Thursday 5 December 2013

Representarion of Gender - Homework

My sound was broken on my computer so I had to analyse without sound.

Gender is nothing to do with biological gender, it's to do with masculinity and femininity and how the traits that are associated with each of these are portrayed.

At the start of the clip, the man and the woman look to be having an argument. The woman seems to be a lot angrier than the man who looks to be quite calm.They have represnted gender by giving this woman a feminine trait which is being quite emotional and the man is giving a masculine trait of being emotionless. From the very star of the clip we see that this programme is conforming to the stereotypes.

In the background you can see some police officers. You can see female police officers wearing high visibility jackets while the male police officer is wearing a black coat. To me, the fact that the woman is in a sort of uniform while the man looks more casual in a coat make me think that the man has more power because he has thw ability to wear this coat to work, he doesn't have to wear a high visibility jacket like the women. This shows that they are representing gender through the portrayal of power levels shown through costume.

The next scene is the man standing in his house while looking at pictures and premumably trying to figure out what they mean. I'm guessing this is to do with his work and he is getting quite stressed. The use of lots of different shots at quite a fast pace made it seem as if he was getting frustrated and that he'd been spending ages trying to figure out as much as he can just from the pictures. This, to me, shows that he is really into his work because even when he's not at work he is still trying to do work. I think this conforms to the masculine/feminine stereotypes because stereotypically, men are more absorbed into their career than women and this is what this is showing. I think they have represented gender by showing the male as very career focused.

It then cuts to the womans house where it shows that she has a son. This, once agains, conforms to the stereotypes because woman are seen as maternal and this scene proves that she is as she has a son. They are representing the different genders by showing the man as masculine and the woman as feminine and are doing this by having them conform to their respective stereotypes.

the next scene is a man that looks threatening driving to someones home and walking in. He then looks to be intimitating the others and getting himself quite angry and proceeds to smash someones head through a door. This represents gender in the sense that men are being shown as tough and strong and scary while it doesn't show the woman to be any of that.

The last scene is the man and the young boy from the earlier scene making some popcorn and it's popping everywhere, they don't get annoyed or angry but instead, they look like they're having a fun time. They then go to watch some TV and eat the popcorn they made and they seem to be having fun throwing the popcorn around, trying to get it into their mouth. This part of the clip made me think that it is not following all of the stereotypes completely because men are seen to be strong, tough and scary while this man shows he has a loving, caring side. They have represented gender by showing one man as violent and scary and another as loving and caring which means that they are giving masculine and feminine traits men which breaks some of the stereotypes.