Jennifer Siebel Sitcom's Miss Representation

Miss Representation, written, directed, and produced by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, claims that mainstream media contributes to the underrepresentation of females in influential positions which limit and often disparaged the portrayals of women. The film underscores and implicits messages that young women need and want positive role models, and that the media has thus far neglected its obligation to provide them. Miss Representation included a social campaign to address the change in the media’s representation and advertising. The film expresses the need for enhanced media censorship in the American culture; especially when children are exposed to this explicit advertising. The movie indicates that the advertising industry that governs the content

The media targets both female and male recipients, it is not just toward women (Fell 1). Miss Representation fails to recognize that the media objectifies and sexualizes both genders. Fell asserts that Magazines and tabloids hold photoshopped images of males that when compared to a normal american male’s body, can cause a major loss of self-esteem. Women in media are often portrayed a sexual objects, however, the same applies to the men. It appears that “[men] are targeted for being ‘too thin’ and some say bodybuilders ‘look gross’ and ‘must be on steroids’” (Fell 2). There is no winning for Americans, their bodies are either “too fat”, “too thin”, or “gross.” Miss Representation states that women are overly objectified and sexualized creating a mass insecurity for women. Additionally, Noah Berlatsky, the illustrations editor for The Atlantic, quotes in his article “Women’s Magazines Objectify Women Just as Much as Men’s Magazines Do” that most magazines are based around eroticized images of women, so therefore, male centered magazines are not the only ones to blame for the sexualization of women (Berlatsky 3). He ventilates that “women’s magazines...are providing female bodies for women, and telling women that (other) female bodies are objects to be used for their enjoyment” this contradicts Miss Representation’s

According to Liza Mundy, a female activist, the media is biased under a man’s eye. Men in the media dominate over women a in a ratio of almost to ten to one (Mundy 1). The male’s influence in media makes women portray what the men want in a female. According to Miss Representation, this is because women in the media account for a mere twenty percent of employees in media production. This limits American’s exposure to female produced ideals in media. Moreover, Adrienne LaFrance, a staff reporter for the Atlantic, and her article, “I Analyzed a Year of My Reporting for Gender Bias (Again)”, proves to the reader that gender bias in media happens a lot more than one may think. LaFrance’s article examines her work using graphs and charts comparing the mentions of men compared to women. The analysis shows that only twenty-two percent of women were quoted or mentioned in her work (LaFrance 3). This supports the claim used by Miss Representation that women are thought of as secondary citizens in America and that most are “thrown under the bus” by media representation. Ultimately, The film focuses specifically on the depictions that trivialize women, it does not explore the counter argument that men are targeted,