Critical Investigation - First Page Changes

“Stop calling each other sluts; it makes it okay for boys to call you that”

To a large extent females in teen movies are seen by audiences to be bimbos and sex objects. This could be due to the way they are represented by the producers and the costumes that they are dressed in, which are mainly revealing, sexual and provocative. A vast majority of the time, “female stars are constructed to appeal to male desire” and therefore in order to appeal to a traditional male audience female in teen movies are represented as passive objects. Laura Mulvey argued that “Hollywood cinema objectified women in an image for the pleasure of men” . This idea is evident in the 2004 movie, ‘Mean Girls, which follows the protagonist on her journey to becoming a ‘plastic’. The plastics, as the main protagonists of the narrative, are shown to be complete opposites. Regina George is constructed to be the ‘femme fatale’ of the movie, with ‘her lackies’ Karen Smith (the ‘bimbo’) and Gretchen Weiner (the ‘sheep’) following her every move which suggests the idea of a young women being more like a child wanting to be exactly like her favourite ‘Barbie doll’.

At the start of the movie, it is evident that Karen Smith, the first of the plastics that we are introduced to, is a bimbo. The scene depicts the ‘plastics’ partaking in a physical education lesson where Karen runs to catch the ball but ends up accidentally hitting it with her ‘boobs’ instead. Another female character, Janice, who contrastingly is shown to be a gothic, more ‘masculine’ figure, tells the protagonist: “That’s Karen Smith, she’s one of the dumbest girls you’ll ever meet.” The closes up shots of this group of friends sitting on the grass depict them mocking her and what she did to the character Damien in their English class. “She asked me how to spell ‘orange’!” This denigrates her in a sexist way and reinforces her status as the bimbo.

Further, an enduring common stereotype of a young female is the ‘bimbo’, which is typically denoted through, blonde hair, flashy make-up, large breasts, mini skirt and high heels. Also, she is seen to be uneducated, helpless and stupid; this appeals to a primary audience of males due to predatory male desire, which reinforces the idea of Mulvey’s theory of the active, controlling ‘male gaze’. Females in teen movies are more frequently given the passive roles rather than the active whereby, “In the past, lead roles for women have always seemed scarce compared to males” This argues that female actresses had limited roles.

http://dominantroles.blogspot.com/
Laura Mulvey (1975),"Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
Mean Girls Dir. Mark Waters (Viii). Perf. Mark Waters. Paramount, 2004.
Mean Girls Dir. Mark Waters (Viii). Perf. Mark Waters. Paramount, 2004.
Laura Mulvey’s (1975),page 145

Critical Investigation Personalized Plan

Detailed Targets

1. More research into book quotes. Specially looking at how the trends of housewives and other teen movies. Also, I need to look into more texts that include female protagonists. This can help me to improve my essay because; I can compare my chosen text to many other different ones, allowing me to do a comparison of them. This may include texts from the 80’s and 90’s. This will demonstrate significant research and engagement with the primary text(s) and a range of secondary texts.

2. Secondly, I need to look into the wider contexts and the position of women in society and whether films reflect upon this or not. This will help me to identify if the representation of females in film have an impact upon women on the outside world. This is because; in today’s society many young teenage females see actors as role models and have this sense of being just like them. Therefore; they copy them and watch them on screen.

3. Thirdly, on the 2nd page of my essay I need to include a decent amount of media keywords as that is lacking at the moment. Using media terminology in near enough every sentence will not only help me improve but will show the examiner that I know what I’m talking about.

4. Further, I need to talk a bit more about representation and stereotypes of the female girls and the effect upon the audience. This will help to improve my essay because, I want to show that I am exploring the chosen topic and demonstrating autonomous research and exploration.

5. What’s more, I need to work on my bibliography as I need to include works cited and works consulted. Though, I yet need to conduct a significant amount of book research and find more quotes, I will do this at the very end as I will want my bibliography to be detailed, making use of a range of academic, media and contextual sources.

Next Steps – How to Improve

In order to develop upon my critical investigation I will be doing the following:
1. Go to the library – I will improve by going to different libraries in the borough to look at a range of different books, in order to gather effective quotes to include in my essay.

2. More time – I will take out more time to read over my essay and look at the feedback I have received carefully. Also, I will take out at least 1 hour everyday after school to work on my essay to make changes.

3. More research – Also, to improve I am going to read more books and research into the topic of teenage girls in a bit more depth. Looking at the influences and the impacts this may have upon the audience.

Overall Grade

Well, after reading through my essay, I believe that it is written as an average piece of work, which can actually be improved upon by at least one level. After looking at the marking criteria, I have myself a Level 2 – D/E. Reasons being because, I have only explored the chosen topic and demonstrating some evidence of research and exploration. Yet, I believe that I can appropriately present my work with a functional bibliography/source list and show that significant research has been undertaken.

Marked Grade - D+

Action Plan

Our action plan for this week is to:

- First draft front cover
- First draft of contents page
- Make changes to accordning to feedback

The reasons why we havent yet started our front cover and contents page is because, we feel that out of the whole production work the most effective and appealing page is going to be the front cover, therefore; it is vital to take out time with main page. Lastly, changes will be made according to feedback. We will ask several girls in our class about their opinions of the production so far and if they feel they are not automatically apealled to magazine we will change a few things around.

Progression Report

From looking at the previous action plan, we have completed the following tasks:

-Diet Plan
-Article Page
-Fashion Spread

Although, some changes are yet to be made as we are having second thoughts about the fashion spread and making changes in terms of the layouting. The 1st draft of the diet page is complete though, pictures are awaiting to be uploaded 2 the page.