Miss Representation
- By Sarah Guenther
- Nov 18, 2016
- 2 min read
The representation of women in media is a controversial topic. On the one hand, you have the people who produce different types of media putting out images, narratives, and even ideologies about what it means to be a woman. On the other hand, you have real women and girls who consume this media and often learn what it means (what the media tells them) to be a woman.
In her first documentary film Miss Representation, Jennifer Siebel Newsom examines the different ways that mass media portray women and how these portrayals affect America's youth, particularly the development of young girls' self-esteem and how the images boys consume affect the way they treat the women in their lives. Newsom talks to several people throughout the film ranging from women who work in media centers to people in politics and Hollywood.
I first saw Miss Representation a few weeks after I graduated high school. I was still a feminist newbie and was awestruck at all of the underlying and often subtle ways that the media undermines women's' roles in our society and simultaneously ridicules them for wanting more while glorifying the traditional homemaker/mother/wife role. Newsom shows images and clips from movies, television, advertisements, commercials, video games and music to drive home the point that the way media treats women is not only harmful to women, but men as well.
When women's bodies are dissected in advertisements, showing only certain body parts such as the breasts or legs, it turns that woman into an object, making it easier to justify violence against that object (thus, you have objectification of women). When young children consume media that shows and even glorifies violence against women, whether it be in video games or films, it can be confusing because here they see real, strong women in their own lives, but in the things they watch on TV they only see women as objects for men or in very narrow roles.
Comments