Representation: Liesbet Van Zoonen - Feminsit Theory

Question 1

What practices result in objectified representations

Answer 1

• Male gaze invites: Male gaze invites (sex sells)
• Restricting females to secondary roles
• Constructing women as passive participants (e.g. sports coverage)
• Framing women differently (tilt downs and low eyeline compositions)
• Reinforcing narrow beauty ideals

Question 2

The female spectator

Answer 2

Argues that internalisation has caused women to adopt a masculine take on feminity

Question 3

The female spectator
How might this effect

Answer 3

• Female identification - women internalise what is represented as feminity
• Reading against the grain - Alternative readership patterns that challenge patriarchy
• Female genres - soap genres and romances ( the female gaze)

Question 4

Second wave feminism

Answer 4

1970s & 1980s
Paved the way from equal employment legalisation, educational opportunities and cultural empowerment

Question 5

Second wave of feminsim 1990s

Answer 5

Arguing that women themselves were best placed to choose whether they wanted to purse traditionally female roles or seek career-orientated goals

Question 6

Third wave feminsim

Answer 6

Girlie feminism - 1990’s

Completing the media landscape to include more powerful media representations, while also tempering those representations with value, ideals and outlooks that are traditionally feminine

Question 7

Fourth wave of feminism

Answer 7

Audiences using social media, primarily, to voice their criticisms regarding media objectification and to agitate for wider social change.

The #MeToo movement

Question 8

Masculinity in the media examples

Answer 8

• the male body is predominately celebrated through sports imagery
• Male eroticisation is romanticised (Female gaze is rarely expressed in the mainstream media)
• The active gaze - rarely to construct invitational poses
• Strength not weakness

Question 9

Active/passive representations

Answer 9

Media products, Van Zoonen would suggest, encode women to be passive and males to be active within media imagery. Depictions that construct gender in this way reinforce male social dominance

Question 10

Male gaze

Answer 10

A stylised depiction of women that invited viewers to take erotic pleasure while viewing the female form. The female gaze is constructed through invitational poses and passive body language

Question 11

Objectification

Answer 11

An image that demands or degrades its subject

Question 12

Patriarchy

Answer 12

A society constructed according to a male point of view which, as a result, allows males to become the dominant gender.

Question 13

Subversive representations

Answer 13

A media representation that challenges or undermines an idea or set of ideas that are widely held within society

Question 14

David Gauntlett hypothetical criticism evaluated

Answer 14

Would argue that contemporary media products, both online and mass media orientated, offfer audiences a much wider diversity of gender-based identities than is suggested by van Zoonen. This enables audiences to shape their own identities and to resist the ideological pull of patriarchy

C: Most of the gender based identities are still rooted in the objectification of women. As opposed to women being represented as passive subjects to the male gaze, they could be represented to actively purse it for their own financial gain e.g. Post-modern femininity.

Most media we consume is through the male gaze; as the majority of the media industry is men. SO the limited representations of gender-based identities we are offered are most likely constructed by men - they’re just no longer as overt.

Question 15

Judith Butler hypothetical criticism evaluated

Answer 15

Would agree with the majority, However would suggest further that the use of gender-based labels like ‘male’ and ‘female’ mask the complex nature of sexuality. She would also argue that individuals have resisted those conventional labels by engaging with gender trouble.

C: Butler herself argued that this is a painful process, so the vast majority of people are going to conform.

Plus, Internalisaiton of the male gaze is real.

You even see it infiltrate female-driven narratives or genres. Not many people have been exposed to enough media which incites ‘gender trouble’ or anything that deviates from heteronormative, patriarchal ideals, and since the majority of media is channeled through positions which the majority of are held by men…there’s a lot of internalisation and naturalisation going on.