important than men.

Fewer women than men on prime-time TV (39% of all major characters)

Characters played by women tend to be younger and less mature than male characters and therefore less authoritative.65% of female prime-time characters are in their twenties and thirites12% are in their forties and 22% of male primetime characters are in their forties.

Young female characters are typically thin and physically attractive.In general males are given more leeway in their appearance. 46% of women on TV compared with just 16% of men are thin or very thin.

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Leading Men Age, But Their Love Interests Don’t

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Notice any pattern?

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Women in TV and Family Films

A study, lead by sociologist Stacy L. Smith, analyzed 11,927 speaking roles on prime-time television programs aired in spring 2012, children's TV shows aired in 2011 and family films (rated G, PG, or PG-13) released between 2006 and 2011. Smith's team looked at female characters' occupations, attire, body size and whether they spoke or not.

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Female character prevalence

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How are they presented?

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How are they depicted in the workplace?

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According to their analysis of the 250 highest-grossing films in the U.S. in 2012, women held just 18% of these positions. In fact, women’s representation in these behind-the-scenes roles has been basically stagnant for over a decade

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There’s significant variation behind the scenes as well. Women made up a quarter of producers and one in five editors, but only 9% of directors and 2% of cinematographers

Primetime TV

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Women hold a larger proportion of behind-the-scenes roles in broadcast television than in the film industry. Looking at a randomly-selected episode of every drama, comedy, or reality show that aired during prime time in the 2011-2012 season, 26% of these roles went to women

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Again we see wide variation in the different behind-the-scenes jobs. Women are much more likely to be producers than directors in the sampled episodes, and only 4% of directors of photography were women. And while the percent of female creators and writers for prime time TV shows jumped in 2011-2012, less than a third of either position was held by women

What Girls and Boys See in Children’s Media

In television for kids, male characters appear at about twice the rate of female characters.

Animated programs in particular are more likely to portray male characters.

Females are almost four times as likely to be presented in sexy attire and twice as likely to be shown with a diminutive waist.

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Children’s Media

In a study of G-rated films from 1990-2005, only 28 percent of the speaking characters (both live and animated) were female.

More than four out of five of the narrators were male.

Eighty-five percent of the characters were white.

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Prominent Messages in Advertising: Body Clowning

Goffman: The ritualization of subordination in which women are portrayed in clowning and costume-like characters.

“the use of entire body as a playful gesticulative device, a sort of body clowning” is commonly used in advertisements to indicate lack of seriousness struck by a childlike pose (p. 50).

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Clowning Then…

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Clowning Now…

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Charcot used the clowning to delegitimate so-called hysterical women, and Goffman saw such representations for what they are, a way to portray women as inferior, emotionally childlike, unserious.

Over 100 years later, images of clowning women are still used to reinforce gender discrimination and position females as inferior.

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Women Laughing Alone with Salad

Because, why not?

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Photoshop

The beauty secret used by all the top models?

Fotoshop, by Adobe. 36

What do photoshopped images do to the viewer?

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And What about Advertising?

The ad on the left was the original ad. Complaints were made. The response? The ad on the right. Not quite sure they get it…

Video about this ad

Killing Us Softly 4 trailer

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