Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Study Task 3 - Reading and Understanding a Text

David Gauntlett - Media, Gender and Identity 

Representation of gender today

Tone of voice:

My perception of tone of the voice within this piece is that its quite informal, although the language is moderately sophisticated, with the differing varieties of opinions aids the piece in having a casual tone of voice when addressing the reader. 

Key Points:
  • Society has an inequality of its views beauty and perceptions of specifically women in media
  • The attitude towards advertising and its influences in selling to a certain gender
  • The beauty industry is biased against gender and as a whole is often seen as a negative thing 
  • Attitudes towards different sexualities in media and the acceptance and tolerance that society has shown over the years
  • There is a lack of representation with diversity and an imbalance within gender roles and and the nature of those roles 

Key quotes:
  1. 'representations of gender in movies may have certain predictable trends but are quite diverse. Any critic or theorist who tries to suggest that films are all the same in terms of gender representation is simplifying to the point of meaningless'
  2. 'Some advertising is unapologetically sexist and is presumably used because its felt that the message 'works' for the target audience even if it might surprise and offend some others'
  3. 'Gender relationships shown in adverts may usually seem equal however content analysis still finds uneven numbers of men and women'
  4. 'Every woman knows that regardless of her other achievements she is a failure if she is not beautiful, the UK beauty industry takes £8.9 billion out of women's pockets, magazines funded by the beauty industry teach little girls they need makeup and train them to use it so establishing their life long reliance on beauty products' 
  5. 'Its a pressure that our culture puts on people these days but its not just limited to women'