Catherine Breillat's Representation Of Women In Media

Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s documentary, Miss Representation, shows that the media’s impact on the American discourse of women’s bodies, women in power, and the same standards of what women should be. Newsom effectively convinces the audience of Miss Representation that how mainstream media contributes to the misrepresentation of women in influential positions by having limited portrayals of women through the use of interviews from influential people, several statistics, and appealing to emotional sense.

The Miss Representation documentary film by Jennifer Newsom explores how media contributes to the under-representation of women in influential positions. This message is portrayed by delivering content through media and technology as well as advertising partial and/or often degrading interpretations of women. The consequences are becoming more and more dreadful. In today’s world, composed of a million stations, people will tend to do more and more shocking things to break through the crowds. They resort to violent, sexually offensive, or demeaning images. Jean Kilbourne, EdD, filmmaker, Killing Us Softly Author and Senior Scholar Wellesley Center’s for Women states, that “it creates a climate in which

This is the thesis set out by "Miss Representation", a documentary directed and produced by actress, activist and documentary filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom. The documentary gives a good perspective on why the representation of women in the media is so important in our society. The message the film gets across to viewers is that the way women are often portrayed is damaging- to media consumers of all genders and ages. The way the media treats women is the cause of soaring numbers of women who develop eating disorders, the sexualisation of, and violence against women.

“Miss Representation” is a documentary film that is made by Jennifer Seibel Newsom. This film talks about many issues from the roles of females in politics, and the ways in which media negatively impacts women. The film examines how the media have contributed to the underrepresentation of women. Therefore, eventually, the film is persuading people to be open-minded, and study how media affects our perception, judgment, and behaviors. The targeted audience of this film is all people who live in America. People should be convinced to change their mind about stereotypes on women. Jennier effectively convinces the audience that the mainstream media has mainly contributed to the under-representation of women through the use of statements claimed

This genre is typically modern, perky and upbeat, but the common narrative in all of them is that it features a woman who is strong and she overcomes adversity to reach her goals. There is also a message of empowerment that also struggles with a romantic predicament and using comedy to poke fun at the male characters. Industries are still producing soppy romantic comedies for the female audience but the divide between the standard chick flick and romantic comedy is slowly disappearing. Similarly to the beginning of this essay it is evident that institutions are moving in the direction of women’s place in culture in relation to this film genre; women are usually shown as the super power since they are made to appeal to the female audience. However

It should not be a surprise to anyone who watches television, reads a magazine or spends time on the internet that the mass media representation of women are questionable at best. Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s documentary, “Miss Representation,” explores the abhorrent way women are depicted in the media and a refreshing take on an old-age issue. A central thesis that woman sexual objectification creates social consequences in the effect of materialization and disempowerment of women in our society and legislative process. Siebel creates an alluring narrative of herself, survivor of eating disorders and an acting career in hollywood. She uses her pregnancy to debate in hopes to improve her baby’s future by changing the state of mass media culture.

The year is 1979, 15-year-old Jamie (played by newcomer Lucas Jade Zummerman) is reading an excerpt from “Our Bodies Ourselves”, one of his newly acquired feminist essays to his mother Dorothea (cinema’s matriarch Annette Bening). He proclaims every line about the politics of the female orgasm with pride and satisfaction in regards to the rapid pace of his maturity. After excitedly finishing the last paragraph, his mother looks at him and says with tender anguish “Do you think you know more about me from reading that?”

Since the beginning of time, women have been seen as different from men. Their beauty and charms have been interpreted as both endearing and deadly to men. In the Bible, it was Eve’s mistake that led to humanity’s exile from the Garden of Eden. However, unlike in the Bible, in today’s world, women who drive men to ruin do not do so through simple mistakes and misunderstandings, they do so while fully aware of what effects their sexuality can cause. One thing remains constant through these portrayals of women, and that is that they are portrayed as flawed creations and therefore monstrous. It is a woman’s sex drive and sexuality that can lead to her monstrosity. The femme fatale is an enticing, exquisitely beautiful, erotic character who

In the stereotypical horror movie, women are often portrayed as passive victims of violence, such as Janet Leigh in the famous shower scene of Psycho. These victimized characters are often the objects of what has been termed “the male gaze,” a term used in film and gender studies to describe the heterosexual male perspective through which women are portrayed in media. The male gaze is so ubiquitous that it is often considered the norm and therefore goes unnoticed. However, rather than portraying this stereotypical female character, Charles Burns’ Black Hole uses elements of the horror genre to draw attention to the male gaze and its symbolic violence against women. In his representation of Eliza’s rape, in particular, Burns uses horror cinematography

The theory of the “final girl” is a fascinating concept in horror movies. Carol J. Clover created the term “final girl” in the book, “Men, Women, and Chainsaws.” Clover points out that the “[final girl] often show[s] more courage and levelheadedness than their cringing male counterparts” (36). Clover argues from a feminist perspective that the females in these movies survive only because they are acting as male protagonists would (Wells 18). From a psychoanalytic standpoint, she feels that women “must be eliminated in horror text because they lack a phallus” (Wells 19). However, Paul Wells feels this theory is questionable and challenges it:

Creed, B. 1999. Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection. Feminist Film Theory, a Reader, edited by. Sue Thornham. New York: New York U P.

fifty times in the press. Male political figures might be called mean and terrible names, yet those words do not, more often than not, reflect superstition and fear (Monière 2006).

Women are sexually exploited in the media. In today’s society if people watch television programs such as Chingy featuring Snoop & Ludacris – Holidae; Charlie's Angels; the Z100 commercial with Britney Spears; or Baywatch they will see that the feminine image is presented differently than the masculine. In these programs men are typically placed in sexual situations fully clothed, while women are presented in provocative clothing or less. The camera will frequently zoom in on body parts to focus on the woman’s buttocks, midriff, and legs. Society is still dominated by men who control what people see. As a result women are increasingly portrayed as sex symbols as a way for a media company to turn

Since its humble beginnings in the later years of the nineteenth century, film has undergone many changes. One thing that has never changed is the filmmaker’s interest in representing society in the present day. For better or worse, film has a habit of showing the world just what it values the most. In recent years, scholars have begun to pay attention to what kinds of ideas films are portraying (Stern, Steven E. and Handel, 284). Alarmingly, viewers, especially young women, are increasingly influenced by the lifestyle choices and attitudes that they learn from watching these films (Steele, 331). An example of this can be seen in a popular trope of the “romantic comedy” genre in this day and age: the powerful man doing something to help, or “save” the less powerful woman, representing a troubling “sexual double standard” (Smith, Stacy L, Pieper, Granados, Choueiti, 783).

“People learn more from media than any other single source of information” (Missrepresentation). This quote exemplifies how society learns and creates their standards about people, places, and things. All sources and mediums of media impact billions of lives every day. The media holds this power over society and it’s time to change that; especially when it comes to the media’s view of women. Women are constantly being misrepresented. This misrepresentation of women in the media is negatively impacting America by corrupting both the youth and adults. This is occurring because of the hyper-sexualization of women, wrongly portraying women in leadership positions, and creating stereotypes of women in movies and television.