Begin
with the title of the film, the name of the filmmaker(s) and the point of the
film. Remember, the point of the film is not a summary of the film, but
rather the theme or message it explores. What is the structure of the film
(chronological, non-sequential, etc.)? Is this structure effective in conveying
the point of the film?
The documentary we saw as a
class, Miss Representation, a film
written, directed and produced by Jennifer Sybel, definitely got its point
across about women in the media. The film explores the misrepresentation of
women in the media today through interviews with women in positions of power
and studies of successful ads and the culture of American advertisement. The
film follows a non-sequential outline; the time periods jump all over and
though she switches between topics, she does not do so subtly. However, all
this combined is enough to get the main message across, which is that women are
portrayed as objects in Western media and are generally shepherded away from
positions of power in the United States.
Whose
perspective(s) is/are transmitted in the documentary? Was the perspective of
the film biased? Who’s perspective did the film represent?
The perspective of the film is
generally shown to be those of women, with the occasional male giving their
ideas on the situation. The entirety of the film was shot from feminist
perspective, meaning that the generally message conveyed, though subtly, was
that the entire issue was a male-caused issue. This film was biased heavily
towards women, even if it is a major issue for them, they put very little male
input towards the idea. Some of the interviewed women were clearly
pro-feminists, and showed no opinion of men. However, there were also
misleading facts in the documentary to make it seem more surreal. One blatant
example, included amongst a series of statistics on young girls and depression,
was that “X% of teenagers will cut themselves”,
a clear sign of misguidance of facts. If they included, say, members of
Congress who make those stupid sexist remarks or only used stats that didn’t
apply to both sexes, then the film would seem less biased, yet as it stand, the
film comes across as very biased towards a feminine perspective.
From
your perspective, what were the strengths of the film? What did you enjoy about
it? Choose one or two scenes and describe why you found them effective,
interesting or thought provoking.
The major
strengths in the film lay in its presentation and its long and star-studded
cast. Both were excellent draws towards the idea of the film, as both are
appealing to a large audience. Whenever the display of statistics appeared, I
was drawn in to its colours and strange choice of art. These scenes were an
interesting draw on the creative side of my mind, and made me more engrossed
with the message to an extent. Also, whenever a face or name I knew appeared
onscreen, I felt closer to the idea that the message was right. The film,
thankfully, showed text in the bottom right corner of the screen whenever the
person being interviewed was shown again, so it became somewhat easier to
remember the names with the faces, though it seemed to me that they all sang
the same tune for each point the director tried to make. This, however, can be
forgiven, as this is the main point of a documentary.
The entire
point of the film was to introduce me to the misrepresentation of women in the
media, and by Jove, did it. I won’t say that I didn’t notice some
inconsistencies to begin with, but this film really opened my eyes to some
areas of the world that I hadn’t thought about, such as the representation of
women in government. I felt, however, that the film could have gained a
considerable amount of male input to make it seem less biased. However, I am
under no impressions that the target audience of the film’s perspective was for
anyone other than women. It’s not that men don’t care, but there are too many
issues in the world currently and with our society as a whole for us to focus
simply on this one issue.
Verdict:
Overall, I’d
say the film was interesting, but not enough to make me want to watch it again.
