Gender and the Media - Essay Example

Gender and the Media Introduction Most of the funny erotic scenes, one finds a woman fully exposing her body and private parts but never will you find a man doing so. The male character in the movie staying at home seems to have changed roles with the wife who seems busy at work. The funny thing is how the man in Mr. Mom takes care of the children and does all the household chores, which many think, should be for the wife. The power of the man’s look reminds the woman about her object status, violation and lack of power. Violation according to Kelly, a renowned sociologist, is the continuum of suppression of violence on women from men (Mann, 206). Nobody hates looking at women’s funny character in movies. Something that Caroline well put across. The conditions of watching Mr.mom a movie in the cinema gives authority to a voyeuristic spectatorship. All spectators are chirping characters taking pleasure and watching others while they remain unseen. In other fields, feminists have identified voyeurism as conflict that is because of gender. The chirping character is most often a man-watching female without her knowledge. As a result, for Stuart Hall insights, Hooks and other critics bring up many questions about the response of women regarding the visual arts in the modern world, which includes photography and film. The black looks say a lot about race and representation. Basing this on Hook’s argument, critical spectatorship of the black female only comes up when an individual woman resist becoming the subject of looking and knowing or in other words image and story. Their resistance to identifying themselves with settings of gender and race tender for their consumption. Men critic their positive decisions and creates opposite texts and interpretations. This makes the black woman lack freedom to make decisions on her own since her wish means end of career. Hook says that any black woman featured on Hollywood’s films creates either a good image or a bad image to her race (McWilliams, 183). Some independent films have empowered featured women as cultural product interpreters. Hook pioneered a research field in black women readers of culture that put together the cultural studies and the African American studies. This was possible through the techniques of interviewing and textual interpretation based on criticism. The research’s intentions were to join the two studies and eradicate criticism. After a series of lengthy interviews, she came up with conclusive answers that the black women were not happy with the image instilled on them especially on the interpretations of the press, which contrasted theirs. Her work was difficult and a historical moment is the only thing that helps. Women interpretive images from the positions they held dominated the constructions of gender and race. Hook paid extra attention to images of gender and race gotten from the gallery and the museum. At the same time, many scholars paid attention to the images intersection depicting gender and race. One of the scholars did examinations on two images totally unrelated. The images were that of the Hottentots women and that of a prostitute. There is no way the two could ever be in the same relationship. Prostitution is a very bad image in the society and no body likes the association. Names used to refer to the black race were very off putting and mean. Some of these names included lesbians and gays. Nothing good according to Hook comes from a black woman. When you combine power, gender and race, a black woman has nothing more to shelter under. They are helpless and the only thing they do is to try to survive. The mechanisms for survival are minimal as the only place their voice has priority is through the media. Although there are no reasons to justify this, the important part is Jack argument of the threat content cinematically. The woman’s figure according to Jack provides means of compensation because she becomes the reason for the men’s gaze and to whom they direct probe, look at, control and contain. This works for both levels of the story, which are the story and the image level. The story level is where question come to the spectators mind about what will happen and the female character will end up. The image level on the other end is the woman’s display, style and fragmentation for male’s pleasure. On the cinema screen, the actors may not be the actual victims but the spectator connects the situation where the word woman remains constant. This shows how men get social entitlement sense extension from the films they watch. The entitlement sense however comes with its accompaniment, anxieties. Jack using Freudian psychoanalysis argues that the figure by the woman causes problems to the man. According to john Gregory in the father’s legacy piece, that modest reserve and that retiring delicacy as one of the chief beauties in any female character avoids the public eye remains disconcerted regardless of Gaze of admiration. This essay therefore intends to display how Jane Austen and Frances Burney as renowned authors of the long eighteenth century challenge conventional models of femininity. First before deeper concentration and criticism of the authors, the term femininity refers to the organic political and cultural entities (women) that originate from the first women of the long eighteenth century. In particular, it constitutes all the poor women in the long eighteenth century, including both the non-status and status Inuit and Metis. Conversely, social welfare, being an organized function, is a body of activities that enable families, individuals, families and groups to cope with the changing conditions and social problems. In a larger sense, it plays a basic role in deployment and mobilization of material and human resources of the country effectively meet social requirements of change. According to many people, feminism may sound awful and mean but the truth of the matter is that it still exists just as it existed in the long eighteenth century. According to Frances Burney, The social welfare of women at large is in a context of a social service that encompasses medical and health, income maintenance, education, medical and health, media as well as personal welfare. For a long time, the values and practices of the poor women especially as displayed b the same author in the long eighteenth century have been misinterpreted. Just like any community members, poor women as well need integrated systems that ensure mental, emotional, and physical and the spiritual well-being. As Frances Burney argues in his domestic and desire fiction: a novels history of politics, “Evelina” was the best platform for exploring the concepts emerging regarding identity and sexuality. Having in mind that many novels in the long eighteenth century were women’s’ and talked about women, novelists who happen to be women in this case found some authority in this new area of thought which femininity. A good number of women lived in fear of their sexuality since this was one matter not examined for subtext and submerged meanings. For instance, majority of Inuit people of Canada live in isolated arctic communities that make it impossible for them to access consumer goods and medical services. Femininity made the women especially in the eighteenth century fall victims of housing crisis. In fact, the problematic housing condition leaves the then urban woman with quite insecure situations of living. To some readers more familiar with femininity politics and with issues of recognition, the politics may appear unusual or even odd. It is obvious that many novels written by women contain explicit sexuality instances inclusive but not limited to novels by Jane Austen and Frances Burney. Never the less, works people generally read as being matters full of sexuality matters tend to be far more captivating to many. The reason behind this is that when submerged subtext and meanings go through examination, the content open up to women’s sexuality possibility (Collins, 204). Although critics point out other differences that result to the gaze including race, most of Mr. Mom’s work concentrates on gender differences in Hollywood cinema. Caroline helps us understand that for those critics with interests in violence, racial class inflections support gender norms. There is in no way a male will ever have equal right with the women since they have more power. The movies industry has now turned into man woman affair content, where clear warnings display on film advertisement requiring that to be eligible to watch, one must be of certain age. From the movie, the basis of Jack’s argument is that a man gets more privileges to gaze at the woman on Hollywood cinemas purely because of control and power. In lesser words, the pleasures resulting from the Hollywood cinema are just consequences of gender violence. Caroline’s intention is to leave behind a legacy that encourages the considerations of the film’s potential conflict and its content also. Since the initial publication of Mr. Mom’s work, feminist critics have been revising and revisiting it. It is vital also; to point out that psychoanalysis led Thelma to the affair difference right. Caroline has tried to address the problem. If all female film characters adhered to Caroline’s advice, men would no longer sit down and look at women act for their own pleasure. Picturing that scenario makes it worse and it would be better if women took the men’s roles and men take the women’s roles. To greater heights, she appears as a seducible object and her being in the bathroom with a stranger in the same house seems okay. It is time women changed men’s perceptions about them through living the Caroline’s legacy. She greatly uses negotiations as a tool for change but the film industry seems too biased already. Many producers look down upon women by the virtue of the fact that they cannot decline any role assigned to them. To some extent, some Hollywood’s films have multiple affair sceneries and suggestive talks. Conclusion During the 19th century, a white woman could not seduce a man since the moral values do not allow them. Such instances went to the black women who had nothing to say. Both Caroline and Jack in Mr. Moms support each other’s analysis. Caroline added the power to Jack’s analysis where power is the root of the surviving and refusing to have an affair with another man. Jack also adds gender and race to Caroline’s analysis where the two bring out their faithfulness strong points. Both of them have done a commendable job fighting for the black race and their legacies live on. Work cited Biographies. Hillary Rodham Clinton Biography. Retrieved on 19th Dec, 2010, available at . Collins, Patrick. The tie that binds race, gender, and US violence. New York: Ethnic and Racial Studies, References, 1998, 204. Mann, Huffman. The Decentering of Second Wave Feminism and the Rise of the Third Wave. Australia: Science and Society publications, 2005, 198. McWilliams, John. New England's crises and cultural memory: literature, politics, history, religion, 1620-1860. New York: University Press, 2004, 183. Read More