How is Regional Identity represented in 'The Rotters Club'

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As we are introduced to the narrative the first shot is a close-up of a plate of food. The food is what you would describe as typical 'pub food'; steak and chips, a signifier that shows the characters are lower class.  We also see that two of the men are drinking beer from a tankard with their meal, again a symbol of their lower class, especially when we compare that the two Southerners are drinking glasses of wine, which is considered much more sophisticated. As the narrative progresses, we begin to understand that the men all work for the same company, with the North 'side' representing the workers, symbolic of the stereotype that the north are more working class.  As one of the managers announces each role there is a close up of what we could determine to be the most stereotypical of each region, so we are clear as to who is who. If we compare the way the managers and workers argue there point, we see a difference in their language and the way in which they put there point across. The first example we see is the manager, a representation of a southerner; he keeps his voice very controlled, with a calm manner and he uses the very formal phrase of 'paranoid mentality' to argue Roy's point. If we compare this to the northerner arguing a point, we see much more aggressive, 'brutish' attitude and colloquial language such as 'well bollocks to that' which reflects the stereotype of northerners being argumentative and the way they don't use 'proper' English. 
We see this colloquial language again as well another typical Northern male trait; being sexist and inappropriate towards women.  This is shown as we see the man speak to the waitress. Firstly, he calls her 'Bab' which is reflective of their slang words, but then he goes on to say ' Not that you're not saucy enough yourself' which could be seen as inappropriate and rude, yet none of the men, pass comment; showing how we have come to accept northerners to behave in this way; or alternatively it could reflect hoe un-argumentative Southerners are, as they dislike confrontations and like things to run smoothly. 
We see this towards the end of the narrative when one of the northern men explain that the southerners son is called 'Bent Rotter' instead of 'Benjamin Trotter' at school by his friends. Instead of re acting or defending his son from the insult, the man simply acknowledges that he was unaware of this and continues as he was, avoiding confrontation. 
We see another part of the Northern Stereotype that we previously saw in  the sketch about four Yorkshire men; the way they are proud to be worse off than others. This comes to light when one of the northern men find out that the other is sending his son the same school as the southern man. Describing the school the northerner calls it 'that poncy toff's academy' showing his resentment for any sort of academic achievements, and describing what most would class as a good thing in a negative light. 
We see the setting is a restaurant and judging from the decor it isn't a high class one, but more likely in the North. It is slightly dated looking, reflective of the stubborn ways of the North and there refusal to change. We can infer from this that although the managers are meeting with the workers to become equal, meeting them at a lower class place than what we assume they are used to suggests they could be embarrassed of their northern counterparts. 
We can also see that while the southerners are comfortable in their suits, the northerners have a more informal appearance; even though they are wearing suits, they don't fit quite right and we can infer that they aren't their usual attire. 
The sound is all diegetic to create a realistic atmosphere, possibly to symbolically represent that the North, South divide is real, if a bit exaggerated in this narrative. 

How is Disability represented in 'The Street'

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The narrative begins with a close up of barbed wire, which we associate with danger, or in fact keeping us away from danger, so this symbolic code helps us infer that we should be wary of what is behind the wire. Of course this is a more negative viewpoint, but we are made aware of the barbed wire and it's connotations from the close up.

We see a close up of a man looking into what you could class as a cage with a look of anxiety on his face. Then we see again through the cage effect that he is looking at a man walking up to a van. This is an action code, as it suggests something is about to happen between these men. From the camera angles and editing of this we can infer that this man is looking into the ‘cage’. As the narrative continues, we are introduced to the two characters previously seen by the van. We see the man outside the van has severe burns and scarring on the right side of his face, an enigma code as we want to know the story behind it. In the shot his face, or rather his disability, is framed in the front section of the vans window. Again this creates the feeling that he is in a sort of ‘cage’; which could be a symbolic code of how society separates those with a disability which coincides with the social model of disability of how it is society that puts him this box of disability, the burns don't disable him from doing a job which looks like it involves manual labour, however we deduce he can't simply because of the burns; he is disabled and therefore can't do it. When the topic of conversation turns to him being unable to get his old job back, the camera focuses in on the side of his face with scarring, yet before we predominantly see him from his non scarred face, the editing of the narrative reflects how the audience is seeing him; when we see as what we decide to be 'normal' we see the 'normal' side of his face, yet when we see him segregated because of his impairment, we see what we class as his disability in shot more. Throughout this scene there is diegetic sound which helps us realise the social realism being shown, they are trying to represent a realistic view of how people with disabilities cope in society. Again we see a close up of the barbed wire, however this time behind it is the man with the scars, this is possibly a symbolic code showing he feel like he is in a cage, and is restricted.

Next we see the man going to help a woman who has dropped her shopping. The pace of editing has picked up slightly from the previous scene, possibly reflecting his anger at being denied a job. We approach the woman from the mans point of view, which helps the audience relate to the character. But we also see how the woman sees the man and why it shocks her, the close-up camera angle and quick editing creates this effect to make it more shocking. The setting in this scene could also be seen as relevant to the representation of disability. It is uphill, and as the man is climbing up the hill he is below them so, which could show social inferiority, yet as he walks off he picks up speed; he is trying to run away from the woman and a situation where his disability was the focus.
The narrative continues to a shorter sequence with no dialogue and the first non diegetic sound. It is fast and angry to match the characters feelings. The use of drums with a beat, gives a tribal feeling which links into the idea that he could be seen like an animal in a cage, or alternatively it could be a symbolic code; we associate tribal music as something foreign to us, just like we see his disability, as something that sets him apart, like in the idea of differences.
A sound bridge takes us into the next part of narrative where we immediately see a darker room, with the blinds shut, suggesting this scene will have a more negative atmosphere, most likely due to the characters anger. The light falls through the blinds to create a bar effect on the mans face, which once again links back to the idea of being in a cage. For the angrier parts of the conversation between the man and what appears to be his commanding officer in the army, we see more focused shots on the side of his face with scarring; an animalistic representation, which links again to the idea that people with disabilities are different to everyday people. The switching of shots between between his scarred and non-scarred face shows the binary opposites of his personality; the 'normal' human being and the man with an impairment that separates him from everyone else.

Memento - How the editing creates the films narrative and represents the character and his disability

The film memento has a non-linear narrative, which differs from typical films. The film is edited to separate the film into two sections; the black and white scenes and the colour scenes.

The opening shot of the film is an extreme close up of what would appear to be a mans hand holding a Polaroid; a very gory photograph of a person who has clearly been shot in the head,with blood splattered everywhere; this is an enigma code as the audience want to know the circumstances around this mans death,like who killed him and why there was a picture being taken of him. As the scene continues the Polaroid begins to fade and it is shaken, as it would be whilst it is developing and it soon becomes clear that the scene is going backwards in time, as the photograph un-develops. The Polaroid itself is a cultural code as if you weren't aware of how Polaroids work then you wouldn't understand. Non-diegetic sound plays along with this to create an atmosphere that creates emotion for the audience as they are looking at an image that can fuel emotion so, they have added music to encourage the triggering of this. The music builds up as the scene goes backwards until we see a quick flashes of the shooting that just happened, the pace of the editing in this matches the events of the shooting and the music becomes much more dramatic for those few seconds, triggering interest for the audience as they know some of their questions could be answered, however the editing cuts so that although we see the event, we don't gage the reasoning behind the shooting or in fact all the details of what and who this person is. We see the pace gradually increase as we work from the aftermath to the actual shooting, the taking of the photo and the shots of the fired bullet and glasses fallen on the floor are shown slowly, with the audience able to piece together the confusing details. This music and the scene working its way backwards is an action code as the scene before which is actually what happened after implies some form of action is just about to take place; as we can see from the Polaroid that something has.

The narrative then moves into a completely different direction as the scenes become black and white. It appears to be the past; as the commentary by the character himself implies. The editing in this scene is substantial; with lots of short close ups and extreme close ups of parts of the man and the room he is in, showing all the little details. It begins with a close up of the mans profile and it focuses in on his eye, implying to the audience that we are about see this characters point of view. Sure enough we soon see the room and shots of the mans body such as his leg, through the man's eyes. This is when we first become aware of his disability. The audience were left with an enigma code as to why the man was taking a photo of the man he shot earlier, yet as we see examples of his lack of short term memory it becomes clearer. Along with the characters commentary on it, the disability is a huge part of the storyline and his character. The short close-up montage editing is a symbolic code of the characters memory as it portrays it as simplistic; from the monotonal colours, and obviously limited from the short shots in the sequence; so the editing is giving us an insight into his disability.
The scene returns to colour and we assume to be back to the scene of the shooting where we left. but this isn't the case; we see the man interact with a member of staff where he is staying discussing his disability and explaining how he can't remember the man behind the counter. He pays a fee for his room, so it is made clear he is staying in some sort of temporary accommodation, a symbolic code of how his life is temporary due to his disability, however this is a cultural code as not everyone would be aware of such places as motels, which seem the most likely place for him to be staying. Then we are introduced to someone we recognise, the man who he shot, so we know that the film isn't following a chronological order and that we are going to find out the circumstances leading to the shooting. We know this character is key as there is another Polaroid of him and the man is aware of his importance even though he can't remember anything else.
The colour scenes are playing out the actual events leading up to the events at the beginning, and showing him  living in society and dealing and interacting with people unaware of his disability, yet the black and white narrative gives us an insight into his perception of himself and the situation and the way his mind works, or doesn't. He commentates them so to allow an explanation with showing any extra shots that need to explain the storyline; instead the black and white shots focus on what the character is seeing himself.

Sexuality in Skins

The sequence opens with a close-up of the character's eyes, which immediately open as the asynchronous sound of church bells starts. This is a British cultural code, so we infer that it is Sunday morning simply because we know that in England there is a church service every Sunday where the bells sound at the start of service. His facial expression is blank and he doesn't look as if he has just woken up, which is an enigma code that leads the audience to question why a teenager is lying awake on a Sunday morning, when stereotypically they never get out of bed. As the camera slowly pans out, we again see a sign of him not having slept as the sun falls on his face; his curtains are open which suggests that he has not slept deliberately. However what is unusual is the shadows symmetrically fall on either side of his face, which could possibly be a symbolic code of showing he has two sides to him. As the camera pans out further we see his duvet is unusual; it has the body of a naked man and woman on it; an enigma code as it leads us to question what kind of character has this as his bedspread. He must have a lot of confidence in himself and be independent of his parents; either they are very understanding or don't care. The fact that there is both genders on there could symbolise the fact that this character is bisexual, and the fact that he is lying in between could support this, but it could also show that he is confused between the two. 
The bells continue to sound and grow evidently louder as more of the shot is revealed. Since the suggestion of bisexuality is introduced during this it could be a symbolic code to suggest the controversial nature of the character as the bells are linked with a religion in which it is frowned upon to be bisexual. 
Looking at the bed, the character doesn't appear to have moved which again suggests that he has deliberately not slept; and the audience could infer that there is something wrong or worrying him as a reason for the lack of sleep. 
We see that his room is unstereotypical of a teenagers, it is tidy and white with a sort of clinical feel about it. The fact that it is white could be a symbolic code of his sexuality as he doesn't yet know his identity, and he is unsure so at the minute his room is blank. The only stand out part is the bed cover, which links to sexuality and suggest that this is the main focus of this character. 
At the end of the clip his alarm goes off, which is again unusual of a teenager on a Sunday morning but is also an enigma code as the audience questions what the reason could be for him having an alarm to get up on a Sunday, and why he has set it if he has deliberately been lying awake regardless to the time. Throughout the clip the editing is a slow paced pan out, which synchronises with the slow relaxed pace of the church bells however as we finish the clip the editing switches quickly as his alarm goes off, again the sound matches the pace of the clip.

Sound

There are different types of sound during TV and film:


Diegetic: Natural sounds that are sourced within a scene, such as the people talking, or noise made by movements, doors opening and the radio or television in the background. The main types of TV pregrammes that use these are soaps such as Eastenders and Coronation Street or medical dramas such as Holby City, as they want the scenes to appear like everyday life and to make them more credible.


Non-Diegetic: Sound that is added to a scene to create an atmoshere, such as a soundtrack. A potential problem would be that it loses realism, but it does create a dramatic effect.


Sound Bridge: Sound which carries on over two different scenes which then literally creates a bridge between two events.


Incidental Music: Small, very brief snippets of sound which creates an emotion or feeling. This is normally more cultural, than for a character. 


Asynchronous Sound: A natural sound, which is out of place and without a source on the scene.
Contrapunctual Sound: Sounds which create opposite emotion to the one which is on screen.

Moral Panics, Hypodermic Theory and the Passive Audience

In pairs we had to look at an area in the media which had caused public controversy. We produced presentations using the Xtranormal website. 
Columbine high school massacre: 
The massacre was carried out by two boys, with 12 students and 1 teacher being killed as well as 21 others being injured. It is believed that a factor in influencing the two shooters was a video game called 'Doom'. In which a marine has been posted to mars by his captain where he has to attack enemies in order to prevent them from attacking earth. The two shooters were supposedly avid fans of the game and had created their own levels online. Another supposed influence was 'The basketball diaries' film and the music of Marilyn Manson; who was largely blamed for the strong influence of violence in his music. However as investigations continued it became known that the boys had already been given restricted access to computers and it was thought that the massacre was a way of relieving stress. The biys were also thought to be clinically depressive. 
Skins:
The channel 4 TV drama is said to be a bad influence on teenagers, as they want to copy the lifestyles of the characters on the show.To older people it is often seen as offensive as it contains sex, drugs and alcohol, so parents don't want their children to copy this. It can put pressure on teenagers as they feel this is how they should be, and it promotes the lifestyle of being a 'dropout' and not ding well in life. The Sun newspaper also described the show as 'controversial' and with such media attention focusing on it, it drew media attention to the series and encouraged people to watch it as it was something of public interest; so the controversial nature of the show increased ratings and made the show more successful. Abbie, whose presentation it was, said that she watched the show and enjoyed it but it didn't make her want to be like them as it was too unrealistic to be real life, yet it does address serious issues of being a teenager or just life in general.

Man Hunt: 
The idea of the video game is to kill innocent people so there was a lot of controversy surrounding it. There has been speculation that the game has led to violence and crime. It was reported that a boy was brutally murdered by his best friend in a way that was influenced by the game, and the boy was supposedly and avid fan of the game. It was also reported that it was banned in New Zealand, this was publicized in the hope that it would increase sales, with the idea that if the media portrayed it badly then it would want to be played more which, turned out to be an effective marketing strategy. 


Paranormal Activity: 
The film is all about a American woman who has been possessed and is said to be one of the scariest films of all time. It is said to be based on true events and the formatting of the film shows this idea of it being real. The media reported people leaving the film early because they were so scared and there was lots of attention on blogs and i newspapers. The film got a lot of attention from rumours that were later believed to be a publicity stunt, this was things such as people having medical problems from being so scared of the film.




Rap Music:

Reap music as a genre in general is said to be corrupting children. The amount of talk about drugs, violence and gangs is said to encourage children to be like this as this is what they're roll models are like. It gives listeners a bad mentality, and if they listen to it over and over again it may eventually become what is called a 'sleep state'. The censored sticker on CD's that warns of explicit language makes the music more desirable as the children want something they can't have. 


Call of Duty- The airport level:
The level in this Call of Duty involves a terrorist attack in which the player is on the side of the terrorists and civilians have to be killed. It creates the illusion that violence is acceptable. The media reported the game badly, suggesting the violent depiction of a terrorist attack in an airport should be banned. Although there is a warning of content before the level and you are not actually forced to  kill civilians, if terrorists are killed then the level ends. Another factor is that in video games we associate anyone being killed as 'enemies' so when we are trying to kill civilians we start to see them as enemies and as you experience this there has been suggestions that you can simulate it. 

How does Calvin Klein represent females in the above advert? Are they objectified or sexually empowered?

Calvin Klein could be seen as representing females in a number of ways with this advert. Initially you can see Laura Mulvey's idea of the male gaze simply because we are seeing an idealized woman; we as females think this is what men expect their 'perfect' woman to look like. Another thing that links with this is that the emphasis is predominantly on her body and of course the underwear advertised, whereas stereotypically women focus on faces; so you could argue that the advert is mainly for men, even though it is a woman’s product being advertised. Another thing you notice is that her hair is damp and her body is most probably oiled up to create a look of being wet which if we look further into it makes us think she has just got out the shower. Adding this to what she is wearing suggests she is likely to be going out, more likely in the evening to a party or on a date because her underwear isn’t exactly ‘casual’. We deduce that she is unlikely to be going out alone, and that in fact she is probably going out with a man. This sends the message to those who see the advert that Calvin Klein is associated with people who attract the opposite sex and possibly means women would aspire to be like this and buy Calvin Klein underwear to get a man.

You can also pick out other things deemed to appeal to men. She’s wearing high heels which make her legs look slimmer, and also she is wearing suspenders which are associated with sexiness, yet the ones she’s wearing are tasteful because they are plain and stylish and black which can be seen as a sexy colour. Her hands placed on her hips draw attention to the underwear advertised and also a certain region that would appeal to men. On her hands we also see no wedding or engagement ring, showing that she’s available.

However, you can also clearly see how this could be taken as sexually empowering for women. For example; even though the lack of wedding ring shows availability, it also shows independence and suggests she doesn’t need a man in her life to be successful. Her stance in itself is powerful; she has her legs apart which is a dominant, more masculine pose. It is also a low angle shot, so we are looking up at her, which again shows dominance. Although the hands on hips draws attention to where men would look the actual positioning shows an attitude that could be more threatening than inviting. Looking at her face we see that the look is reminiscent mostly of Trevor Millum’s seductive pose and the Marjorie Ferguson’s invitational or romantic/sexual poses. Her head is turned away from the camera and her eyes are closed which add a sense of mystery to her; making her seem superior to the male viewer. This also keeps the attention on the product advertised. Looking at her bra, we see that it is quite a basic, plain one, and with it being black as well, it could be classed as masculine; which once again shows how she is empowered. Finally looking at the Calvin Klein logo, we see it is positioned behind her, showing superiority. This tells us that Calvin Klein is promoting the idea that if you wear their products you too could be a powerful attractive woman like Eva Mendes. On the other hand, it is also positioned around the area that they are trying to draw men’s eye-line to, so you could see it as them objectifying her instead.

Overall,  I think Calvin Klein are just trying to market the product to both genders, which is why although there is some possible objectifying of women with the fact that she is wearing very little and is essentially an idealised woman, that men would most definitely be attracted to. This could encourage men to buy the underwear because they want their partners to emulate this woman. This links to Laura Mulvey’s suggestion of how men look at women. Similarly, women would see this advert and want to be as much like this woman as possible, and would compare themselves to her- again like Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory in how women view other women. It empowers women because of the power we can see and how she clearly is in control. Women would aspire to be like her, so would ideally go out and buy Calvin Klein underwear to achieve this.

Trevor Millum (1990's)

Seductive:

• Cool/level
• Eyes less wide
• Expression is less reserved but still self-confident
• This is very similar to Ferguson’s invitational pose, however there is less focus on the positioning of the face and its angles. 

Care-free

• Nymph like
• Active
• Healthy
• Vibrant
• Outdoor girl
• Often smiling/grinning

Practical:

• Concentrating
• Engaged in business in hand
• Mouth closed
• Eyes object directed
• Sometimes a slight frown
• Hair often tied back or short style 

Comic:

• Deliberately ridiculous
•  Exaggerated
• Acting the fool
• Pulling faces

Catalogue:

• A neutral look as of a dummy, artificial, wax like 
• Features may be in any position - but most likely to be with eyes wide open and a smile
• Looks remain vacant and empty with personality removed

Marjorie Ferguson (1980's)

She identified 4 types of facial expressions on magazine covers:

Chocolate Box:

• Half/full smile
• Lips together/ Slightly parted
• Full/ Three- quarters of face to the camera
• The chocolate box look is blandly pleasing, the uniformity of beauty and devoid of uniqueness.

Invitational:

• Emphasis on the eyes
• Mouth shut with hint of a smile
• Head to one side or looking back to the camera
• The invitational look has emphasis on the eyes, mouth shut with a hint of a smile, and head  to one side or looking back to the camera.

Super-Smiler:

• Full face
• Wide open, toothy smile
• Head thrusts forward or chin thrown back
• Hair often wind blown
•  The super smiler look is often aggressive, with a look at me attitude.

Romantic/Sexual:

• Includes male/female 'two somes'
• Dreamy
• Heavy lidded
• Overtly sensual/sexual
• This look shows possible or definite availability

The Male Gaze

Typical Representation of the male gaze

Laura Mulvey: 

A criticism of filming. Suggests men deliberately create women to look a certain way. The concept of the gaze is one that deals with how an audience views the people presented. Audiences view charcters from the perspective of a hetrosexual male. Features of the male gaze include the camera lingering on the curves of the female body and anything that happens to a woman is presented largely in the man's reactions to this event. It degrades the woman to the extent of making her an object or posession. Female viewers must experience the narrative secondarily by identification with the male. The gaze suggests that women are weak and defenceless when we know this isn't true.

There are three parts to it:

• How men look at women
• How women look at themselves
• How women look at other women

Men looking at women: 

Men tend to look at the 'curvy parts' of women. Like the idea that men don't tend to look women in the eyes, but at other parts of their bodies. Even the camera focuses more on a womens body sometimes. 

Women looking at themselves:

Women are made to look at themselves in a negative way, picking fault with parts of their appearance when they see how women look in the media; when they have been airbrushed. It triggers a lack of self esteem and makes women aspire to be like models in magazines or on TV. They become reflective. 

Women looking at women:

Of course women can also look at women in a sexual way. But mainly they judge and compare themselves to other girls. For example you would look at a girl if you liked what they were wearing, but in a way where you compare what you are wearing, or if you would like something similar instead of the way men look at women. 

We watched the video of Scouting for Girls 'She's so lovely' to see an example of the male gaze:

Mr Smith asked us all questions about the video to compare the boys and girls results and show the male gaze 'theory'. Unsurprisingly the girls scored higher than the boys, even with less of us. This showed how the girl in the video distracted the boys and thus proved the male gaze.

Leon Festinger

Stereotypes shape public opinion. They are narrative shortcuts which orientate the audiences expectations. Some people argue that stereotypes are fixed and unchanging. This is known as mass audience hypodermic theory; stereotypes unconsciously inject a belief about people into our mind to manipulate our opinion of these people. For example, the idea that teenagers are bad.

Festinger believes we resist changing our opinions unless faced with overwhelming evidence against what we believe. Cognitive dissonance is when our 'brain' encounters new ideas and rejects them because they don't match our expectations.

Representation, Prezi Presentation

We were put into pairs in our class and asked to each design a Prezi presentation on a specific area of representation out of the seven areas. We had to apply these to British TV and film to how certain groups of people are stereotypically presented. 

7 different areas: 

Gender

Age

Ethnicity

Sexuality

Class and Status

Physical Ability/Disability

Regional Identity

The presentations were shown and we wrote notes about them:

Age: 
A baby has two different stereotypical sides. The first we saw was how they whinge and are always crying, but we also saw how they can be cute and cuddly. Old people can be seen and whinging moaning older people, or as very wise and someone to go to advice for. Although the age difference is extreme, you can link them together in that they are both helpless and in need of care, which shows a symbolic code between the two. Teenage stereotypes were linked to anti social behaviour and we saw Vicky Pollard as an exaggerated example of this. But then we also looked at opposing pictures showing teenagers hard at work.

.

Ethnicity: 
The clothing worn by characters is usually one of the most important things we associate with that character from the very beginning. We associate black teens, such as Thomas from skins, to be unapproachable because of the clothes he wears. However in Hollyoaks the character of Calvin goes against this stereotype because he is dressed no different to anybody else, implying that he is in fact no different. When we see any type of Indians or Indian culture (in Eastenders for example) we associate them with a very traditional culture. They have very controlling parents and very often we see arranged marriages that the person isn’t committed to. However, other programmes such as Hollyoaks chose not to reflect the ethnicity of an Indian family so traditionally towards their culture.  Camera Shots: Looking at this is England, we see how the  ethnicity can affect the filming, For example, a lot of shots are filmed from below which suggests that the audience should in fact be intimidated by these people of look up to them. This could mean how the 'skinheads' were viewed around the time. We also see shots of the setting which shows us stereotypically council houses and estates; this is what we imagine the life of these people to be like and where they live or come from.

TV dramas sometimes go against stereotypes to create a storyline or just to increase interest in the character. In Hollyoaks Calvin is a black police officer, which goes against his stereotype as not only is he working, but he is in the police which oppose ideas that black people sit around all day and are criminals. A particular storyline that goes against ethnicity was Syed in Eastenders who found being gay difficult to accept, simply because of his religion and how it is not acceptable. Because of this being so against his religion it created a dramatic storyline as to what would happen. 

Sexuality: 
We have a preconceived idea that gay men are very feminine and wear tight fitting clothes, however this isn't necessarily true and yet this is how the media presents them. We also have a view that all lesbians are butch, but we saw that Lindsay Lohan was an exception to this since she is very much not a stereotypical lesbian.  We see settings of Gay pride parades with lots of feminine men and masculine women, which indicate to us that this is how they are. Particular character traits, such as those by Neil's dad in the Inbetweeners imply he is gay when in fact he is not. This includes things like being a drama queen. We watched a clip of Billy Elliott which showed how we immediately associate more feminine things with being gay, like Billy's dad assumes when he sees he is in ballet class. Many plots in shows follow a distinct pattern where the character discovers their sexuality, tells people, and then deals with reactions. The media make a big focus on sexuality and how it can be the person you least expect, which is why it makes a good storyline. In particular it draws attention when a teenager is gay.

Lesson 2:

Age:

When we see babies, stereotypically they are either crying or shown as being cute. They are sometimes the lead character and if they are it is usually aimed at children of a similar age. Kids of a slightly older age are usually shown as more mature than they actually are, and have things that most children don't have. This is usually because the makers want to encourage children to aspire to be successful and have these things. However it could be criticised as it forces expectations to act older on younger children.

When we think of the 12-14 year old age on TV we see them with action packed lives, with lives that people there age would aspire to be like.They are also stereotypically lazy so they are portrayed with action packed lives that hypodermically give children ideas of what we want them to be. 

Older teenagers are usually split into 'status groups' and in TV comedy is used to put teenagers off becoming certain stereotypes such as the Vicky Pollard 'Chav' stereotype. There is also programmes such as Skins which glamorize the idea of being a 'drop out' and taking drugs. A criticism of this is that it puts pressure on teenagers to behave a certain way in order to be 'cool'. However the main audience of Skins is middle aged men.

Looking at Hollyoaks as an example of young adults (20ish) we see that they are all very good looking and glamorous. This is probably because it makes teenagers want to grow up in the sense that when they do their lives could be like this.

Looking at Eastenders you can see example of people in there 30's or 40's, such as Tanya, Max and Jack Branning, who symbolise sophisticated, successful people who again younger people or even people of that age want to be like. the women wear more demure clothes than younger women or teenagers, as this is what we expect, and the men wear expensive suits that show masculinity and power. 

When we see the elderly on TV we either think of them as weak and helpless, like we saw a picture of war heroes with a blanket covering their legs; which is similar to how a child sometimes has a blanket with them.You can also have the 'kooky' old lady or man, or a wiser old person, who people go to for advice. 

 Ability/Disability:

This is represented very stereotypically, for example we see the disabled sign and immediately recognise it, yet a disabled person doesn't actually look like this. 

We watched a clip from the TV programme 'Spazticus' made by disabled people.

The clothing of disabled people  is usually comfortable or what we would describe as 'housewear' which shows them as vulnerable and weak. Their houses are very often seen as untidy and dirty to show how they cant really do any housework or that they are just incapable. They also generally live in bungalows that are undecorated. The camera angle very often looks down which makes them look small and is also demeaning; the carer is also very often in shot with them which shows how they cant manage on their own. A criticism of how disability is shown on TV would be the focus they put on the disability. They make this a key interesting thing about the character; they focus on the disability over the person itself.Also they very often associate disability with being in a wheelchair, and that not only are they physically deficient but also mentally when this is obviously not always the case, and is very patronising to people who are disabled.  The only real character traits that disabled people have are that they are either very stupid or very evil. A main example of how disability is shown, is Andy from Little Britain.

Gender: 

We were shown the typical signs of gender and how they are binary opposites. We then looked at how men and women compare in a patriarchal society that can be seen in some TV dramas

            Men:                       Women:        

           Trousers                    Skirts                

Strong                      Weak

Short hair                   Long hair

More money              Less Money

  Working                   Housewife

Bigger                       Smaller

In old films we see women who are helpless and waiting for a 'hero'

We see how even now men are the person to lean on, they are often shown as very stoic and show little emotion. Women are shown as dramatic. We were shown an example of stereotypical men in Fight Club. We see how men are portrayed as angry and aggressive, whilst women cheer them on. 

We also see even in soaps men in fights. This is a criticism as it shows violence, and potentially fuels a violent society. It perpetuates the violent stereotype of British men. In soaps we also see how most businesses are owned by men.

There is also the idea of the male gaze, where viewers are frequently invited to identify with male characters and to objectify females. Women are filmed predominantly by men so we see women through men's eyes. 

Representations of men across all media tend to focus on the following:

Strength - physical and intellectual power.

Sexual attractiveness (which may be based on the above)

Physique

Independence - of thought, action

Representation of women across all media tend to focus on the following:

Beauty (within narrow guidelines; looking a certain way is looking beautiful)

Size/Physique (again within narrow guidelines or expectations)

Sexuality (as expressed in the above)

Emotional - as opposed to intellectual

Relationships - as opposed to independence/freedom