Wednesday 4 November 2015

Notes and Quotes

Critical investigation notes
Theories
Select at least five and say how each relates to your study, using keywords/specific theorists' names from the Media A-Z
·         Gender and ethnicity
·         Audience theories
·         Genre theories
·         Levi strauss
·         watershed
I will be mentioning books about gender as there aren't many things linking to the actual show.
Feminism at the movies- Radner and Stringer.
Women and film both sides of the camera-E.Ann Kaplan
The walking dead comic series-Robert kirkmen
Gender, Genre, and Identity in Women's Travel Writing-Siegel, Kristi
Women and Gender: A Feminist Psychology- By Rhoda K. Unger, Mary

Sarah Connor- the terminator chronicles
Lara Croft- tomb raider

Internet Links
1. At least FIVE from Media Guardian or Guardian Culture or another newspaper website.
“also urged people not to see men doing childcare as “second-class mothers” but rather as “irreplaceable first-class fathers”.

She says it is both about racial and gender hatred and can be perpetuated by non-black people and by black men – it is the latter, Jones says, she experienced the most often. “In my campaigning on street harassment, I have been targeted because I am a black woman who is vocal. They don’t go to anybody from Hollaback or Stop Street Harassment [campaigns run by white women] ... they will say I’m a traitor and call me a tool for white supremacy ... just because I’m calling out their very targeted misogynoir.
had a pram full of animals when I was little, but my auntie insisted that I have a dolly, because I was a girl, and she gave me a cloth one, with moulded cloth face and shiny, pretend hair. But I scribbled all over its blank, spooky face, pulled its hair out, and my mother had to hide it from auntie in the wardrobe. For ever.
That doll had creeped me out, but it was fairly ordinary. What can these strange new dolls be doing to the world’s children, with their muscles, boots, pink/mauve helmets/masks and strange proportions? It starts early. Fielding’s new baby granddaughter has a scary one called Lily. “It’s a hysterical yellow, with a baby-face, eye-makeup, and woolly jumpsuit,” says he, shuddering. Baby sensibly hurls it from her pram. But it’s not the only horrid doll in his house. Late last night, crossing the silent living room, he passed a cluster of dollies and set off some electronic device, making one squawk a robotic “Hallo, hallo, hallo!” He fled. “I thought my number was up,” said he. Progress? Or horrorshow?

2. At least FIVE from university websites/academic papers online. Use Google Scholar as a starting point.
“Sometimes violent female characters are malicious villains, other times they save the world from destruction or just uphold the law. In almost all cases, however somebody will imply that such action, because done by a woman falls to be allow standards of human decency.” This is why we call them all “mean women” Pg2
“Depictions of women’s violence seem more horrific to many people, perhaps because we find far fewer of them than we find scenes of male violence. Moreover cultural standards still equate womanhood with kindness and nonviolence, manhood with strength and aggression.” pg 2
Page 5- read the page


http://jezebel.com/5993704/the-walking-dead-creator-women-are-generally-physically-weaker-thats-science
“I don't mean to sound sexist, but as far as women have come over the last 40 years, you don't really see a lot of women hunters. They're still in the minority in the military, and there's not a lot of female construction workers. I hope that's not taken the wrong way. I think women are as smart, resourceful, and capable in most things as any man could be … but they are generally physically weaker. That's science.”
Plus, if we want to speak "in general", then women have more stamina than men — even swole bro trainers agree — and that's probably more crucial than being ripped when it comes to hunting.
 Sexist attitudes are frequently based on beliefs in traditional stereotypes of gender roles, and is thus built into many societal institutions.
 Many of the stereotypes that result in gender discrimination are not only descriptive, but also prescriptive beliefs about how men and women "should" behave.
 Occupational sexism refers to discriminatory practices, statements, or actions based on a person's gender which occur in a place of employment.
 Violence against women, including sexual assault, domestic violence, and sexual slavery, remains a serious problem around the world.

Gender stereotypes are widely held beliefs about the characteristics and behaviour of women and men. Many of the stereotypes that result in gender discrimination are not only descriptive, but also prescriptive beliefs about how men and women "should" behave. For example, women who are considered to be too assertive or men who lack physical strength are often criticized and historically faced societal backlash. They can also facilitate or impede intellectual performance, such as the 
stereotype threat that lower women's performance on mathematics tests, due to the stereotype that women have inferior quantitative skills compared to men's, or when the same stereotype leads men to assess their own task ability higher than women performing at the same level.
In developing nations where school attendance is not so highly regulated as it is in westernized countries, young girls account for 60 percent of the out-of-school population of children. This is due to the emphasis that many parents in developing nations place on the welfare of their sons. The young man is looked at as an asset in the family. The young woman is a supporter, someone who can stay home and help with household tasks while the men earn income and develop their education.
Girls are bought and sold as young brides without any consent on their own part. The rightful property of their father or brother, there are many girls who are left to the bidding of the family members with no protectors or supporters who have their best interests at heart.
In China, girls are given up for adoption at a rate much higher than men as families prefer to raise a son over a daughter in a highly regulated nation where they are limited to only one child.

Lara Croft is perhaps the most famous woman in gaming. Since the original Tomb Raider arrived in 1996, the character has attracted criticism for her physical appearance – so when the most recent release in the series gave her a realistically proportioned body, the new Lara was praised as a more relatable hero. Removing the over-sized breasts and teeny, tiny waist is apparently all that was needed for the character to evolve from sex object to admirable “survivor”. 

Forms of Discrimination against Women
Discrimination against women presents itself in a variety of ways, including:
§   In the workforce
§   In legal proceedings
§   In the home
§   In the medical field
§   In marketing tactics
§   In the education system
§   In the church
Women, on the other hand, are more likely to accept a low to moderately paying job and stay there without asking for regular raises or negotiating their salary. Certain researchers have looked at loyalty as a common trait among women in the workplace, suggesting that women are less likely to leave their place of employment due to a strong sense of nurturing and involvement in their current place of work.
What are gender roles?
Gender roles are the way people act, what they do and say, to express being a girl or a boy, a woman or a man. These characteristics are shaped by society. Gender roles vary greatly from one culture to the next, from one ethnic group to the next, and from one social class to another. But every culture has gender roles — they all have expectations for the way women and men, girls and boys, should dress, behave, and look.
Children learn gender roles from an early age — from their parents and family, their religion, and their culture, as well as the outside world, including television, magazines, and other media. As children grow, they adopt behaviours that are rewarded by love and praise. They stop or hide behaviours that are ridiculed, shamed, or punished. This happens early in life. By age three, children have usually learned to prefer toys and clothes that are “appropriate” to their gender.

Sex Stereotyping in the Media:-
Far more dangerous than the overtly obscene advertisements are the sexual stereotypes that are found in different media. The Indian version of sex stereotyping would have all women behaving like mythological submissive, sacrificing, sentimental, superstitious, and incapable of rational action, their primary duty being wives, companions and devoted mothers. Films are the largest disseminators of stereotyped images. They have a package formula for women: the latter are shown as traditional, truly Indian women who are devoted, son producing wives etc. so far women’s protests and criticisms have not had much effect on the commercial Hindi film industry. Television also perpetuates sex stereotypes. What is being peddled here is grotesque caricatured western lifestyle which is quite far removed from the average Indian woman’s struggle to survive totally negating and never questioning her reality. Even though 60% of women are involved in agriculture, radio programmes for the rural areas are only directed to men. Women’s programmes almost never discuss technology, banking facilities, new laws or any such issues.

Female toughies infiltrated the otherwise masculine domains of The Matrix, Prometheus, Captain America: The First Avenger and Avengers Assemble. The Snow White of Snow White and the Huntsman turned out to be an adept killer. Not even children's animations have escaped the vogue: in Shrek, the princess knew kung fu; in Brave, she was a warrior.
By fairly common consent, the godmother of the bunch rose out of the pitiless crucible of 1970s blaxploitation. Today, Pam Grier is remembered mainly as Tarantino's Jackie Brown, but it was forgotten films such as Coffy, Friday Foster and Sheba, Baby that made her "the biggest, baddest and most beautiful of all female heroes in popular culture", according to Rikke Schubart, the author of Super Bitches and Action Babes.
Grier's characters gleefully punched, kicked and shot men, kicked them in the testicles, and stabbed them with hairpins, broken bottles and metal hangers. Meanwhile, Asian cinema was already awash with viragos who did not go unnoticed elsewhere. Then, in 1979, Alien brought the dauntless action woman into the mainstream.
157 female protagonists in action films released between 1991 and 2005. Only 7% took control of their situation; 58% were submissive to male characters. Thirty per cent were dead when the credits rolled.

·         “Women can be aggressive too”
·         “Women may not be as tough as men but they can be when they want to be”
Psychologists at the University of Cambria questioned 1,104 young men and women using a scale of behavior which ranged from shouting and insulting to pushing, beating and using weapons.
They discovered that women were ‘significantly’ more likely to be verbally and physically aggressive to men than vice versa.
They concluded that violence was linked to controlling behavior such as checking up on partners and persuading them not to see certain friends.
Many women believe that they can do what they want, when they want and how they want. You can have many different types of women like aggressive, sad, happy, seductive, manipulative etc-but a majority of them aren’t what they used to be or what they are “supposed” to be like 30 years ago or less. Times have changed and many people need to get over that fact as its important.
“More women are being more masculine because of the action films many people are watching.”
·         I feel like more women are having a bigger role in the film  and TV industry and instead of being the damsel in distress all the time-they are becoming the strong, independent superhero or villain figure.
·         Sometimes women are still seen as their traditional roles and have always made sure that they aren’t as bad or as good as they seem and go back to their old ways.
·         The walking dead is a show that show how powerful the female characters are and what they can do. But as there were children involved they did have to show their softer and traditional side. This will always be necessary.
·         In some thriller/horror films like scream, i am legend etc. They are shown as scared-how a normal reaction would be, and then they show other versions like them being strong in the end or showing that they can defend themselves.


Mulvey's identification of the female image as phallic substitute and/or fetish image may not have been inspired entirely by Hollywood glamour images. Just before the publication of "Visual Pleasure," she undertook an attack on Allan Jones, one of the most notorious "exploiters" of the female form in the British art world. "You Don't Know What is Happening Do You, Mr. Jones?," published in Spare Rib is an encyclopedic review of Jones' visions of female body contortion and torture. Fettered in the classic imagery of the private fetishist — belts, spike heels, rubber corsets, brassieres and garters — the Jones' models do articulate the worst things that feminists had imagined in male fantasies about women.(7) Was Mulvey still fuming over Allan Jones when she developed her theory of women in cinema as fetishized projection of the male consciousness?


Some films cover women's subjects but lack a feminist perspective. We discovered several film biographies on women that failed to show the subject's strength. For example, a film on Louisa May Alcott depicts the author as a selfless, weepy woman. We also found films that were erroneously (and widely) publicized as non-sexist. In a prime example, HOW TO SAY NO TO A RAPIST - AND SURVIVE, Frederic Storaska, a self-appointed expert, lectures women on how to avoid physical harm from rape. He stereotypes women by dwelling on the use of feminine wiles as the best way to outsmart attackers, and he recommends several defence tactics that other rape experts have found to be ineffective and even dangerous.
Films for young children: Only a handful of films present positive images at the preschool or primary grade levels. For example, adventure stories with an exciting plot and strong female protagonist are rare.

For years, Texas was famous for being the only state where a man who caught his wife in bed with her lover had an automatic right (you might even say duty) to shoot her, while a woman who shot her husband under similar circumstances could almost be sure of being convicted of murder.

At one level, all men are not seen as evil in these films. But at another level, in a more sinister way, patriarchal oppression inherent in romantic codes relating to men is still valorised. The domestic abuse in the thriller then runs the risk of being a mere plot point—an individual crime with an individual solution instead of an example of systemic oppression which cannot be resolved so simply as doling justice out to an abuser. To take this larger view would mean to undermine interpreting the film as a critique of patriarchy or of domestic abuse.




Despite an increase in tough and even violent female characters in American films, women continue to be shown as sidekicks to more dominant male heroes and they are also frequently involved in a romantic relationship with them. 

Over 58% of violent female characters were portrayed in a submissive role to the male hero in the film, and 42% were romantically involved with him. The average violent female character was young, white, highly educated and unmarried. These women engaged in masculine types of violence (fought against males and strangers most of the time, often used weapons and caused high levels of destruction), yet retained feminine stereotypes due to their submissive role and romantic involvement with the dominant male hero character.


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