Bibliography - Books

Critical Investigation = Are females in teen movies always seen as bimbos and objects? Why might this be?

Thompson, Denise, 2001, Radical Feminism Today, Denise Thompson. Page 36

"Pleasure and desire 'enable' the continuation of the social conditions of male supremacy"
This quote illustrates that pleasure and desire is an asset for a women as it attracts the male supremacy. This links to my critical investigation as it clearly states that women are shown in the media to look pesaurable and desirable for the male audience.

Jill, Nelmes, 1996, An Introduction To Film Studies, London, Jill Nelmes. Page 230 & 231

"Mulvey argues that identifcation is always with male, who is the pivot of the film,its hero, while the female is often seen as threat"
This quotation states that men in films are the back bone of the film, where as the representation of women are the distraction. This will inncorparate in my investigation as it describes the women representation of being a threat, and then I can gather texts where they have been threats and find out how they were a threat;sexual objects.

"Voyeurism and the desire to see the erotic and the forbidden, yet the desire is male - centred"
This quotation signifies that the desire for voyeurism and the erotic are male centred; a dominant male audience. This will link to my investigation as it is quoting that a male centred audience is again, being drawn in by the erotic representation of females.

"Mulvey argues that women has two roles in films: erotic object for the characters in the story and erotic object for the spectalor"
This quotation is a quote which Mulvey argued, stating that the representation of females are sexual objects either in the character of the film or for the audience. This will embody with my investigation as

"The exuasion of women as object, as provider of voyeuristic plesure will then free her from the narrow limits she has been allocated in cinema"

"Audience gains voyeuristic pleasure from watching a film"

Lehman and Luhr, Peter and Willam, 2003, Thinking About Media, Peter Lehman and Willam Luhr. Page 265

"Men and women are not represented equally in films"

"The sexual women is usually represented as dangerous to herself and /or men"

"Women are frequently represented is movies as being good, dutiful mothers, and wives or independant sexual beings"

"Polarization of women is often referred to as the mother/whore dichotomy, which implies that if women are not traditional mother figures, safely under the protection of a man, they are whores in spirit"

Graham and Probert, Andrew and David, 2008, Advanced Media Studies Oxfordshire: Phillip Allan

"Women account for a sizeble proportion of cinema audiences"

Abrams and Bell and Udris, Nathan and Ian and Jan, 2001, Film Studying, New York: Nathan Abrams, Ian Bell and Jan Udris

"Female stars are constructed to appeal to male desire"

MACDOLNALD, Myra, 1995, Representing women, Myths of femininty in the popular media, London: Edward Arnold.

"Visually stunning women threters to achieve castration anxiety in the male veiwer" Page 27

"Female characters in the screen tend to be filmed in a way that emphasizes their 'to-be-looked-at-ress', and point of veiw shots within the frame are pre dominantly from a male perspective"

Page 27

"Women are the object of a dominant male gaze" Page 27

3 Article from The Guardian

Lost youth: Turning young girls into sex symbols
Last Halloween, a five-year-old girl showed up at my doorstep wearing a tube top, miniskirt, platform shoes and eye shadow. The outfit projected a rather tawdry sexuality. "I'm a Bratz!" the tot piped up proudly, a look-alike doll clutched in her chubby fist. I had a dizzying flashback to an image of a child prostitute I had seen in Cambodia, in a disturbingly similar outfit.
I was startled, but perhaps I should not have been. In recent years, the sexy little girl has become insistently present in the media – from 15-year-old Miley Cyrus photographed draped in a sheet for Vanity Fair to websites "counting down" to the day that child stars, such as Emma Watson, reach the age of consent. And, of course, there was Britney Spears, aged 16, prancing around in school uniform and pigtails in her first music video. Their allure is that of "Lolita" – very young and very provocative.
Lolita has become shorthand for a prematurely sexual girl – one who, by legal definition, is outlawed from sexual activity. The Lolitas of our time are defined as deliberate sexual provocateurs, luring adults into wickedness and transgressing moral and legal codes. But the original Lolita – the 12-year-old protagonist of Vladimir Nabokov's novel – was rather different; a powerless victim of her predatory stepfather.
Like many pre-adolescent girls, she is sexually curious, but has no control over the abusive relationship. Yet it is as though the very fact of her sexuality has made her into a fantasy, rather than the novel's sexually abused and tragic figure. She is eagerly invoked in the media as a sign of how licentious little girls can be. "Bring back school uniforms for little Lolitas!" demands the Daily Telegraph in an article condemning contemporary sexy schoolgirl fashions, while Tokyo's Daily Yomiuri refers to "the Lolita-like sex appeal" of preteen Japanese anime characters.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/18/lost-youth-young-girls

Observer survey reveals gender barrier stopping women reaching the top
The male stranglehold on power in the upper echelons of British business is laid bare today in new research commissioned by the Observer. Women occupy just 34 of the 970 executive director positions at companies in the FTSE 350 index, according to a survey by the Co-operative Asset Management.
When it comes to non-executive director posts – which do not involve any management power – woman fare slightly better, but still occupy only 204 of the 1,772 jobs available.
In the most senior positions of all, women's representation is stuck in the single digits. Leaders such as Baroness Sarah Hogg, chair of venture capitalist 3i, and Dame Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of media group Pearson, remain in a tiny minority.
Only four chairmanships are held by women, equivalent to 1.3% of the total, and just nine women serve as chief executives, or 3%.
No fewer than 132 of the companies surveyed, including Barclays Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland, are men-only zones, without a single woman at board level.
Overall, female representation stands at just 8.8%, taking both non-executive and executive directorships into account. This feeble showing is despite the fact that more than nine out of 10 companies in the survey claim to have an equal opportunities policy.
Harriet Harman, Leader of the House of Commons and minister for women and equalities, this weekend asked for the full background to the research in order to consider its findings with the Department for Business.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/23/women-business-harriet-harman-equality

Just dont call them chick flicks
John Ford once said that no woman could be a good film director because she couldn't throw a straight left to the jaw. A woman, Ford implied, could never get an unruly crew to stick to a schedule and a budget. It's possible that the film industry still thinks the way he did, for half a century later only 7% of directors are female.
Many of these women must have screened their work at Edinburgh this year. In a burst of what could be called disproportional representation, 12.5% of the features on show here were by women directors. Edinburgh has a history of such hospitality: in 1972, it included a groundbreaking women's section. It must also have helped that the festival's new director is female, though Hannah McGill insists she actively tried "to not know anything biographical about the director" when viewing films. Still, with the odds stacked against them, it seems right to pay attention to women film-makers, and the Edinburgh film festival provided a good opportunity to assess the current state of women's film.
Of the women directors on show this year, Julie Delpy's work as an actress gives her the highest profile. Delpy has not only written and directed the acerbic comedy Two Days in Paris, but also stars in it, as a highly strung photographer named Marion, bringing her American boyfriend home to Paris for the first time. Delpy says she knew that she'd have more chance of getting a solo project funded if she didn't stray too far from the template set by Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, in which she delivered charming performances opposite Ethan Hawke.
If Linklater's lovebirds had stayed together for a couple of years, moved to New York, developed a bewildering range of neuroses and returned for a European vacation, they might resemble the central couple in Two Days in Paris. Delpy gleefully describes her film as a "horror film for macho guys" - referring to Marion's ingenious way of humiliating the male member: she loves to take pictures of naked men with helium balloons tied to their penises. And Marion launches more than one hilarious diatribe against the male ego. Though Delpy shies away from the label, her father told her: "I am so proud of you. You made a true feminist movie."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/aug/31/edinburghfilmfestival2007.festivals

3 Articles from The Independant

Women too sensitive to succeed as film directors, says campion
She is the only woman to have won the prized Palme d'Or in the 62-year history of the Cannes Film Festival and is among a tiny handful of the world's best directors to have been recognised twice there.
Jane Campion yesterday sounded a rallying call for other women to "put on their coats of armour" and take on the male-dominated world of movie-directing.
Campion has declared herself a feminist in previous interviews and has bemoaned the lack of female directors. She is now suggesting it is time for women to toughen themselves up.
Women tend to find criticism hard to bear, said Campion, whose latest film, Bright Star, is in the running for the Palme D'Or at Cannes.
"I think women grow up without a lot of harsh criticism, they are treated more sensitively and it's quite hard when you first enter the world of film-making," she said yesterday. "But women must put on their coats of armour and get going."
"I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population and gave birth to the whole world. Without them, the rest are not getting to know the whole story."
The director, who once said "tragedy makes you grow up", admitted film studios still had a "distrust" of women's abilities. Describing the studio system as sexist, she said one of the reasons for there being a relatively large army of female film-makers in her native New Zealand was that the country did not have a thriving studio tradition.
"I think the studio system is kind of an old boys' system," she said. "It's difficult for them to trust women to be capable. I have been very, very lucky because some of our cinema is state-sponsored so they have to be fair to both men and women," she said.
Campion, 55, is one of three female film-makers in this year's competition, whose jury president is Isabelle Huppert, only the fourth woman in the history of the festival to take this role.
Yet Campion has been the first to speak up about the difference between the sexes at the festival. Only days ago Huppert said "cinema is universal" and with a shrug of the shoulders, added that she was just "happy" to be one of only four female judges since the festival was founded.
While she has seen success at Cannes, no female director has ever won an Oscar and only three have ever been nominated, including Campion with The Piano.
Campion first came to Cannes in 1986, when her Peel won the Palme d'Or for short films. Then, in 1993, Campion jointly won the Golden Palm for The Piano.
Bright Star is her first feature film in six years and it dramatises the intense love affair between the Romantic poet John Keats and his fiery neighbour in north London, Fanny Brawne.
The British actor Ben Whishaw is cast as the poet, who died at the age of 25. Campion told the story through Fanny's eyes, she said, because was drawn to her character after reading Andrew Motion's biography of Keats.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/women-too-sensitive-to-succeed-as-film-directors-says-campion-1685713.html

Is Antichrist anti women?
It has a wild, witchy woman, it has self-inflicted female genital mutilation, it even has an official "misogyny researcher" listed in the closing credits. Yes indeed: that old master-provocateur Lars von Trier has done it again with Antichrist, currently being described as one of the most vicious movies ever made. It was crowned at this year's Cannes Film Festival with an "anti-prize" for being "the most misogynist movie from the self-proclaimed biggest director in the world". British audiences can now make up their own minds, with the film released here this weekend. The Cannes jury, which bestowed the award, accused Von Trier of suggesting that "woman should be burnt at the stake so that man can finally stand up."
The director certainly has well-known form when it comes to treating females harshly, both in his fictional creations and the actresses who have played them. Björk and Nicole Kidman – who worked with him on Dancer in the Dark and Dogville respectively – described their collaboration as a gruelling experience. But Von Trier is fully capable of grinding his male characters and actors through the mill with equal relish (remember the indignities visited on Jorgen Leth in the The Five Obstructions, for instance?) And, whatever his mysterious private psychosexual motives, it can't be denied that he creates compelling parts for women.
Nobody who has seen Antichrist could argue that Charlotte Gainsbourg's character – a woman who goes violently mad out of grief and guilt after her small son dies in an accident – is not immeasurably more interesting than her husband, a smug, misguided psychotherapist, played by Willem Dafoe. As Von Trier says in the film's production notes, "My male protagonists are basically idiots who don't understand shit."
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/is-antichrist-antiwomen-1755616.html

Our sexual obsession damages boys as well as girls
It's official: sexualisation harms girls. Of course it does. It harms all of us. It doesn't just make girls ill, it harms boys too, teaching them to be sexually violent.
The American Psychological Association's findings - that the portrayal of girls and young women as sex objects harms girls' mental and physical health - should be addressed at the root cause: the media. Powerful and profit driven, they are left to self-regulate with their own voluntary codes. Not only is this not working, it's harming society. The Government needs to introduce responsible media regulation, in which social responsibility and harm are not compromised for free speech. Only then will we see diverse representations of females in positive roles.
As a society, we should be extremely worried. The saturation of sexualised images of females is leading to body hatred, eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression, high rates of teen pregnancy and unhealthy sexual development in our girl children. It also leads to impaired cognitive performance. In short, if we tell girls that looking "hot" is the only way to be validated, rather than encouraging them to be active players in the world, they underperform at everything else.
But the consequences of sexualising girls are far more devastating than this. Rape is at crisis levels, and one in three women will be a victim of stalking, sexual harassment or sexual violence in their lifetime.
But who are the mysterious perpetrators of these crimes? Much of the media, the justice system and one-third of the public seem to think alcohol is raping girls. That by getting drunk, dressing sexy and flirting, girls and women are responsible for the horrific violence committed against them.
Only 8 per cent of rapes are stranger rapes. It is ordinary boys and men who are committing these sexually violent crimes against girls and women. It is appalling that when another rape or sexually violent crime is reported on the news - so ubiquitous it is unremarkable - it is never followed by a report asking: "Why are boys and men sexually abusing and raping girls and women? Where do they learn to film this abuse on their mobiles? Where do boys and men learn that having power over women and being violent is an acceptable way to be a man?" Instead, the onus is on girls and women to curb their behaviour and lives.
The sexualisation of girls and the normalisation of the sex and porn industries have made it increasingly acceptable and "fun" for women to be viewed as sex objects, and for men to view women as sexual commodities. To speak out against this trend is framed as "anti-fun" and "anti-sex". The pressure group Object has documented how men's "lifestyle" magazines and lad mags do not merely objectify women, they trivialise trafficking, sex tourism and prostitution. The number of young British men using prostitutes has doubled in a decade to one in 10 in 2000.
The charity the Lilith project has found that the increasingly mainstream pole- and lap-dancing and porn industries are careful to hide their links with prostitution, trafficking and sexual violence. A five-year-old boy can buy a lad mag and learn that women are only sex objects and he has entitlements to their bodies. If he logs on to Zoo magazine's website, he can watch videos of girls stripping and lap-dancing, one set up as if the woman is being stalked and secretly filmed in her bedroom while she strips, another of a "ridiculously hot" girl being so frightened, she is screaming and crying uncontrollably in a ball. This is not just about sexualisation. Sexual harassment is being eroticised.
The sexualisation of girls exploits girls and boys. All children and young people are under immense pressure to accept it. Boys who are not enthusiastic about it, or speak out against it, run the risk of being ignored or ridiculed, of being labelled "gay", "unmanly", or not liking sex. Boys and young men are under pressure to act out masculinity in which power and control over women, and men, is normal. In which violence is normal.
The absence of positive role models in boys' immediate lives is showing. If the adult men around them do not challenge sexism and traditional masculine behaviours, boys won't either. And with absent fathers, boys are left with celebrities and sports heroes to look up to. Music videos largely follow a template of an individual man possessing a group of sexualised women, gangsta rappers promote sexist and violent notions of masculinity, many young footballers and other sportsmen behave like playboys, enjoy group sex, get away with rape and keep their "hero" status.
Damian Carnell who works to prevent anti-gender violence, says: "From boyhood, men read into the messages that we see around us, from men's institutionalised superiority over women, and privileges of being male, to negative stereotypes of girls and women. It's no wonder that 35 per cent of boys aged 11-16 believe it is justified to abuse women."
The sexualisation of girls is not just shattering the lives of girls and women, it is preventing boys and young men from relating to girls and women as complex human beings with so much to offer them. It is preventing boys from forming healthy friendships and working relationships with girls and women. Instead, it is nurturing potentially violent abusers, rapists and johns. Ultimately, it means boys are not free to be themselves, to know their own humanity.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rachel-bell-our-sexual-obsession-damages-boys-as-well-as-girls-437307.html

Ageism Debate

It will come as a surprise to few but a delight to many that Selina Scott is suing Five over ageism in its refusal to hire her for a maternity cover role and choice of younger presenters instead. It is a delight not because Five is worse than anyone else in this respect, but because it stokes a debate which urgently needs to be taken more seriously. Casual sexism, ageism and racism are the collective dirty secret of the vast majority of media institutions, and they represent as much of an industrial challenge as they do a moral one.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission's Report on Sex and Power, published last week, drew a depressing picture for women in the workplace. In general the progression of women at the highest level in the workplace is pitiful and the media are no exception: only 13.6% of national newspaper editors (including the Herald and Western Mail) are women; only 10% of media FTSE's 350 companies have women at the helm; and at the BBC, which has often been held as an exemplar of diversity, women make up less than 30% of most senior management positions. It puts into context Jeremy Paxman's deranged rant about the white male in television. Ethnic minority representation is even worse.

A couple of weeks ago Pat Younge, former BBC head of sports programmes and planning who left to work for Discovery in the US, caused a stir at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival by saying that diversity targets should be like financial targets - you don't hit them, you get fired. I have to say that as board champion for diversity at Guardian News and Media I would currently be firing myself and most of the board for some missed targets. But Younge is right - because diversity targets are not just a feelgood add-on, they are vital to the health of any media business. The temptation to hire in one's own image for most managers is as irresistible as it is subliminal - which is why there are a lot of opinionated women working in digital management at the Guardian, and why we all need targets to remind us to look beyond the mirror.

On screen, any number of unconventional-looking ageing blokes (Jeremy Clarkson, Jonathan Ross, Chris Moyles, Alan Sugar, Adrian Chiles, Jeremy Paxman, Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan) are paid at a top rate for the talent they possess beyond their appearance. For women it is an altogether different story - appearance and age are clearly factors in choosing female presenters in a way that they aren't for men.

The media should be deeply concerned about this un-diversity - not because it represents moral turpitude on our part, but because it represents bloody awful business sense. What is happening to the UK population at the moment? It is ethnically diversifying, and it is ageing. It is also the case that it is, as of the 2001 Census, marginally more female than it is male. And we live longer - so older women, and non-white potential audiences are on the rise. In London, the major urban conurbation and key market for so many media brands, the population is around 37% ethnically diverse, yet this is nowhere near reflected in the management structures of media companies. Or indeed in their on-screen or in-paper representation.

How though, can you hope to address audiences for which you have no instinctive feel, and towards which you show casual discrimination? We are all in danger of becoming irrelevant to the changing demographics of our target audience at a time when holding any kind of audience is key to survival. If white men are so good at solving business problems - and given that they represent well over 80% of FTSE 100 directors we can speculate that this is a skill they must possess in measure - then I'm surprised they haven't grasped this one already.

Media Guardian links to Critical Investigation

1) Survey reveals gender barrier stopping women reaching the top.

The male stranglehold on power in the upper echelons of British business is laid bare today in new research commissioned by the Observer. Women occupy just 34 of the 970 executive director positions at companies in the FTSE 350 index, according to a survey by the Co-operative Asset Management.
When it comes to non-executive director posts – which do not involve any management power – woman fare slightly better, but still occupy only 204 of the 1,772 jobs available.
In the most senior positions of all, women's representation is stuck in the single digits. Leaders such as Baroness Sarah Hogg, chair of venture capitalist 3i, and Dame Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of media group Pearson, remain in a tiny minority.
Only four chairmanships are held by women, equivalent to 1.3% of the total, and just nine women serve as chief executives, or 3%.
No fewer than 132 of the companies surveyed, including Barclays Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland, are men-only zones, without a single woman at board level.
Overall, female representation stands at just 8.8%, taking both non-executive and executive directorships into account. This feeble showing is despite the fact that more than nine out of 10 companies in the survey claim to have an equal opportunities policy.
Harriet Harman, Leader of the House of Commons and minister for women and equalities, this weekend asked for the full background to the research in order to consider its findings with the Department for Business.
"This is a very important piece of research," she said. "It shows how important it is for companies to have accountability on gender. A company in the grip of the old-boy network is never going to be successful in the modern world. If they can't see half the population as worthy of a say, then they are in the grip of structural prejudice. What does it say about a company that they have an all-male board? It is backward-looking and old-fashioned."
The Co-operative study suggested a yawning gap between most companies' public declarations of support for equal opportunities and their behaviour in practice. The report identified a "pinch point" for women – the level of senior positions at which their numbers begin to thin out. The researchers found that this "pinch point" frequently coincides with flexible working becoming less available.
Trish Lawrence of lobby group Opportunity Now said: "The majority of workplaces are designed around a mid-20th-century lifestyle, with an outdated approach to where, when and how work happens. Flexibility... should be a business imperative.
"The lack of women in senior positions may be attributed to the fact that women are much more likely than men to take a career break, and even more likely to take responsibility for child and elder care. We need to 'normalise' flexible working arrangements, encouraging more men to take advantage of these arrangements and sharing the caring responsibilities, while also enhancing their work-life balance."
The research also revealed that only a quarter of the companies in the survey mentioned that they offer flexible working, and those which provided details of the balance between men and women in their organisation were in a minority. Just over a third disclosed the gender split of their workforce, and a mere one in five gave details of the gender split in management.
Dr Ros Altmann, a former economic adviser to No 10 Downing Street, said: "I suspect many executives would be shocked to see these figures. It could be that they have not realised the extent of female under-representation."
Professor Alex Haslam of Exeter University, who has conducted extensive research into the boardroom barriers facing women, described the findings as alarming.
"They fit with a bigger picture in which it is clear that, despite a vaunted commitment to policies of equality and inclusiveness, women are still struggling to achieve recognition in the corporate world," he said.
"This is all the more alarming because a large body of data suggests that this change is needed urgently, not for cosmetic reasons but in order to realise the full potential of both leadership and industry."
Among the exceptions are media group Pearson, which came top in the survey with a female chief executive and finance director, as well as a diversity policy to help recruit and promote other under-represented groups. Support services company Mitie, in second place, also boasts women in its top two executive roles.
The Co-operative has pledged to start taking account of women's representation on boards when it assesses companies from an ethical, social and corporate governance perspective.
Altmann called on other big investors, including pension and insurance funds, to follow the Co-op's lead.
"In terms of ethical and socially responsible investing, the idea that most major UK companies have virtually no female executive board representation is an issue that investors should factor into their assessments of corporate responsibility," she said. "These large investors increasingly represent women clients, as women's wealth has substantially increased over the years."
John Reizenstein, managing director of the Co-operative Asset Management, said: "All businesses say they want the best leadership, but how do they know they've scoured the widest choice? Our study shows that while a few companies are reaping the rewards of 'equal opportunities', too many seek only to comply with the law."
Headhunters say that one major reason women do not reach the top is that male bosses often appoint people similar to themselves. Virginia Bottomley, the former Tory MP who chairsthe executive search agency Odgers Berndtson, said: "The majority of the population is female and the majority of those going to law and medical schools are female.
"It is inexplicable that women are not better represented at the highest levels of industry, commerce, finance and government. People often hire in their own image – I urge them to look out of the window rather than in the mirror."

By numbers
• There are 519 male MPs and 126 women.
• In 2002, the British Film Institute analysed UK productions from the previous two years. Out of 350 films, only eight were directed by women.
• Only 32% of students studying GCSE economics and 41% of those studying GCSE business are girls.
• In both the judiciary and police force, about 10% of senior roles are held by women.
• Women represent 45% of the UK working population, but just 19% of the IT workforce.

2) Forget shoes and men, this showed nailed out friendship.

I have never really understood why so many people felt personally affronted by Sex and the City. The 90s TV hit that charted sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw's navigation of life, love and the latest shoe styles in New York never claimed to be a documentary about contemporary women's lives. Inevitably though, the fictional portrayal of four unfathomably glamorous, sexually experimental and effortlessly successful Manhattan females rendered the series hugely influential, mainly because it was unlike anything else. But just because women are seldom seen on the small screen being hopeful, hilarious and horny all at once is not a good reason to levy the weight of feminist expectation against a single franchise. Still, the much anticipated release of the Sex and the City movie later this month prods those discomfits yet again.
At the risk of collapsing one Bradshaw metaphor into another, I always found the series charming, funny, good-looking and intelligent, rather like the perfect first date. I enjoyed following Carrie and her achingly archetypical friends - Charlotte (Upper East Side princess forced to redefine her sense of perfect when marriage and fertility go wrong); Miranda (fiercely independent lawyer not softened by motherhood); and Samantha (unrepentant fuck machine, latterly breast cancer survivor). I'm almost afraid to admit it lest it show me up as shallow, but the show did make me ask pertinent questions about my own life and those of my friends - and not solely because we were swithering over Manolo Blahnik designs.
Sex and the City was always two parts fantasy shaken with one part delicately skewered reality. So - no - hot, smart women do not only talk about men and shoes, Manhattan isn't always sunny, and newspaper columns aren't generally written, unresearched, in slinky vest tops (though actually, reader, you should see me now).
But this fantastical element was tolerated in exchange for the unprecedented honesty about other areas of women's experience that Sex and the City hauled into the mainstream. Most prominently, the series discussed the micro and macro of sexual relationships as they had never been before: when is it all right to fake an orgasm? Ought there to be cleanup etiquette for men giving head? How does maternal ambivalence affect a woman who is already pregnant?
Those gasp-out-loud episodes were embraced by women not only because they'd been there privately, but thanks to the context in which they were It's about the uncomfortably accurate presentation of women's relationships with each other. However the critics receive the new film, they ought to bear in mind that, for all the brunch chatter, this show has never been a story about men. Sex and the City was always, baseline, about us girls; about how women's friendships can be complicated and bitchy, but also meaningful, supportive and lasting.
I'm a firm believer that all our subsequent interactions are dictated by original familial connections, so it has always fascinated me that Freud didn't bother to create an Oedipus-style template for women's relationships. It's an absence that Shere Hite notes in her latest report on women loving women, alongside the dearth of media representations of what are often the most important relationships in women's lives. Aside from the imported Desperate Housewives and the brilliant British-born Pulling, it's hard to think of popular art that takes women's friendships seriously.
Perhaps that's because we don't take them seriously ourselves. On the one hand we lionise relationships with other women - it's a given to crow about the super-fantasticness of one's friendships, and we're happy to admit how essential those relationships are in the scheme of our lives. Yet, day to day, we give those connections far less traction than they deserve. When was the last time you sat down with a female friend and asked: "Where is this relationship going?" Women analyse their interactions with men to the nth degree, while their profound connections with others of their gender go unexamined.
I'm sure it's partly to do with the way women's relationships are set up publicly. From an early age, girls are taught that they are in sexual competition with their peers. Nobody wants to be the loser in the race to couple up, and nobody wants to be deemed a lesbian. Later, women wind up being their own worst enemies, buying into a culture that sets them against one another: the singles versus the marrieds, the stay at homes versus the working mothers. We are told that we can only understand those who mimic our lifestyle choices. It's interesting that when Hite surveyed she found that, of all barriers to friendship, relationship status was the greatest. Single and partnered women were less likely to be close than those of a different class or race.
Sex and the City was seminal because it showed women's friendships according to a panoply of responses: anger, doubt, judgment and envy, as well as love. And it proposed basic needs - flu, a cricked neck, the plus one - as fulfilled by other women. It's not anti-men to acknowledge how females can sustain each other. But it is pro-women to suggest that we cease angsting at each other, especially about shoes

3) Leadin Ladies kept out of the limelight.

Female actors, especially those over 40, are still under-represented on TV, film and in theatre and when they do get a break it is often in a stereotypical role, a conference on the subject heard today.
Hundreds of women, from actors to directors to writers, gathered at the National Theatre to hear depressing ­statistics reeled off: 17% of playwrights are women; 38% of stage roles are for women; 35% of TV roles are for women; of the top 250 films last year only 9% were directed by women.
Speaker after speaker accused commissioners of either not considering older female actors for parts, or when they did, the parts were ­stereotypes of what a woman over 40 was thought to be.
However, Hilary Salmon, executive producer of BBC drama, said there were reasons to be cheerful and pointed to the high number of women in commissioning roles at the main broadcasters. She said EastEnders had 23 regular female characters and 21 men and on Holby City it was 15 women to 10 men. She added: "If there are stereotypes then it is our fault."
The conference, called Vamps, Vixens and Feminists: The Elephant in the Room, was organised by the Sphinx Theatre Company, which was set up in 1973 as a professional feminist ensemble company, originally called Women's Theatre Group. Its artistic director, Sue Parrish, said she had been among those "pushing this stone uphill for 30 years". She added: "The opportunities presented by the 2007 equality legislation seem to have passed the arts community by."
The playwright Tanika Gupta recounted her experience of her play Sugar Mummies at the Royal Court, which had Lynda Bellingham as the lead aged 60 or so who travels as a sex tourist to Jamaica. In a meeting with Channel 4 about a TV adaptation "the first thing they asked was can you make your female characters younger, can you make them 29-30. I said no, that would totally defeat the object of what the play was about".
Tracy Brabin, who has been on the writing teams at Hollyoaks and wrote three series of Tracy Beaker, said men often dominated the writing teams of continuing drama. She urged women ­writers to "be more assertive, have more confidence, be true to your story and be angry".
The actor and director Janet Suzman rounded on the predominantly male critics who hold so much power in theatre. "It's a very, very male club. On the whole it's boys," she said. "And they look up at women characters on the stage for the spark of sex that's going to make their evening less tedious for them."
Among the supporters of the conference was Equity. The union's vice-president, Jean Rogers, urged people to sign their petition demanding that women are portrayed equally in TV and film drama.

Media Guardian: Race and Religion Index

1) Rupert Murdoch doesn't think Barack Obama racist.

Rupert Murdoch has been forced to deny he believes Barack Obama is a racist, after appearing to back the controversial Fox News presenter Glenn Beck's comments about the US president.

The chairman and chief executive of News Corporation said in an interview earlier this week that Obama had made "a very racist comment" and that Beck's views were "right".

"He does not at all, for a minute, think the president is a racist," a News Corp spokesman told the US website Politico.

In the interview with Sky News Australia, Murdoch was asked about the views expressed by contributors to Fox News, including Beck's view that Obama was a racist.

"He [Obama] did make a very racist comment about blacks and whites and so on, which he said in his campaign he would be completely above," Murdoch said.

"That was something which perhaps should not have been said about the president but if you actually look at what he [Beck] was talking about, he was right."

Beck caused uproar in July when he described Obama had "a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture".

His remarks were made during a discussion of Obama's reaction to the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr, an African-American Harvard academic.

Murdoch also said in the interview he thought the Obama presidency was going "badly", citing the defection of independent voters in recent elections in Virginia and New Jersey.

2) Over 100 complaints over BBC's head of religion show.

The BBC has received 115 complaints over its appointment of the first Muslim to the role of head of religion and ethics.
Channel 4 executive Aaqil Ahmed was confirmed in the post on Monday, becoming only the second non-Christian – after agnostic Alan Bookbinder in 2001 – in the BBC's 87-year history to be appointed to the role.
It is understood the "vast majority" of the complaints are about Ahmed not being a Christian.
In a statement, the BBC said: "We have received complaints from our audience regarding our decision to appoint a non-Christian as the new head of religion and ethics.
"The BBC's commitment to religious broadcasting and to Christian broadcasting as the dominant part of that, is entirely secure. Aaqil Ahmed was appointed as he was the best candidate for this new role. It is BBC policy to recruit on the basis of experience and suitability to the post, not on the basis of faith or any other criteria.
"Aaqil has almost 10 years' experience in religious broadcasting – first at the BBC, where he was deputy editor for documentaries at BBC religion and more recently as head of religion and multicultural at Channel 4 where he was responsible for commissioning (among many other programmes) Christianity: A History, Rowan Williams Meets ... and the Bafta-winning Saving Africa's Witch Children.
"As the majority faith in the UK, Christians are and will remain the key audience for the BBC's religious television output."
Senior figures in the Church of England have previously raised concern about religious programming at the BBC, with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, last month reported to have told the director general, Mark Thompson, that the "Christian voice" was being sidelined.
The Bishop of Manchester, the Right Rev Nigel McCulloch, told the Guardian earlier this week: "Aaqil Ahmed comes to the post with a good reputation. At a time when the BBC's coverage of religion caused some disquiet, the Church of England will be watching how the future of religion and ethics develops."
Ahmed, who is commissioning editor for religion and multicultural programmes at Channel 4, will take up the new role of BBC head of religion and ethics and commissioning editor for TV religion.
The BBC has also appointed Christine Morgan as a new separate head of religion radio.

3) At television centre, protests, police and a union flag.

The first thing that visitors to BBC Television Centre today are likely to notice, ahead of Nick Griffin's controversial appearance on Question Time, is a union flag flying at full mast in front of the building – alongside another for Children in Need.
At lunchtime today, the scene outside the BBC's main broadcasting centre on Wood Lane, west London, was peaceful, with only around 40 protesters, police and journalists present, although several coachloads of anti-fascist activists are expected this afternoon.
Around a dozen people from the public service union Unite were gathered around a stall festooned with posters proclaiming "Stop the fascist BNP".
Union officials were also handing out leaflets with Griffin's face emblazoned on them. In bold pink and white colours, a slogan reads: "No plugs for nasty Nick … keep QT Nazi free."
Over the road outside White City tube station, four Socialist Worker Party members were manning a stand and greeting commuters with chants of "The BNP are racist Nazis... we don't want them on our TVs".
Victoria Derbyshire, the BBC Radio 5 Live presenter, was interviewing people outside the building and there were also about half a dozen TV cameras crews setting up their equipment. Across the road, an ITN satellite truck had just been told to move further away from TV Centre by the police.
One protester, Robert Forsythe, was holding a placard that read: "Shame on you BBC."
Forsythe, an artist and former musician, said: "I've come all the way from East Dulwich because I felt so strongly about this. The BBC trustees have made a terrible mistake. The BNP are not even a legal party."
He described the far right's resurgence in the guise of the BNP as "like a second bad dream". Forsythe said he was originally from Birmingham and had played with bands including UB40, who were active in anti-fascist campaigns in the 1980s such as Rock Against Racism.
Asked if he was worried that violence might flare up at TV Centre today when more demonstrators arrived, he replied: "If I didn't get my legs broken in the 80s I doubt I'll get them broken now."
At lunchtime there was only a small police presence – around four officers – patrolling the immediate area outside TV Centre on Wood Lane. One was overheard telling his colleagues that he had cancelled a trip to the gym and an evening at a bowling alley to be on duty.
There were also two security guards wearing brightly coloured fluorescent jackets and earpieces outside the BBC TV Centre reception, and crash barriers had been erected on either side of Wood Lane outside the building.
Things are expected to get livelier this afternoon, with Unite Against Fascism reportedly bringing 12 coaches of protesters to demonstrate about Griffin's appearance.
Tonight's edition of Question Time is due to be filmed at Television Centre later this afternoon.

On & Off Screen Representation

The on screen representation of a typical female in a teen movie is seen in many aspects. for instance; the on screen representation will be a distinctive females role follows Laura Mulveys thoery of 'Sexual Objects'. This can be identified with the propps that they will be given to wear throughout the production. The clothing that the female characterers will wear are normally provoctative whereby; they will satisfy the audience and the 'Male Gaze'.

What's more, the make-up that is used upon these characters is bodily powerful as the typical make-up that is used on a female are; appealing lips and glowy eyes. This goes against the positive represetation of female characters in teen movies as the make-up is generally used to seduce the audience and therefore; this becomes a negative representation.


However, the off screen representation of females in teen movies differs as it does not follow the stereo-typical views of 'Blonde Bimbos' etc. The off screen representation of females can be positive as they may not be seen as 'Sexual Objects' etc. Further, this goes in opposition to the negative representaion as females may do other activties such as; go to the gym, socalise and do other things that teenagers do.

The BBC will only survive by understanding its diverse consumers

A snail could crawl the entire length of the Great Wall of China in just slightly more time than the 200 years it will take for women to be equally represented in parliament. That was just one of a series of striking statistics from the Equality and Human Rights Commission in their Sex and Power report published last week.

It added that women hold just 11% of FTSE directorships, with the judiciary and others also strongly criticised. At the BBC, the figures are a bit better - almost 38% of all senior managers are women - but it does bring into sharp focus the challenge the whole media industry is facing to improve diversity among its workforce.

Tomorrow's Guardian Ethnic Media Summit is a chance to debate what is arguably our most pressing diversity issue - ensuring more talent from ethnic minority communities reaches the upper echelons of broadcasting. The growth particularly of young ethnic minority audiences, is soaring - way above the population average - making them a critical cultural and business challenge for everyone in our sector.

Things are definitely changing but still not quickly enough. The whole media industry needs to look afresh at what more can be done.

So why does a white, middle-aged bloke like me feel compelled to write about this? As the BBC's chief creative officer, overseeing our programme production made in-house, I believe passionately that only by drawing on the talents of every part of society can we best reflect the lives and concerns of our diverse audiences on screen.

We must do more and the BBC is certainly redoubling its efforts. And though ethnicity is very important, it is only one part of this story. We must also think in terms of age, disability, gender, social class and regional difference

That is why I think the historic changes to move a significant proportion of BBC network production out of London to places such as Glasgow or North West England over the next decade might be key to all this.

We will transfer large numbers of staff from London but we will also recruit many new faces - a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to add something substantially new to our gene pool of talent, to change the BBC's DNA a little.

We seem to be moving in the right direction, increasing opportunities for people from ethnic minority backgrounds at most levels.

The proportion of our staff from ethnic minorities is 11.5% - again comparing very well with both public and private sector organisations including the civil service, health service and the police. But as the Edinburgh Television Festival heard, still not enough people make it into senior management roles, particularly as controllers and commissioners

The BBC has looked closely at the barriers to progress and announced new schemes to tackle them - costing £3m over three years.

Firstly, we need to change the way we recruit. We are dramatically increasing the outreach work we do - in community groups, colleges, schools and through open sessions across the UK - to encourage under-represented groups to apply to the BBC. I recently worked with an energetic bunch of young students, mainly from ethnic minority backgrounds, who were introduced to the BBC by the University of Central Lancashire - from the former mill towns of Blackburn and Preston, not places we'd traditionally think to look for the next generation.

Then we need to be better at retaining talented individuals and supporting them in reaching their full potential and moving into senior roles. Our new mentoring and development programme, which offers greater one-to-one and intensive personalised support, is so important. In addition, our new trainee production scheme, which has just kicked off, and our journalism trainee schemes, have a strong diversity focus, so we are providing clearer pathways into all parts of the BBC

On screen, we must constantly strive to reflect as accurately as possible the rich cultural mix of the UK.

Earlier this year BBC non-executive director Samir Shah criticised what he called "inauthentic representation" of ethnic minority communities, citing the Ferreira family in EastEnders.

It is unfair to highlight one five-year-old example from a drama series that remains the most popular programme on television among ethnic minority audiences. This example fails to reflect many other aspects of our work, particularly our in-house drama output. Our continuing drama series, including Holby City and Casualty, have led the way in casting diverse talent, in leading roles as well. Though we do not always get it right, overall we have much to be proud of.

The BBC set up the Writers' Academy, under John Yorke, four years ago, increasing the number of writers from diverse backgrounds working on our biggest programmes, including some of our continuing drama series.

In addition, programmes such as Criminal Justice, No1 Ladies Detective Agency, Life Is Not All Ha Ha Hee Hee, Shoot the Messenger, the entertainment series Last Choir Standing and a lot of our children's output have also been praised for the way they have represented diversity or addressed issues faced by communities from different backgrounds.

Part of this is ensuring we get closer to audiences when making programmes. For example, White Girl - part of BBC2's groundbreaking White Season - told the story of a white family relocating from Leeds to a predominantly Asian community in Bradford. Here the production team worked very closely with the community to ensure a sensitive and accurate portrayal.

In an increasingly globalised creative economy where competition will intensify, it is only by understanding our diverse consumers that we can stay relevant and survive. The BBC prides itself on keeping in touch with its audiences - to do so successfully we'll need to keep making changes, and fast.

Mulvey Theory

Laura Mulvey Theory

Mulvey argues that there are a number of features of cinema viewing that facilitate for the viewer both the voyeuristic process of objectification of female characters. She declares that in the patriarchal society the ‘pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. This is reflected in the dominant forms of cinema.

It refers to the way in which female’s signify themselves in order to satisfy the male gaze. The split between male, active gaze which looks and female obedience is looked upon. It is stated that women are always on display in film and seen as objects of sexual desire, the visual presence of females tends to stop the story line to dwell on the image.

Mest 4 Critical Details

Critical Investigation...

My critical investigation is based on the representation of females in "Mean Girls." I am will be looking at how the representation has changed and what impact has it had on teenager girls around the world. The other texts that I will be referring to is "Sex And The City" and "Desperate Housewife's". The reason for choosing these two texts is because is follows the same narrative as "Mean Girls" which i can then depict each characters representation and compare them.

Linked Production...

The linked production to my investigation is going to be a four page magazine which I'm currently working on with my partner Manpreet. The magazine is aimed to a female teenage audience. Inside the magazine there will be interviews from celebrities point of views about how female representation in the media is affecting teenage girls life's.

Migrain Analysis...

M-
I will be paying close attention to certain props that the characters are give. The reason for this is so that I can get a clear cut image of what the character is about and how different props can represent characters in different ways.
Setting is also a key element to the representation of the characters as they would act different in different environments. "Mean Girls" is based within a high school environment so I will be taking the existing stereotypes of high school life and compare it to that of "Mean Girls."
Lastly, I will be focusing on the editing that has been made within the film. The reason for this is so I can see how the director has edited the film to put us in the point of view of the protagonist so that we as an audience can get into grips with the character.

I-
Institution is also a big aspect to the film world as the institutor's market and advertise the movies so it can appeal to its target audience. I will be looking into the instituter and seeing if there is a similar pattern in the narrative of all their films which they have distributed.

G-
The chick flick genre is the genre that I will be focusing on the most. The reason for this is because "Mean Girls" is a chick flick and I can see if the director has broken any conventions of the chick flick genre to make it more appealing to the audience.
For my critical investigation I will also be looking at the comedy genre as "Mean Girls" posses humour. The reason for looking at the comedy genre is so that I can be able to identify whether the director has used humour to attract a greater audience or to attract a dumbed down audience.


R-
The representation that I will paying particular attention to would be the main character Lindsey Lohan. I' am going to be analysing in close detail, to aspects such as her clothing, the way she talks and the way she represents herself to others.
I will also be referring to the other females which have been represented in "Sex And The City" and "Desperate Housewife's" so that I can compare both texts to mine, to see how the representations are different and what are the causes for them being different.
I will then justify my argument and use statistics to prove that the media has an affect on a young teenage audience and how teenagers tend to copy what is being shown on T.V.

A-
For my critical investigation, I will be exploring the primary and secondary audiences and seeing how each audience has a different view. I will also be adding uses and gratification theory to help explain why these audiences have a particular view on a certain text.
For our linked production we will be having teenage audience of females. The magazine is based on girls and shows how the media has an effect on them, sometimes without them even knowing.

I-
Feminism within Hollywood is a key concern within film today as there are still not enough women on screen as they are men; especially in leading roles. Therefore, I will look into feminism and how Lindsey Lohan is the main protagonist in the film and what situations she goes through, to become a strong, confident, bold women.
I will also be looking at Mulveys theory about the "male gaze" and prove to teenage girls how women are just put in the media to-be-looked-at. The ideology will remain strong so long Hollywood keep portraying women as sexual objects.

N-
Overall, through my critical investigation and linked production I will be referring to Todrov's narrative theory and how "Mean Girls" follows it. I will depicting each section of Todrov's theory and selecting a scene to which section it would be allocated in.
I will also analyse whether or not the film is in a linear narrative or a non-linear narrative to see if this had a greater effect on the audience or not. The way I will do this, is by if the film met the audiences expectations or did they not suspect nothing.

Shep analysis...

S-
For my critical analysis I will be looking at the social aspects of what female teenagers do and are they influenced by what is being shown on the media. I will also publicise the issue to society so that parents can try to stoop their children from following the media and thinking that they are always right.

H-
I will be looking be at Historical texts, such as "Legally Blonde" and seeing what representations of females were made historically and compare them to today's contemporary text and state what has been changed. The reason for doing this, is because I will then be able to see the differences between to decades and see how the has developed since and has it been a positive or negative effect?

E-
Currently, the economic climate is in a recession where by people are not spending money and prices are increasing. This links to my linked production so that when I' am designing my magazine I must remember to price my magazine at a reasonable price so that consumers are willing to purchase it.

P-
Political issues such as women rights have only recently seemed to be answered. Films such as "Mean Girls" conforms with feminism as it shows a leading female character who is control which shows that we are not living in a patriarchal society like we used to; therefore women have more rights to do as they please.

Current issues and Debates-

The issues and debates that I will be incorporating within my critical investigation is going to be about the male backlash. The reason is that "Mean Girls" is a film which challenges men as the leading character who is in control is female. Therefore, men are feeling threatened that there power in society is being overcome by females.

Media Theories-

As my critical investigation focuses on the representation of females, the first theory which I will be using is audience theory. I will be analysing each theory such as reception theory and the hypodermic needle model so that I can see which possible action does the media take to influence teenage girls.
The second theory which needs attention is Larua Mulvey's theory of the male gaze. The reason for this theory is that I believe that the representation of females in the media is strictly sexual to attract a male audience. Therefore, this gives a negative response to the female teenage audience and may imitate certain scenes as they may feel it is right.

Critical & Linked Production

Critical Investigation: An investigation into how women are represented in rap videos.
Linked Production: A new music video.

Male Gaze - The male gaze is a theory made by Laura Mulvey, it refers to women being used in media forms to be objectified as sexual objects. This is due to, producers dressing female characters in provocative clothing and masses of make-up. I would use the male gaze to attract a wider male market in order to generate profits.

Post Feminism - This is when representation of females in the media has been challenged to attract a niche market due to it being unique. This would be used in the linked production to twist the narrative, so that it is not soo obvious when the audience is consuming the text.

Self Objectification - This is when a well established actor or artist uses their attributes to be sexually visulised for the male or female gaze.

Patriarchy - This is a male dominated society whereby; men are the ruling sex over women. Also, men have more authority over women, making there decisions count. I will want to use patriarchy in my text to show that men are still the controlling sex and so that the male backlash does not occur.

Narrative - A story line and structure of the text. A narrative will help to shape and explain something to the audience who consumes the text. This will be used in the linked production as there will be a story line which the music video will follow.

Presentation evaluation

In the pointers below I am explaining the advantages and the disadvantages of my presentation. Overall, I think my presentation was very confident and interesting however, there was still room for improvements. This below is all my aspects which worked well for my presentation:

1) The first aspect which worked well about my presentation was that my presentation and designs worked accordingly to the topic which gave the audience a clear cut definition of what my studies about. Also, by picking these specific slides and designs, attracted and engages the audience to keep watching and listening to the presentation.

2)The second aspect which worked well in my presentation was the information of which it consisted. In particular i had good coherent explanations about the theory of media; I used media terminology to depict my text. Moreover, I attempted to included all theorists in my presentation so I will have a wider understanding when writing my study up.

In the points below I will explaining what features did not work well with my presentation and how can they be improved for the next presentation.

1) The first feature which needs to be improved for my presentation will be making my key concepts more detailed. The reason being is that currently my points are very narrow and vague. They need to be more detailed so that I can really get within grips with my study so that it will show the examiner that I have really thought about it.

2) The second feature which needs to be improved is the actual pace of the presentation as it was too quick. I need to make my speech more slower so that the audience can understand clearly my points. This needs to take place so that the audience can get to know in detail what my study is about and maybe generate some future ideas for me.

3) My final feature which needs to be improved is by adding my pictures in my presentation. This is so that audience can create assumptions about the characters if the audience have not seen the film. Also, as I had hardly any pictures i noticed that I was doing alot of the talking which audience members then not paying attention and becoming easily distracted. If i had added more pictures from the start then I probably would have draw the audience further.

Movie Reviews

Cinema Blend: www.cinemablend.com/reviews/Mean-Girls-502.html

Reviewed by Joshua Tyler

Mean Girls is a movie viciously poking fun at teen cliché’s in the most obvious ways possible. The popular kids are always the prettiest and because they are pretty they are all of course bitches. But somewhere in there Mean Girls is still brilliant, showcasing outlandish and insanely sarcastic humor, the type that might slip out the corner of your mouth when no one else is looking. The jokes are random and unpredictable; the story itself, while wrapped in cliché seems to be more interested in making fun of itself than fully exploring those.

This is a movie so packed with offhand jokes and quick hits that it’s impossible not to miss at least some of them. While I’m not sure Fey’s script ever totally transcends the Clueless-like genre into which it dips, it gives great belly laughs on the sly. Fey really is one of the most original comedy writers working today. Her humor is biting and sharp, enough to make Mean Girls stand tall in an already comedically strong movie year. Yet I can’t totally shake the feeling that had it not been at least marginally targeted towards teenage girls the cruelty could have been taken further.

Summer Research Task...."Mean Girls" (2004)

Media Representations

The media representations of the film "Mean Girls" is a mixture of different stereotypical views of a girl. However the main protagonist (girl on the left in the picture) representation changes throughout the film as in the beginning she is represented as a shy, intelligent girl as she is new to the school. As she progresses with school life as her representation of a shy, intelligent girl changes to a sexual object by pampering herself up and wearing provocative clothing just as the three girls on the right in the picture.

They are being represented in this way to show the teenage audience the lifestyle of the stereotypical girl. This is done to add a bigger impact on the audience so that the audience can relate to the characters, making them more intrigued in the film.

The representation i believe is a not a fair realistic view as I think that it has been exaggerated to add humour to the screen. A clear sign of this is that they made the three bad girls all bimbos which suggests that all the "promiscuous girls" in society are bimbos. However they did challenge the representation by adding Linsley Lohan to be the clever, fourth member of the evil clan.

Media Languages and Forms

Within the film there are different levels of denotative and connotative meaning, however the connotations levels were much higher which means they are a lot more meaningful. For example, in the film poster above the main character is wearing a red jumper and the colour red connotes things such as love and danger in which she was both faced within the film.


The clothing and gestures were key aspects for the films message to come across as the audience knew how a character was represented just by their clothing and gestures. As the "Mean Girls" were represented as bimbos alot of hand gestures were used to show the groups secrecy that they obtained.



The film was largely set within the premises of a High School which distinguished the audience to be teenagers. The shopping mall was another key setting in the film as this where the girls loved to shop for their outfits and check out guys. A final key setting that was used was at Regina's house were the scrapbook was made about all the other students in the school.

The commentary that is in the film is all Linsey Lohan's thought, as us the audience can hear her thoughts. This puts the audience in Linsey's point of view. The voice over on Linsey's thoughts, acts as a sound bridge over certain actions and soundtracks playing simultaneously.

The main iconic figure that kept on appearing in the film was the colour pink. The colour pink is a girly colour and is associated with femininity. In the film the colour pink is worn constantly by the "Mean Girls" as it is their favourite colour.

Narrative

The narrative of the film follows a simplistic chronological order to that of Todrov's theory whereby he spoke about the equilibrium, disequilibrium and the new equilibrium. Also us being the audience were forced to see the point of view from the main character Linsey as she was the centre of attention and the voice over was coming from her thoughts, so we knew what she was thinking at certain points in the film.

The hero's and villains were adapted from the stereotypes to that of high school life. "The Hot Chick" was the villain and Linsey was the hero, showing at the end of the film that good does overcome evil. However, the twist in the narrative was when Linsey joined forces with the "Mean Girls" and adopted the same evil features they had.

The sound and music within the film plays a important role as it sets the mood for the audience. The majority of the sound and music that was featured was mainly soft flowing music to give a sense of a cool calm and collective atmosphere which is mostly associated to girls. However, hard hitting music was played to show tension between the girls.

The major themes that the narrative embodies is love, as the whole battle in the end was over the boy that Linsey loved and Regina too. Another theme that is clear within the film is friendship and it shows that you should keep your friends and don't try and be someone your not.

Genre

The genre of the is a hybrid genre as it is a mix between both drama and comedy. The film makes reference to both a drama film and a comedy film by having serious issues raised in a humours way to have a different impact on the audiences reaction. The major generic conventions that are used in the film are humour, suspense and the battle between good vs evil. The iconic features within the film were features such as the colour pink, the provocative clothing, the phallic symbols of make up (the shape of the eye liner) and the scrapbook that was produced by the characters.

The audience's generic expectations I believe are fulfilled in the film as the expectation was that in the end good would overcome evil and it did. Lindsay overcame Regina by being the bigger person and speaking out loud and telling the truth the whole school.

The film stars the big teenage Hollywood superstar Lindsay Lohan as the main protagonist. Lohan is best known for her romantic chick flicks or her high school romance films. In a way "Mean Girls" is a film which is similar to the ones that she has starred in making her the perfect actress to star in it.

Media Institutions

Director- Mark Waters
Filomgraphy: 500 Days of Summer
Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
The Spiderwick Chronicles
Just like Heaven
Sorry, Haters
Mean Girls
Freaky Friday
Head over Heels
The house of yes



Paramount Pictures is a mainstream hollywood film production and have produced hundreds of films. Paramount Pictures is a very established film production industry and competes against the best such as Universal Studios.





The film "Mean Girls" was distributed in many ways such as film trailers, film posters, tv adverts and many more.

Media Values and Ideologies

The major values and ideologies that are embeded within this film vary from love, to status, to friendship. However, the most pronoun of them all would be is being yourself and not somebody else because then people won't the real you.

The criteria that has been used to select this type of film was the stereotypical views of females in high school and how their lifes can change just by making new friends.

Media Audiences

The film "Mean Girls" is targeted to a primary audience of teenage girls. The reason they are the primary audience is becuase they can relate to the text with issues or problems they might have (personal realtionship). The secondary audience would be teachers and school for survillance purposes so that they can see what students are like.

The scale of the audience is on a large scale for teenager girls as the population is never ending and there is never a decline in the amount of teenage girls. The possible audience readings for teenage girls for this particular text would be to learn to trust your friends and for them to understand the mening of being yourself.

Overall, I think that "Mean Girls" is a good helpful film for teenage girls all over the world as at most high school there are "mean girls" there who like to pick and bully others. Therefore, this was a good eye opener for girls to see how to cope with certain situations that do occur at high school.