research media magazine PUT INTO WORD

MM32:

'represented. If, on the other
hand, one believes that representations are
constructed in order to fit in with mainstream
hegemonic values, then we could assume that
ideological messages around fat being bad, or fat
being associated with laziness, gluttony or even
poverty and lack of education,'
page 22

seeing celebrities slim or fat
They support the Effects model, where we,
the passive audience, absorb the messages of
media, unable to think for ourselves.
page 23

Such debates are similar to the size zero
debate – the idea that the prevalence of skinny
models encourages anorexia and extreme
dieting among young girls.
page 23

most celebrities have
unrealistic and extreme body shapes? Models
are unnaturally thin, sport stars are unnaturally
toned, Madonna requires constant input from
a personal trainer and a personal chef and,
aged 50, spends half her life in the gym to keep
her figure.
page 24

Allen’s representation of
the young, modern female will resonate with many
members of her audience,
page 47

I’ll take my clothes off and it will be shameless
Coz everyone knows that’s how you get famous.
-LILLY ALLEN
page 47

MM34

In the early 1970s the cultural critic John
Berger summarised the way in which gender was
represented in the media through visual images:
Men act and women appear. Men look at
women. Women watch themselves being
looked at.
Berger 1972
page 65

the ‘men active: women passive’

1975 Laura Mulvi
In a world ordered by sexual imbalance,
pleasure in looking has been split between
active/male and passive/female.
age 65

{To what extent do you think Berger’s and
Mulvey’s statements from nearly 40 years ago
hold true today? At the time they were writing,
women were undoubtedly second-class citizens.}

HISTORICAL

that although women may be
constructed as more dynamic characters on film
than in the 1960s, they are only represented as
being independent of men a minority of the time.
page 66

Where have all the interesting women gone?
If the contemporary portrayal of womankind
were to be believed, contemporary female
achievement would culminate in the
ownership of expensive handbags, a vibrator,
a job, a flat and a man – probably in that
order.
page 67

Occasionally
the media does represent women as powerful
and independent characters, and yet they still
almost invariably require a man to tell them
what to do. The ideologies of male dominance
and patriarchal values have not diminished; and
the belief that they have offers a classic example
of ‘hegemony’: a state where the oppressed
consent to, and accept, their situation because
they are not conscious of being exploited.
page 67

MM40

A post-feminist reading of this might
be that since Beyoncé is openly allowing herself
to be objectified, indeed encouraging it by
looking down the camera playfully and winking
at the audience, she is controlling ‘the gaze’ and
is thus empowered. However, like so many other
post-feminist texts which openly acknowledge
‘the gaze’ in this playful postmodern ‘knowing’
way, we also see a simultaneous reassuring of
patriarchal anxieties.
page 67