Research into representation

Representation refers to how media represents certain social groups, particularly focusing on age, gender, social class, ethnicity, religion, disability and sexuality. Representation is ultimately how we perceive these groups. This can also apply to stereotypes in which the ultimate is the ‘blonde bimbo’ which refers to a blonde, brainless woman typically wearing revealing clothes.

Representation in media is a way of making sense of reality and without it we wouldn't have a real perception of the world, for example the news is a way of perceiving the world and without it we wouldn't have any other information other than what the media is feeding you. 

Gender is a key representation within our trailer; there are certain elements that help identify a gender, gender stereotyping comes from many different products and factors. Media can help the construction of a person’s gender often you’ll see ‘gender appropriate’ advertisements which encourage children’s understanding of gender. 

From the above images you can see that media encourages gender roles, girls are encouraged to be fragile, soft and delicate and of course love pink, whereas boys are encouraged to be more competitive and tough. 

I believe these gender conventions have been strongly adhered to with our characters, Rosie for example represents a rather weak and fragile women with a rather submissive nature, she is also a teacher which helps explore her caring nature, all of these characteristics are strongly reinforced in the media especially when looking to fairy tales in which the princess is all of the above and always reliant on a prince to rescue her. This is much alike an aspect of our trailer where we see George hugging Rosie he acts as her protection, he is dominant and tough and represents the 'appropriate behaviour' enforced by the media. 

Not only are gender characteristics enforced by the media but also aesthetics we never see a girl with short spiky hair advertising for my little pony. Or a limp and thin man advertising aftershave this is due to the fact media offers us only one option to conform to the stereotype of a thin and delicate woman or a strong and physically big man. 

However in a way we are challenging the gender representations of women, through our antagonist Evelyn who almost carries the representations of men, she is physically threatening and dominant all of which you would not expect to see in the representation of media.