Post 6: Representation Theory

Representation is another key concept which has been largely debated and discussed. Some critcis highly rate how media representation affects our world and say 'Representational values in the media shape our understanding of the world we live in and shape ourselves as individuals'. Representation looks at the four main social groups, gender, age, class and race. The genre, technical codes, the insitution and the audience all affect the representation.  

All media texts are created in a particular institutional context, this context will modify the representation. The target audience will have expectations which are influenced by inscription in the texts. The target audience will find representations aspirational or it may link to the values of the target audience. The generic conventions provide a framework that we expect and the representations that we would expect. Genre has a big impact on representation. The micro-elements of a text, such as camera, lighting or editing, create larger meanings and values which construct representations.

One short film we watched in class was 'Tender'. The representation was quite clear in this film. The boy's mother was a single parent and she was represented to be quite a bad mother. When we first see his house, it is not well looked after, there is quite a lot of darkness used in the shots and the mother is shown to not really care about her son. The mother has a boyfriend who is quite young and is shown to be quite aggressive both towards the mother and the son. The film uses silence which makes us feel sorry for him, also representing the boy to be quite isolated and alone from others. We see that he has quite a distant relationship from his mother and he hasn't got any friends at school. We are however shown him becoming friends with a girl, who at the end he goes to meet but he is carrying a baseball bat which he had taken from his mothers boyfriend, and we do not know whether he will hit the girl or not. This shows representation of coming from poor or aggressive backgrounds.

A second short film we watched was 'Jade'. The film opened with her in a swimming pool and the water looked very blue, it stuck out to the audience. She is then in the toilet taking a pregnancy test, which comes back positive and showing a blue line. This we wouldn't really expect from looking at her as she doesn't see like the kind of girl to get pregnant at a young age. The 'blue' theme seems to represent the whole feel of the film as it seems quite down and depressing, the girl is never shown to smile or look happy she always looks sad. She has a job as a cleaner in a caravan park, and we soon see she has a romantic relationship with a much older man. She also seems to have a boyfriend of her own age and so we are left wondering who the father could be. At the end of the film she is sat with her boyfriend in the car and it was pouring with rain, this also links into the 'blue' theme and shows her to be quite sad.

A third film we looked at was 'Whore'. It opened with a teenage boy and girl sat on a bench outside a school. The boy seemed to be quite aggressive and told the girl to take her knickers off and she did so and gave them to him. This represents in a way what we would associate with the title of the film, however we are not sure if this boy is her boyfriend or not. The place in which we see them isn't a very nice place, the school looks quite dull and not very nice. Most of the pupils seem to be quite aggressive. They also go to a park and at the end the boy gets beaten up, showing the area and people are not that nice.

From watching these films, I have been able to think more in depth about where we will be shooting our short film and what type of background our character is from. We want out representations to help portray our storyline and character and so we have been able to develop our ideas on locations and characters through what we have learned from these short films.