Secret Diary of a Call Girl - Representation of Disability

Secret Diary of a Call Girl - Representation of Disability

The majority of the people in the world take disability as a serious issue. In the clip, the disabled boy is shown as weak and pitiable as he is unable to complete many simple tasks by himself, such as climbing up stairs, drinking and taking off his clothes.

In the first scene the women opens the door to her flat and the camera lowers its lens to look at the boy in the wheelchair. This gives the impression that people look down at people with disabilities and they are weaker than everyone else. As the boy enters the flat the audience can see the deep red walls which could signify love and kindness of the women. In many of the angles in this scene the dad is stood behind the boy in the wheelchair, however you cannot see the boy because the camera is too high, this represents that disabled people are often overlooked by society.

Later in the clip the boy is shown helpless as his dad has to help him get onto the bed, obviously this shows his helplessness, it also is a suggestion that the rest of people with disabilities are the same. The girl shows concern for the boy and doesn’t lock the door as she is worried the boy will be scared, this also shows a suggestion that disabled people are weak and incapable of looking after themselves.

The boy is positioned on a bed covered in multiple cushions and thick duvets, this signifies the protection that society thinks disabled people need, when it isn’t always necessary. When the boy is handed a glass of champagne he is unable to hold it and appears to be not experienced with alcohol, this may represent that disabled people don’t socialise and go out drinking as much as any other person would.

Gender in TV Drama

Gender in TV Drama

Gender is represented in many ways across all forms of media, the form one with the largest variety of gender characters and gender stereotypes is TV.

There are many different stereotypes of gender that are represented in TV. A gender stereotype shows one narrow minded view of a certain gender, for example a woman would be stereotyped as being weaker than a man and conscious about their looks, where as a man would be stereotyped as being insensitive and controlling.

In the TV series ‘Banshee’ Rebecca Bowman is shown as being physically attractive, unintelligent and weak, as her uncle is able to completely control her. Characters such as Rebecca Bowman are very stereotypical female characters as they are portrayed as being naïve, unintelligent and promiscuous. 

In the TV drama ‘True Detective’, Woody Harrelson plays ‘Martin Hart’, the character is shown as being very stereotypical of a male character. For example he regularly cheats on his wife, which shows he has little regard for women and is very insensitive. He also is a crime investigation detective, showing he is vaguely clever, as well as being physically athletic and aggressive. Similar too many other stereotypical male characters ‘Marty’ Hart is violent, overpowering and intelligent.

   

In many TV dramas the 4 areas of textual analysis are used to represent gender, for example different camera angles can be used to show the power of a character. TV dramas regularly place the cameras slightly below a male character so that the audience is looking up at the character, showing his dominance. The opposite effect is also used on self-conscious, weaker female characters, but with the camera looking down on them.  Sound can also be used to create the same effect. A deep undertone non-linguistic sound can be used to suggest dominance. Mise-en-Scene and the characters clothes, as well as surroundings, can be used to suggest that particular characters social standing in a hierarchy.

The gaze from Sarah Ghost

Representation 100 Words Reduction

Representation is the construction in any media of aspects of ‘reality’. All media texts are re-presentations of reality. They are entirely artificial versions of the reality we perceive around us. Every media form is a representation of someone's concept of existence, codified into a series of signs and symbols which can be read by an audience. Without the media, our perception of reality would be very limited, we need the media to make sense of reality. Representation is a fluid process, producers position a text somewhere in relation to reality and audiences assess a text on its relationship to reality.

Representation and Textual Analysis

7 areas of representation and 4 areas of textual analysis

7 areas of representation

• Gender
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Sexuality
• Class and status
• Physical ability/disability
• Regional identity

4 areas of textual analysis

Camera shots, angle, movement, composition

• Shots: establishing shot, master shot, close-up, mid-shot, long shot, wide show, two-shot, aerial shot, point of view shot, over the should shot, and variations of these.
• Angle: high angle, low angle, canted angle.
• Movement: pan, tilt, track, dolly, crane, steadicam, hand-held, zoom, reverse zoom.
• Composition: framing, rule of thirds, depth of field - deep and shallow focus, focus pulls.

Editing
Includes transition of image and sound - continuity and non-continuity systems.

• Cutting: shot/reverse shot, eyeline match, graphic match, action match, jump cut, crosscutting, parallel editing, cutaway; insert.
• Other transitions: dissolve, fade-in, fade-out, wipe, superimposition, long take, short take, slow motion, ellipsis and expansion of time, post-production, visual effects.

Sound

• Soundtrack: score, incidental music, themes and stings, ambient sound.
• Diegetic and non-diegetic sound, synchronous/asynchronous sound, sound effects, sound motif, sound bridge, dialogue, voiceover, mode of address/direct address, sound mixing, sound perspective.

Mise-en-Scène

• Production design: location, studio, set design, costume and makeup, properties.
• Lighting: colour design.

Gender in TV Drama

Gender in TV Drama

The representation of gender is portrayed in many different ways across all aspects of media. The type of media with the largest variety is TV.

Many different stereotypes of male and female characters are used to give a certain element to add to the TV drama. For example a common stereotype for a dominant man in a TV drama would be someone who is physically athletic and attractive to a female. In the majority of TV dramas and other forms of media a female is shown as being weaker compared to the male characters and usually ends up falling for one. It is rare in media that a women character would be dominant and not need a male to accompany her or fall in love with her at one point in the drama. Many people believe this affects real life, males thinking they are dominant and females thinking less of themselves.

Laura Mulvey came up with the term “Male Gaze” that shows how women are represented in media purely to please men. Many TV dramas show this in the form of many characters across many shows, in these shows the female characters aim to please a certain male character by being overly sexual by using facial expressions and gestures. An example character of this could be Rebecca Bowman from Banshee, who regularly aims to please Proctor by sexual means.

The opposite of these characters would be dominant male characters that the women are shown to want to please. The male character is often supposedly attractive, powerful and dominant over females. These characters also can affect people’s views on society. Men may think they have to be attractive in order to make a women like them or they may start to treat women as objects as the supposedly “good looking” characters on the television do.  Many characters across media are represented like this, such as ‘Jax’ from sons of anarchy that is attractive and seems to be a dominant male character that appeals to women. 

Many see the dominance towards male characters in TV as being sexist and that it reflects in the way women see themselves 

The Inbetweeners – Disability in Media

In this scene the disabled girl is used for a comedy element, although the majority of the people in the world take disability as a serious issue, it is regularly used to create humour. In the clip, the main character throws a Frisbee that coincidentally hits the head of a girl in a wheelchair, the girl is used to create a sense of humour.

 In 1991 Paul Hunt observed the perceptions of disability throughout media and modern day society. He spoke of how disability is regularly used to create a comic element in many different types of media. Hunt described the use of  others weaknesses as a form of humour as being around since the ancient Greeks, this old method of comedy is used in this clip to show that the disabled girl is weak, which is why the character felt so bad (and therefore why the scene was funny to the audience) when the Frisbee hits her.

The makers of media aren’t always mocking disability by using it to create humour, for instance, in this clip it is used to show the luck, or the lack of it, that the character has, because his Frisbee hits the girl instead of going where he wanted it to. The stereotype of a disabled person is weakness, meaning any other ‘weak’ group in society could have easily replaced the disabled girl’s position in this scene, e.g. a child.  The disability of the girl isn’t the key part of creating the humour in this scene, meaning that the clip could still be funny despite the girl’s ‘weaknesses’.

Disabled people are often shown in humiliating circumstances in media, meaning other disabled people will often see this happening on TV. A disabled person, specifically people with a similar disability to the girl in the clip (cerebral palsy) may be offended by watching this scene as it portrays people with similar disabilities as being weak and pitiable.

As a society we tend to pity people with disabilities as they appear weaker and less abled than the rest of us. We don’t do this to be patronising or to mock, just to be nice and try and help. However many disabled people have shown they are more than capable and are able to complete massive challenges on their own, the Paralympics is a prime example of this. 

Moving Image Glossary from MissCTurner

Representation of Gender – Wire in the Blood

Representation of Gender – Wire in the Blood

Throughout the clip gender is represented in many ways, different types of textual analysis are used to represent gender. Camera angles are used in lots of ways, at the start of the clip an over the shoulder angle shot is used throughout a conversation between the two main characters. The man tells the woman that she did her work wrong and then he begins to walk off. The women pleads for him to stay which indicates women are weak and need men alongside them to do their work correctly and tell them how to do their job. As the man walks away a long shot is shown which means you can see all of his body, this gives the impression that there is distance between them and the further he goes the more unable she is. The height of the camera angles also shows the different powers of the characters, as the man walks away he is positioned above the women on the screen, this represents the male dominance in society on whole.

In the next scene the man is looking through photos and files about the dead girl. The camera angles change fast and rarely stay consistent throughout this scene, this tells the audience he is thinking and that his thought wave is a little bit crazy.  the editing in this scene also gives the same impressions, jump-cuts give the impression of his thought pattern. However this scene also gives the audience the impression that the man is the more intelligent character in the partnership, as he is doing the work and the women is not there. The mise en scene in the room gives the impression that he i intelligent. in a certain clip, butterflies are showed hanging from the wall in a frame, this a stereotypical feature of a man that is interested in science.

The next scene shows the woman at home with her son, she is panicking about finding the boy a babysitter, this shows a very stereotypical single mother that cannot seem to juggle her work life with her child. in comparison to the last scene with the man in his house, this house is shown as being messy and uncontrollable, this gives the impressions that women are incapable of living in a controllable house without a man present. Then her male partner turns up and enters the house through two swing doors. This may be slightly suggestive and have sexual connotations as he is able to enter the women's house with ease. The man ends up looking after the child. This implies the woman wouldn't be able to cope without her male companion as he turns up and 'saves the day'. The camera follows the woman during this scene and isn't very stable, This represents the woman’s instability with her single life.

The establishing shot of next scene shows a big car pull in to the drive of a dark loomey house, this gives the immediate impression of danger and villainous characters. as the man enters the scene non-verbal noises are played in the background that raise tension and gives further impressions of danger.
as the bald man walks h#into the room he is standing above multiple men sitting on the floor. this automatically shows he is more important than them. other ways that dominance is shown in this clip is though the other actors avoiding eye contact with the villain as he prowls the room.

The final scene in the clip shows the male looking after the young boy. The lighting becomes brighter than in previous scenes and the music becomes faster and more energetic, This implies the child is having a better time with the man than he does with his Mum. However it also may represent the stereotype of men being more childish than women, implying that males never grow up as he is having fun playing with the popcorn. When the boy and the man sit down the boy tells the older man how his mother struggles to cope and is always tired, this further represents and shows women as being weaker and less able to cope with problems than men.