Sheila's Wheels

This advert represents women in a different light as the women in this advert are not trying to attract men towards the product but are trying to attract more women then men as they make the females feel independent with their own car insurance and 'for ladies who insure their cars' obviously confirms that point.

The whole theme of the advert is all about the independence of women and the colours in the advert emphasizes the theme and the attitude of the women, which is independence and the pink, which is seen as a 'girly' colour is the main colour.

Dior - J'adore

This advert is a bit different to the other contemporary adverts chosen as their is one character in the advert and the only character in the advert in a celebrity, charlize theron and that adds a credibility factor to the product which will attract an audience of both female, who would want to buy the product because of the actress and males who would be gazing at the woman.

The actress in this advert is one of high recognition and it makes it even more eye catching in the advert when she takes her clothes off and is representing a pure woman with her body but also at the same time she could be seen to be representing the promiscuous and provocative woman, historical stereotypes are shining through in this advert, the male gaze.

Historical Text

Although this text is not too old, it still shows a major change from the way women were represented in professional wrestling compared to todays representations. This video clip is from a WWF show in 1986. Although the WWF and WWE are the same company, a major change has taken place throughout the years. This is likely due to changes in society which have taken place, for example before the 1950's, women were not even a part of professional wrestling, but now there are many entering this industry.

"The Fabulous Moohlah" is represented as a hard hitting aggressive wrestler, which is rarely seen on todays wrestling shows. She is shown as aggressive by saying to the interviewer that she could beat him up anytime she wanted which is different to todays shows as the women would perhaps flirt for a minute with the interviewer or another wrestler backstage. Moohlah doesnt appear to be wearing provocative clothing which indicates that she is not meant to be represented in a promiscuous way. Her wrestling attire was normally similar to a womans swimming costume, which covers the cleavage etc. This is obviously not the case with todays women in wrestling, as they often have boob jobs done and show their cleavage to the world. Her glasses are gold with '$' signs which could indicate that her character/gimmick is a wealthy one.

Not only has the representation of women changed in professional wrestling, but the representation of men had also changed rapidly. From the 50's -80's, wrestlers would need to have an outstanding figure with long locks. This was the common look for a wrestler - big and powerful. Examples of this are Hulk Hogan, Andre The Giant and The Ultimate Warrior. Nowadays, there are all sorts of wrestlers -similar to boxing, they are divided into weights, i.e heavyweights, cruiserweights etc. A popular look for a wrestler in the past was to have long hair, however this is not the case anymore as about 1/2 of the roster has short or even no hair. This may be due to fashion changes in society or perhaps to give a certain look to a particular wrestler with a "gimmick"

Diet Coke Break

The way in which the male comes down from up above could indicate that he is represented as a God like character to the women. The low angle shots of him coming down illustrates that he is a powerful figure in this advert. This also brings up the ideology of a patriarchal society as the male has this sexual power of this woman due to his perfect looks. The male is also the subject of the female gaze as he is placed there for all woman to look at.

Flake

This advert portrays women in a different light and represents them as a sex object. The woman in the advert is dressed a skirt and shes seen unwrapping the Flake Chocolate almost in a sexual manner. The fact that the women is holding the Flake in such a sexual way makes it a phallic symbol. The women her self is an object of the male gaze therefore, she is represented as a sex object.

Flash

The Flash commercial is very similar to the Shake and Vac commercial as they both represent the female in the advertisement as a stereotypical housewife. The female promoting the product is seen wearing a typical housewife outfit consisting of an apron, a skirt etc. This represents the woman as a housewife not only isit the outfit that represents the woman as a stereotypical housewife its the domestic household tasks she is carrying out such as cleaning cupboard, cleaning windows etc. This all reinforces the idea that during that time period society expected women to fulfill these roles and take up the responsibility of a housewife leaving the male to work and allowing him to chase his dream.

Shake and Vac

At the beginning of the advert you can see the woman is dressed in a typical housewife outfit which instantly represents her as the housewife. The advert itself is promoting a cleaning product and with a woman promoting this cleaning product it brings up the ideology of a patriarchy society as males are not seen once in this advert therefore, it is seen as the males are the ones who are placing their women in the household making them clean. The woman is also seen carrying out domestic household tasks such as hoover once again representing her as the stereotypical housewife. This shows that womens place in society during that time did not change and they were there to please their husband, look after their children and make sure the house was clean. Society now expects much more women and these stereotypes attached to women are disposed of as women are more likely to go out and get a job.

3 Subvertisements - Click to Enlarge

Three Ways The Number of Female Directors Could Improve

One of the ways which the number of female directors could improve is by the male sharing the household work with the female. There is the "new man" being formed and this needs to continue in order for the females to have more free time and chase their dreams of directing. Women are currently having to take care of their young children which means they have no time to direct hence the low number of female directors. Therefore, it is seen that one of the ways in which the number of female directors could improve is by the male sharing household tasks with the women and also men sharing child rearing.

Five Female Directors

Sofia Coppola:
Born on May 14, 1972 in New York. Sofia Coppola has been one of the rare female directors to get recognition for her productions. She has won an Academy Award for being a screenwriter and is to be nominated for another Academy Award for directing. She is the daughter Francis Ford Coppola who directed the well known Godfather. She started off as an actor and is mostly known for her role in The Godfather as Mary Corleone but she later went on to directing. Her three most recognisable films are Lick the Star(1998), Virgin Suicide (1999) and Lost in Translation (2003) which won a Academy Award.
Films she has made:
1996:Bed Bath and Beyond
1998:Lick the Star
1999:The Virgin Suicide
2003:Lost in Translation
2006:Mary Antoinette

Jane Campion:
Born on 30th of April, 1954 in Wellington, New Zealand, Jane Campion is a Academy Award winning screenwriter and has also been nominated for an Academy Award for directing. Jane Campion started off directing by making films at the Australian Film Telivision and Radio School. Her first short film, Peel won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. She later went on to direct many other films that won her international awards.
Films she had made:
1989:Sweetie
1990:An Angel at My Table
1993:The Piano
1996:The Portrait of a Lady
1999:Holy Smoke
2003:In the Cut
2006:The Water Diary
2008:8

Amy Heckerling:
Amy Heckerling was born on May 7 , 1954 in the Bronx. She ones of the few female directors to have multiple box office hits. Heckerling attended New York University where she studied film and then later went on to direct her first film, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. This movie was heavily praised and pathed a way for her success. She then produced another massive hit starring John Travolta titled Look Whos Talking. This movie was very successful that there was a sequel once again directed by Amy Heckerling titled Look Whos Talking Too. She then went on to produce another box office hit, Clueless. Her next few films were not as popular.
Films she had made:
1977: Getting it Over With
1982: Fast Time at Ridgemont High
1984: Johnny Dangerously
1985: National Lampoons European Vacation
1989: Look Whos Talking
1990: Look Whos Talking Too
1995: Clueless
2000: Loser
2007: I Could Never Be Your Woman

Gurinder Chadha:
Gurinder Chadha was born on January 10 , 1960 in Nairobi, Kenya. She then moved to Southall, England when she was 2. She started off as a BBC Radio reporter until she made a documentary for Channel 4. She then went on to film production in 1993. Her main hits are, Bend it Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging which is her latest film.
Films she has made:
1992: Acting Our Age
1993: Bhaji on the Beach
1994: What do you can an Indian women whos funny?
1994: Nice Arrangement
2000: Whats Cooking
2002: Bend it like Beckham
2004: Bride and Prejudice
2008: Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging

Nora Ephron:
Nora Ephron May 19, 1941 in New York . She graduated from Wellesley College and then went on to be a reporter for the New York Post. She then went on to be a successful writer for the womens issue of Esquire. She later went on to film and directed box office hits such as Bewitched and Sleepless in Seattle.
Films she had made:
1992:This is My Life
1993:Sleepless in Seattle
1994:Mixed Nuts
1996: Michael1
998: You've Got Mail
2005: Bewitched

Why Female Directors Are a Rare Sight

The media in general is dominated by males so a lack of women directors is not much of a suprise. A variety of actors and (especially) actresses have wished to work with more women directors as it would be a change and the actresses feel as though men do not know how to represent women properly. The reasons behind the lack of women directors are...

One reason is because of the prehistoric times when the men used to carry the equipment because it was too heavy for women as men are physically stronger than women in most cases. The equipment would of needed around 100 to 150 large men to carry therefore, a hierachy was built upon this and females were seen as useless. Although this weight of equipment is no longer a problem the hierachy still exists and women still find it difficult to break into directing.

Another reason is womens role in a household. Women have to take care of their children while the men go off and work leaving women unable to direct. Although this is starting to change in society and males are sharing this role ("the new man") it has to continue in order for women to find the time to direct a film.

Film is such a male-dominated industry. There is alot of "who you know" in terms of how you get promoted. the whole way the business is constructed means there are just men at every level which makes it really hard for women to get into.

Having children also causes women to not succeed in the film industry and become directors. This is because directing asks for your all and expects you to sacrifice all of your time so that you can spend it on the project. Having a child makes it all the more difficult but this can also fixed by males taking on more a househusband role.

The last and the most obvious reason is that men control the money in the world. Therefore, they are going to decide who to give the money to and unfortunately it is not the women hence the lack of female directors.

'Gender in Advertising' Theorists

Gunter (1995) is a theorist who focuses on how gender (specifically women) are being represented in magazines, comparing their representations in different decades. He found out that women in magazines adverts prior to the 70's were hardly shown in paid work and if they were shown in paid work then they would be in jobs that would usually be associated with the female gender, for example a secretary or a hairdresser. Gunter also concludes that the 'housewife' image was in decline after the 50's but was still quite common in the 60's and 70's. Even though women were shown more as working women, Gunter still found that women were still assumed to be performing domestic duties.

Cumberbatch (1995) done a study of 500 prime time tv ads in the UK and found that advertisers had seemingly become wary of showing women doing housework, which was seen in 7% of the ad's, but also it was shown for the first time that men were shown in the kitchen doing the cooking more often than women. This could be described as one of the instances of the 'new man' coming into affect and men were introduced to more domesticated jobs and women were shown as more dominant than men with there being a role reversal.

Scheibe (1979) done a study of tv ad's and included an assessment of what male and female characters were shown to be concerned about. He concluded that women in ad's were shown to be more concerned about beauty, cleanliness, family and pleasing others, whereas men were only more concerned about achievements and having fun and even if both gender groups were ahown in unusual places or settings, these characteristics were seen to be shining through their role at the moment. This goes some way to show that once a group in the media has been placed in a catagory or has been given a 'label', that stereotype stays with them even when not in their 'mediated habitat'.

Macdonald (1995) was taking an oppositional view to the concept that groups in ad's were normally confirming to their stereotypes in other forms of the media and he noted that "advertisers generally lagged behind women's magazines in the cultivation of new modes of address, even when the evidence suggested that commercial advantages could be gained from modernising their approach", this is Macdonalds arguement that advertsiers were doing nothing to update and modernise womens stereotypes and how they were shown and the conclusion can be drawn that advertisers were the group of people who carried on with the stereotypes given to the women.

Greer- "every woman knows that she is a failure if she is not beautiful", this is one of the more noticable quotations from Greer as he sums up the representation of women both modernised and stereotypical, even in the news where all of the news readers are good looking and young as half of the hype about the news shows is if the news readers are good looking or not. This quotation is a reminder from Greer that the gender equality situation remains unchanged nowadays. "Thirty years ago it was enough to look beautiful now a woman has to have a tight, toned body, including her buttocks and thighs, so that she is in good touch all over", this quotations best describes what messages modelling agencies send out and what attitudes women have these days.

Natasha Walters (1998) quotes suggest that women nowadays are more or less happy with the way they look and instead of women being the unsatisfied with the way they look, it is actually the vast majority of the men who are left feeling unsatisfied with the way that they look, which can be co-insided with the new man and even further towards the metrosexual man who is alot more feminine. "If only 4% of men think that they are attractive, we should not be too quick to argue that only women feel cast down by the pressures of beautiful ideals" (1998). She then goes onto making the point about how more attractive people earn more money than their plain counterparts and this was more apparant for men then women. However, there have been statistics who disagree with walter as it was concluded from a survey that women are ten times more likely to be more unhappy with their body image than men.

Cortese, who wrote in a book called 'provocateur', argues that women are more or less shown to be the perfect provocateur as they are made to look provocative through editing and make up and clothing. " Displays youth, good looks, sexual seductivness and [beauty] perfection", and this is very illustrative of how various companies make women look for any type of commercial or tv advert and this is a common factor, for example in the 'male gaze' theory where mulveys argues that women are just sexual objects and have no purpose in the media, this is going some way as to why this is the case, as women are made to look sexy and seductive, therefore attracting the males attention.

Book Quotes

'AS Media Studies' - John Price, Joe Nicholas.
Rosalind Coward - Female Desire, 1984: "The perfect female body would be between 5'5" and 5'8", long-legged, tanned and vigorous looking

Hollows Joanne: Feminism, femininity and popular culture
"second-wave feminism is seen as a product of the past." pg1* "male character is presented as doing a favour for his wife by helping out in order to get in her good books, thereby confirming the nation that it is normal for women to be responsible for domestic labour." pg 23t above all without a spare inch of flesh. Brown, slim, lively and lovely...that's how we would all like to see ourselves on holiday."
pg.111

'Visual pleasure and narrative cinema' -Mulvey, Laura, 1975,- "The image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze.....The arguement returns again to the psychoanalytic background that woman as representation signifies castration".

Riley Glenda:The Female Frontier
"domestic service attracted a wide variety of women." pg 126

1990's - American Pie

This scene from American Pie represents the woman in the photograph as a sex object by refering to her as a "mum i'd like to f***".

1990's - Pulp Fiction

This scene from Pulp Fiction is one of the key scenes throughout the entire film.

1980's - Rocky III

The third installment in the Rocky series was released in the 80's. The training scene is famous within all Rocky movies with its very own theme tune.

1980's - Grease

Grease is one of the most sucessful musicals ever made and throughout the 80's, pop music was begining to grow popular.

1970's - The Excorcist

The slasher genre was rapidly growing in popularity throughout the 70's, especially with teenagers and one of the most sucessful horror films ever is The Exorcist.

1970's - Jaws

Jaws was one of many of the new violent films which were being released throughout the 70's. Others being Alien and other horror films such as The Exorcist.

1960's - Planet of the Apes

During the 60's, sci-fi films were being introduced and Planet of the Apes was one of the first made.

1960's - The Sound of Music

This is a very famous scene from the film "The Sound of Music" which is a musical.

1950's - High Noon

This film genre was very popular during the 50's. Western films rarely had women in them and only had men acting as cowboys.

1950's - Vertigo

Throughout this video clip, the male character follows the female character around which could support the conventions of how men and women were represented during the 50's. Men were shown as confident and dominant while women were shown as frightend and vunerable.

Representation of Women Today

Women and men are usually equal.Sexist rep in tv ads.
Women twice as likely to be in ads about domestic products.Women in ads are seen to be sexy, perfect and beautiful.
Postfeminism.
Unequal message as men arent expected to go to so much trouble.
Gender messages in advertising are singled out.
Media culture is quick to pick up out women for the smallest aberrations.Female prototype.
Examples of leading female characters are: charlies angles, and what women want.

Natasha Walter quotes surveys sugesst that today's women are more-or-less happy with they look, whereas a cast majority of men felt unsatisfied with thei own appearance.

Loaded- The truth is, it's women themeselves who see these freaks as the epitome of perfection.

Ibid- The exemplary female prototype in advertising, regardless of product or service, displays youth, good looks, sexual seductivesness and perfection.

Hollywood culture is offering in place of bold spectacle of male masculinity and violence, is a self effacing man, one who now, learns to live instead of fighting.

Representation of Women in the Past

In the 1950's to the 1970's there were only 25-30% female characters.Action adventure shows- 15 percent of the leading character were female.
Women's movement had been largely ignored by television.
Female charcters were unlikley to work.
Men to be the dominant character making all the decisions.
Men- assertive.
Females- passive.
The role of a women in a film almost always revolves around her physical attraction.
Women are given less screen time.
Male role films- Indian Jones
Female leading roles- Tomb raider.
Tuchman asserts that those women who were shown to be working were portrayed as "incompetents and inferiors" , as victimes, or having "trivial" intrests.

Dyer 1987- Womens issues have arrived on the media agenda- documentaries, discussion programmes and dramas on female topics such as infertility, cervical and breast cancer, rape etc.

Kathi Maio- observed that Hollywood's about gender were "often reprehensible."
E. Ann Kaplan- "women are ultimately refused a voice, a discourse and their desire is subjected to male desire. They live out silently.