What Is Representation? All types of media are representations of reality, they are composed, written, framed etc… Every form of media is a perception of someone’s reality. As an audience we are given the opportunity to critique allowing us to form opinions on characters for example, however our perception of the reality is limited. The information we receive from any form of media is restricted, for example if we’re watching a documentary the producers have selected certain elements that they want the audience to see allowing them to craft the program, this could make the programme bias, or perhaps we were just not allowed the truth when viewing the documentary for example. The basic idea is that Representation refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of 'reality' such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts. Such representations may be in speech or writing as well as still or moving pictures. Representation includes, age, gender, sexuality, status/class and race etc… The study of representation is about decoding the different layers of truth/fiction/ whatever. In order to fully appreciate the part representation plays in a media text you must consider • Who produced it? • What/who is represented in the text? • How is that thing represented? • Why was this particular representation (this shot, framed from this angle, this story phrased in these terms, etc) selected, and what might the alternatives have been? • What frame of reference does the audience use when understanding the representation? In order to gain a better understanding I have decided to break down different elements of representation in films.
ETHNICITY: Race is biological, and can also be based on cultural ethnicity. In film we tend to see stereotypes of ethnicities exaggerated. In addition to this we also tend to see a lot of the historical views in terms of ethnicity in films, for example we see a lot of films that are based in the past therefore it takes on the story of racism, the idea of one race being superior to another. In a lot of cases we see the race of the whites being superior to blacks. This is sometimes deemed risky, but at the end of the day the film is only trying to tell a story, a lot of the time the racism is seemed to be uplifting in movies as characters often demolish the rules of the times and defeat the odd… possibly even become friends.
AGE:
Depending on how old someone we can tend to make judgement about someone due to their age. For example if someone is old we would stereotypically think that they could be wise and knowledgeable. If we saw a teenage girl perhaps we would think that she is immature and dramatic etc…
GENDER / SEXUALITY: Due to certain Genres, stereotypes come in to play a lot in films. Therefore many things are seen as ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’. The typical man would be seen as tall, strong, tough and smart. In opposition to this the typical girl would be seen as fragile, pretty, soft and kind.
REGIONAL IDENTITY: This is the representation of people who come from a certain area. Often seen of the news, the general news is shown, then regional new broadcasts afterwards which focuses on a specific region. For example if they were focusing on a particular story for Scotland the newsreader would be Scottish and have a Scottish accent.
CLASS/STATUS: Within our current society there are about three different types of classes. Which would comprise of Upper, Middle and Working class. Class could be represented by dialect, attire or possessions. A fine example of different class systems in a film is within the film Titanic. Upperclass would attend dinner in Tux’s and ballgowns and have a suit onboard, whilst working class would share cabins with bunkbeds and get drunk in the evenings with each other.
STEREOTYPES:
Stereotypes are always seen in the media and in films. They are often used to create characters and effectively tell a story. We make assumptions on someone, whether it be the way they speak or the way they dress we can assume something of them due to a common conception. For example if someone spoke very grammatically correct with a posh accent, we would assume them to be very rich. Stereotypes are also based of the
previous factors of, age, ethnicity, gender, class/status, regional identity and disability.