Critical Review On Gender Representation

Representation:
Minorities or marginalised sections of society have been known to be misrepresented in the media. If we take the issue of gender equality under the heading of representation in media culture, we can see that there are several similarities with those issues outlined when discussing the production of media.
This issue can be explored further and more in depth when discussing how these marginalised areas of society are portrayed on film.
Raising the argument of accurate representation particularly of females in mainstream media, focusing on film and television representations, it must be discussed on several grounds. The reading that best supports this view is the Laura Mulvey reading “visual pleasure and narrative cinema” (Mulvey 1975).
Although this reading is dated it does raise some interesting issues with regards to gender representation in cinema. Mulvey discusses the male gaze in cinema and outlines how woman are portrayed on screen from a male view point. She discusses how this could influence media in such a way that it may lead to the female section of the society to be misrepresented. The mention of scopophilia in Mulvey’s study is focused mainly on females and it is outlined that in most films by most directors the woman is the object of desire or the damsel in distress. Meaning that if the female character was removed from

These tests and studies first introduced in the mid – eighties are applied to the film narrative and outline whether female characters in some films have a significant role in the overall plot. This test looks at the female characters on screen and analyses whether their conversations accurately represent the view of women in modern society. It has been found that only half of films containing one or more female have passed this test unifying the argument that females in film may be under represented (Alison Bechdel