The Representation of Women

The Representation Of Women

 

Carol Clover wrote about the ‘final girl’ in 1992, in the book ‘Men, Women and Chainsaws’. Three traits and typical conventions for the final girl are; she’s virginal (pure), androgynous (male like) and she fights back, either physically fighting back or escaping evil. Jeremy Tunstall wrote about existing research on women’s role in media texts in 1983. The four roles mentioned where; the domestic role (housewife), the marital role (someone’s wife), the sexual role (sex object) and the consumer role (does the shopping). In 1992 research showed that men dominated women on screen by a 2:1 ratio. The only genre where the ratio of males to females was more equal was advertising. One problem with the findings is the fact that females were more likely to be shown at home while males are more likely to be driving etc., meaning males still had the authoritive role. The reading suggests that Ripley (Alien) is ‘more progressive’ than Lara Croft (TR) because she’s not as sexualised. The 3 C’s when discussing the portrayal of women in some lifestyle magazines is; cooking, cleaning and caring. Laura Melvy wrote ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’, she discussed the ‘male gaze’ which is where women are seen as objects through the use of camera angles and shots, it’s supposed to be seen through a male prospective to pleasure the male audience. Some of the camera angles used to portray this is close ups particularly on the legs and slow tilts up and down the female body.