Representation

A representation is a way in which people, events and ideas are presented to an audience. These representations are created by the producers of the media we see.

What we see however, is decided by the media 'gatekeepers' of the world. The media 'gatekeeper' decides what is seen, how it is viewed on the page and what is written with it. For example, a media 'gatekeeper' can be a newspaper editor as they have the power to decide what is printed, how it's presented on the page and the style in which it is written etc.

In this situation we are what is known as the 'media consumers'. We are the everyday people that read the newspaper and watch the films. The 'gatekeepers' decisions are largely unknown to us but largely influence our perception of the world presented to us in the media.

Stereotypes, Archetypes and Countertypes...

 Media institutions use stereotypes because of their familiarity to the audience. They think of stereotypes as a 'visual shortcut' to what they are trying to get across. They are repeated so often throughout media that we come to know them as normal or 'true'.
An Archetype is what is known as the 'ultimate' stereotype. For example, the brainless blonde bimbo that wears white stilettos.
A Countertype is a representation that challenges previously established ideas about gender, groups, people or places.

The Four W's

Who, What, Why and Where?

These are the four types of questions we, as the 'media consumers', should be asking ourselves when viewing these representations.

What is being represented here?
Who is representing them?
Where is the representation seen - consider the audience?
Why are they being represented in this way?

Film Poster Representation

I chose this film poster to analyse because I think it has a very interesting representation of female sexuality.
On this film poster the first thing the audience sees is a strong, bold, powerful women standing in the foreground of the image. This is a very interesting representation of female sexuality because she is minimally sexualised but represented as a self-sufficient and brave women which is very empowering to women everywhere. Not only this but from the film poster we can tell that she is going to be the main character which is once again very empowering and interesting compared to popular representations of women on film.
Predominately, women are sexualised on film. This sexualisation supports the theory developed by Laura Mulvey known as The Male Gaze. The theory states that cinema is angled towards men thus sexualising women as an object of male desire. She goes on to state that there are two distinct ideas used to sexualise women:
Voyeuristic- women depicted as whores
Fetishistic- women depicted as unreachable madonnas.
This theory is true in the majority of cases but is not displayed in the film poster for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. This is why I chose this poster because it contradicts this popular and well documented theory.