Cultural Ideologies Through The Media

Throughout today’s society, media contributes to almost everyone’s daily life. From informative news channels to comical television shows, media proves to be effective in advertisement, releasing messages and informing the audience. Although media proves to be wildly effective in advertising, releasing messages and informing the audience, periodically destructive and misleading messages are provided to the audience and directly influencing women. Cultural critics widely agree that media tends to negatively influence women and all the critics point to research which supports the belief that women are portrayed as subordinate to men, having no

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

media in today’s society and culture. The documentary is arguing that women in the media are not

Media enforces the social-cultural standards, which women are required to follow in order to look and behave in a manner that society considers acceptable. Newspapers, commercials, posters, magazines, fliers, reality shows, and cartoons only name a few of our everyday interaction with the media (Scholar, C.2011). However, these standards presented by media send a false perception of women, thus portraying women in a negative and disrespectful manner. Society views woman as mentally, morally, and physically inferior to men, and media is only highlighting this idea (Scholar, C.2011). In fact, media represents women in a stereotypical form of beauty, they display women as sexual objects, and create the illusion that women are ignorant.

Window, by Alfred Hitchcock. This male gaze idea is present in most forms of media that

Even though some artists, as Berger claims, tried to resist this tradition, they couldn’t overcome the cultural tradition of female objectification that has continued to the present. These artists failed to create a different view in culture because of the media and how the perception wouldn’t change in the eyes of men. One famous artist who tried to resist this awful trend was an artist name Rubens. In his portrait of his second wife, the painting named Helene Fourment in a Fur Coat, he tried to portray the same message with a different image.The image is of a women with no other clothing other than a fur coat looking shameful. The middle-aged looking women in the painting was wearing a big brown fur coat. The difference between a regular “nude”

Media, one of the most influential reflections of culture, under represents women and displays them in stereotypical positions. Paula Lobo and Rosa Cabecinhas, Professors of Communication at University of Minho, highlight sex-discrimination within the media in

Gender and the Media by Rosalind Gill addresses gender stereotypes that are brought onto women and men through the media resulting in objectification and subjectification. Gill discusses how the representation of gender is altered as a result of the media in Western societies. Gender and the Media is aimed to address the rapid transmission of media and how those changes affect the construction of feminine and masculine gender roles in society. Gill uses her interest in the contradictions of gender construction by society, to analyze gender and the media. Using feminism as a backbone for her research, Gill and many commentators support the idea that feminist ideas are common and may even affect the media. Gender and the Media addresses multiple forms of media: postfeminism in advertising, gender in the news and journalism, and gender in magazines. Gild aims to address the construction of gender representations, elements for gender analysis, and feminist culture with Gender and the Media.

Through exposure, the role of women as a visible visual icon, such as cinematic mechanisms fetishism serves to convince the position of the male audience as an absolute subject.

Another institution in society has influenced and promoted the Madonna/Whore complex; art. Artists of female nudes staged their models in submissive, neutral positions in order to please the eye of every male viewer. A significant attribute to the Madonna/Whore complex of women is placed on them by their male counterpart. As long ago as the medieval times, women were objects of viewing and manipulation. The women appeared to be ready for sex at any moment, yet there demeanor and expression coveys an innocent and angelic presence. As per the church, men are the ones whom are allowed to control a women’s sexuality. This was the beginning to the widespread expectation of the Madonna/Whore complex outside of the Christian realm. John Berger, a British art historian conducts research on this phenomenon. He comes to certain conclusions on the viewings of women in not just art, but everyday life. He says, “Women are depicted in quite a different way than men--- not because the feminine is different from the masculine—but because the ‘ideal’ spectator is always assumed to be male and the image of the woman is designed to flatter him” (64, Berger). Berger makes the point that a straight women’s goal in life is to attract a male. This goal goes back to the bible and its ideal of the man having control over the women. One could argue that the Madonna/Whore complex perpetuates because of its appeal to

culture and ideals of “masculinity”. In this documentary, Katz argues, Masculinity is created; it doesn’t just exist– as opposed to one’s biological sex. He also argues that media is the primary feeder and that it also plays a crucial role in making and shaping the way manhood culture is and personal attitudes about manhood. After evaluating media images of manhood, it is clear to see that the media contributes to the widespread equation of masculinity with pathological control and violence toward our people. After examining the constructed ideals of manhood, exactly how, why and in whose interests they are constructed differently in, it denaturalizes and diminishes the potential of these imagined ideals of men to shape our perceptions of our world, each other and ourselves.

Artist and people viewing the art work have always had a fascination with the female nude. Even when I was a child my attention was captured by the nude art not because I was a kid and I saw a nude lady , but it forced me to wonder more about why the female nude was so amazing as a tool for art and why this is repeated so many times throughout the centuries. One female nude painting in particular was the subject of controversy and exposed the syncretism and or the power of the female nude painting.

Studies regarding gender roles in media show that the feminine essence tends to be depicted as inferior, with women often being marginalized, disempowered and humiliated through a status that is based on their youth and looks; whilst men tend to be portrayed as superior with higher and longer lasting careers

The key research question of ‘Gender Roles in Media’ is to analyze gender roles to determine how women are represented in an array of media and how they are portrayed in a sexualized manner. The study was published in 2010 and 2011 by Rudy et al in two issues of Sex Roles. The research suggests that an increase in representing women in media can be worthy provided they bear in mind that the way women are depicted is positive in order to alleviate negative connotations. The research queries if media can affect the mindset of viewers in a negative or positive manner.

Stuart Hall has posited that the concepts of individual dream states can be brought on a macroscopic scale to media text. In particular, "nightmares" of individuals, can be related to the semiological analysis of a given media text in relation to dominant ideology and culture in general. His main points in this are twofold, first is to point out that the more horrible and "nightmarish" a media scenario (i.e. story) is, the more difficult it is to de-construct the ideological markers that serve as the basis for the text. The second, and perhaps more important, is that the ideological representation in the nightmare represents a repressed wish of society and has increased threat to the dominant class, or the bourgeois.