15 most empowering moments for women in TV from 2016

http://screenrant.com/most-empowering-moments-women-2016/?view=all

Rise of the Female Action Hero in contemporary media

https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilycanal/2015/03/18/insurgent-the-hunger-games-and-the-rise-of-the-female-action-hero/#42866caf4457




https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/nov/21/jessica-jones-agent-carter-supergirl-female-superhero

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/nov/21/jessica-jones-agent-carter-supergirl-female-superhero

Final In-Class Revision

G325 women revision from Nicola Naisbett

Writing the exam answer. A MUST READ BEFORE YOUR MOCK

• Analyse the ways in which the media represent any one group of people that you have studied.
• With reference to any one group of people that you have studied, discuss how their identity has been ‘mediated’.
• Analyse the ways in which the media represent groups of people.
• “The media do not construct collective identity; they merely reflect it”. Discuss.
• “Media representations are complex, not simple and straightforward”. How far do you agree with this statement in relation to any one group of people that you have studied?
• What is collective identity and how is it mediated?

So as you will notice, the questions may focus on how representations are constructed (or how the media mediate representation/identity) but you also need to consider how people read or make sense of those representations and how groups of people might construct their own identity (e.g. online through social media). The last two questions above essentially cover the same territory, but ask you to reflect upon it in a slightly different way- a quote in a question usually means here is something you can argue with- and you should. I would argue that the media never simply 'reflect' reality but construct a representation of it, so there would be something to really get your teeth into! And a look at contrasting representations of a particular group would allow you to explore the complexity, as indicated in the last question.

If we look at the bullet points in the Specification, which defines what should be studied, we should be able to relate them to the questions set so far:

• How do the contemporary media represent nations, regions and ethnic / social / collective groups of people in different ways? 
• How does contemporary representation compare to previous time periods? 
• What are the social implications of different media representations of groups of people? 
• To what extent is human identity increasingly ‘mediated’? 


This part of the exam asks you to do three more specific things, whatever topic you answer on:

1. You MUST refer to at least TWO different media
2. You MUST refer to past, present and future (with the emphasis on the present- contemporary examples from the past five years)
3. refer to critical/theoretical positions

So for 1. you might compare and contrast examples from film and TV or from newspapers and social media.

For 2. the main thing is to ensure you have a majority of material from the past five years. There were a number of answers last year which were dominated by older films, so beware of this!

For 3. you need some critics/writers who have developed ideas about representation and identity. 

You can't cover everything in this exam, as you only have an hour, so you need to be selective and very systematic in your answer. Have case study examples which really illustrate the kinds of points you want to make.

High Challenge and Extension......some additional resources / reading for Gone Girl

http://www.vulture.com/2014/10/yes-gone-girl-has-a-woman-problem.html#

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/10/female-villains-and-false-accusations-feminist-defence-gone-girl

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/act-four/wp/2014/10/03/is-gone-girls-amy-a-misogynist-a-misandrist-or-both/

http://metro.co.uk/2014/10/16/gone-girl-icy-amys-cool-girl-rant-is-a-refreshing-tonic-4899909/

Some very useful additional reading

Remember to skim read and pick out quotes that give an overview.

Progressive depictions of gender in advertising  http://www.theory.org.uk/mistry.htm

Tania Modeleski - Hitchcock debate http://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/The_Women_Who_Knew_Too_Much:_Hitchcock_and_Feminist_Theory_(2005)_by_Tania_Modleski

Rise of the Female Action Hero https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=0PKSFHwhTGYC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=rise+of+female+action+hero+%2B+bond&source=bl&ots=Z7dRpVKOy4&sig=gUF4--QykJy_Qbf7YHJDupvBSdg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiimOGAu6_LAhVDsxQKHR8qAXoQ6AEIOzAE#v=onepage&q=rise%20of%20female%20action%20hero%20%2B%20bond&f=false

Some additional reading on feminist perspectives

The Female Gaze

Some reading about the female gaze and good ideas to go into a discussion about the future and more progressive representations of women.

http://panels.net/2015/04/20/male-gaze-vs-female-gaze/

http://blogs.indiewire.com/womenandhollywood/embracing-the-female-gaze-20150730

Excellent Summary of feminist theories

This is an excellent revision pack from a teacher I know. Scroll through to the pages on feminism. There are excellent overviews of some key theorists for collective identity.

A2 Media Studies Revision Pack from Andy Wallis

List of Theorists

Some general overviews of different perspectives from Gauntlett's book

http://www.theoryhead.com/gender/extract.htm

Stretch and Challenge - excellent article on the rise of the female action hero.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2013/dec/12/female-action-heroes-katniss-role-models-women

This is a particularly interesting paragraph as it suggests that the female action hero is not totally empowering for women!

In Gender and the Action Heroine, Jeffrey Brown writes: "The modern action heroine confounds essentialism through her performance of traditionally masculine roles." Yet whether through nurture or nature, women in the real world tend to recoil from violence. Most feminists define it as "patriarchal and oppressive", according to Martha McCaughey and Neal King in Reel Knockouts: Violent Women in the Movies. These authors suggest that female action heroes may be "phallic women" who "reproduce male domination".

Mad Max - The rise of the female action hero?

Missing clip: fight scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dB74pkelfUI

The Bechdel Test

Alison Bechdel's original comic strip suggesting The Rule: http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/the-rule

This has been summarised as

• does the film contain at least 2 female characters?
• do they talk to each other?
• do they talk about something other than a man?

An explanation of it, with the added criterion that the female characters are named: https://feministfrequency.com/video/the-bechdel-test-for-women-in-movies/ 

For a community-based site of films that have and haven't passed the Bechdel Test, go to http://bechdeltest.com/ .

Passing the Bechdel Test does not mean a film is a feminist film, a good film or a fair / broad / balanced representation of women. 

There can be some surprising passes and fails. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_Vzl_8omgY

For one view on why the number of films that fail the Test is so high, go to https://thehathorlegacy.com/why-film-schools-teach-screenwriters-not-to-pass-the-bechdel-test/

Ex Machina Analysis ( 2 lessons)

Analysing Gone Girl

Hitchcock lesson 2

GRADE BOOSTER

Print, read and highlight this article - It supplements what we've looked at in class today and you can use some of these points in your exam response.

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/oct/21/alfred-hitchcock-women-psycho-the-birds-bidisha

Hitchcock lesson 1

Additional reading "Dan Ward" - Stretch and Challenge

Here is a link to a chapter on Bond by Dan Ward.
You can reference some of his ideas in the exam and back them up with examples of textual analysis that you have undertaken yourself.

https://drive.google.com/a/g.qeliz.ac.uk/file/d/0B7WOt2vyC8SrLVM4ZmhVX29kTDA/view?usp=sharing

High Challenge and Extension

See if you can make links with other films, advertisements. Can Dan's ideas be applied to other texts?

Bond

Ads and representation part 2

In the following book extract from Introduction to Gender: Social Science Perspectives, by Jennifer Marchbank and Gayle Letherby, 2014, read at least the section called Media, Culture and the Gendered Body:


Introduction to Gender: Social Science Perspectives

Ads and representation part 1

Representations of women - past ads

Application of intitial academic ideas and arguments

Thinking about Representation