Firstly, I think that media is highly dependent on the
ideology for which it is created, Shutter
Island was not created in the same way Garfield
The Movie was created.. I will do my best to think of media representation
as in ‘All Media’ and try to consider all ideologies but obviously I myself am
biased due to my own personal preferences and choices.
Children:
I believe that children are underrepresented in media. In
most television shows they may have one child in one episode and feature that
child as the hook for that episode. I think that this is so because it is
difficult to relate to children as adults or teenagers. I think the purpose for
most media makers is to create a relatable set of characters and most media
makers strive for an older demographic that are not children. This concept
comes up with women as well, unfortunately. I think children’s stereotypes are
that of innocence, purity, and deception. The first two are obvious and
positive reflections of children. I believe that deception is a stereotype of
children now as well. I’ll explain with a few examples:
Criminal Minds: Young twin psychopath kills his brother
Game of Thrones: First episode, small child is revealed to
be evil
&
All horror movies that have a kid in them…
The point of the deception is to shock people but I think
that it is becoming so frequent that I can classify it as a stereotype.
Women:
Women, REAL women, are underrepresented in media. The
default gender of the camera is male so immediately it is difficult to change
that ideology. The stereotypes of women are eye-candy, not-as-capable-as-men,
and ignorant. I don’t think that any of these attributes are positive (the
first one can be positive but I think that eye-candy objectifies women). This is
where my bias may affect what all media says but from my experiences there are
very few strong, protagonist, hero, women characters. I think a great example
of objectification could be Machete Kills.
Sofia Vergara’s outfit says it all.
Rich:
I think that the rich are represented more in media then
they would be in real life. I think this is because the vast majority of
viewers want to be like the rich characters and enjoy watching them. I think
the stereotypes of rich people are ignorance (again), carelessness, and
rudeness. Granted, depending on what film or tv show you watch this might be
drastically different but I believe that these are three characteristics that
fit well. These characteristics aren’t positive. I think that most shows that
have the one or two rich people in them are good examples of how rich people
fit these stereotypes. An example of an outlier would be Suits because these
characters are more well of than the average person and yet are not careless or
ignorant at all (sure are rude though).
Again I think that anybody’s singular answer to these
questions would be undereducated. If you asked a child what characters were
underrepresented the answer would be very different from an adult white male. Keeping
that in mind it is still interesting how these patterns emerge for treating
groups of people, even varying from each demographic to the next!
I agree with you that women have been portrayed as unimportant and not as capable as men. Many women characters' job is house keeping, and take care of children. I think media played a negative role in here. All house keeping related ads like to use female players to test or use the item, but not male. I really want to find a movie or drama that the male characters are house-husband and female characters are the money-makers of a family.
ReplyDeleteI would disagree with you about children being under-represented in the media, it's a demographics thing. Most kids shows such as Phineas and Ferb, Gravity Falls, Cyberchase, and Arthur feature kids. They are well represented within that demographic, and there is quite alot of kids media. By the same token our demographic would be consider under-represented in kids media as well, or have us grossly exaggerated. Keep in my that a kids life would be interesting to a kid, but not to an adult. That would explain why they are absent from the 18-34 or "main-stream" demographic, because how do you have a kid as an interesting plot point without making them creepy or disturbing; in the show Copper one of the main characters is a 10 year old prositute. Other dramas have them in similar creepy or disturbing scenarios. Therefore I'm not saying that kids are under-represented in the media, it's just in one demographic
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