Research - Representations of Men and Women

By Deanna Hammond-Blackburn

Although representations of women have changed and the media focuses have changed, women are still subject to the effects of male-domination. In many films the women are seen as the prize for the men, eg. Scott Pilgrim vs the World, and this portrays the women as objects to be acquired and further empowers men. However the social stereotypes are beginning to change as more women are becoming the protagonists. In music women are seen as more independent but in reality they still depend a lot on men. Many record labels are run by men so the overall image of the women is overseen by the men in charge. However the women are often represented as strong, work-based, beautiful a d emotional women; much like in the femininity theories. The focus on beauty is more exaggerated in music as this is a main source for their popularity, and women in music are more often used to advertise beauty products such as Cheryl Cole in the adverts for hair dye.

Representations of men are starting to change, slowly. More men are being portrayed as weaker and less physical, however this is still an extreme minority and when this representation is seen there is always a more powerful man portrayed in the protagonist, for example Van Helsing shows David Wenham as the weaker side kick and Hugh Jackman as the fierce hero. I feel that media is also starting to focus more on the physical side of masculinity though; physique over intellect, action over thought. In music this is obviously more of a focus in some genres more than others, similar to film/tv. Pop, rap, RnB etc all focus more on the sexual attractions and this is what makes the artist popular and successful. In other genres, such as indie, alternative etc tend to focus more on the music and personality of the artists. Moreover nerdiness or being geeky is what makes some of these artists more popular. 

These representations will have a significant effect on the way the artists will be portrayed in our magazine; we will focus more on the music and personality side to the genres, but also represent the artist in a positive way physically. This will make the magazine more interesting as there will be more balance between the physical representations and the emotional representations, which also fits more to the indie genre the magazine will be based on.