Post on 14-Aug-2015
Tuchmann, Mulvey, Clover and Gauntlett
on Gender Representation and the Media
Research
Gaye TuchmanGaye Tuchman was an American
sociologist who wrote a famous
essay which surrounded her ideas of
how the media portrayed women in
the 20th century and how this effects
women's lives in society. This
Included events such as: The Vote;
Women entering the paid labour
force and in education; the rise of the women’s movement.
Tuchmann mainly focused how the
female stereotypes affected their
lives. She suggested that the media
were not properly and truthfully
representing the drastic changes of
women's life over the course of the
century. She believes due to the
medias inaccurate portrayal of
women and their lives they live, it
played a part in limiting women's life chances.
(http://www.academia.edu/2282271)
http://prezi.com/fbcqsr42x6hb/gender-representation/
Laura Mulvey
A theory proposed by Laura Mulvey (1975) implies that mainstream hollywood films
portray their female actors in a
scopophilic way. This means that
women are seen in film as object
for male sexual desire - This
concept is called the ‘male gaze
theory’. Her writings such as: the
1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, helped
establish feminist film theory as a legitimate field of study.
Carol Clover
Carol Clover proposed a theory arguing
that classic horror films are designed to
align spectators not with the male
tormentor bit with the female tormented.
This means that the woman suffers all
the pain and trouble throughout the film
and is seen as the victim. At the end of
the film the her comes to vanquish her.
Examples of this includes ‘Scream’.
(http://press.princeton.edu/titles/4982.html
)
David Gauntlett
David Gauntlett is a british
sociologist and media theorist who
work with in media had a particular
focus of the representation of
women over the years. Similar to
Tuchmann’s ideas, Gauntlett felt that females have been
unrepresented by the media and
that it was not until the 70’s until
women were finally portrayed at
heroic. Untill then, women have
played important roles, however
the men seem to over power them.
(http://jeriahimigesinmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/representations-of-gender-in-past.html
)