Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s film Miss Representation was an informational documentary about the current state of feminism in the United States and the representation of women in the media. The first thing that came up on the screen during the movie was “the media is the message and the messenger” which set the tone for the entire film. Statistics presented in the film, like that fact that of 78% of women hate their bodies and spend between 12 to 15 thousand dollars a year in beauty products tie in perfectly which what we have been learning about in this class for the entire semester.
The documentary made apparent to young girls, “you can’t be what you can’t see,” referring to the lack of women in upper level jobs. The film said that women have to work twice as hard and earn half as much as a man while doing jobs twice as difficult. As a male with a prior understanding of the situation from my Race, Gender and Media clas, Miss Representation was an informational awareness video to the public about feminism in the United States. It was really an abbreviated crash course into what we looked at through the entire semester in class in my other class, with pictures and videos. The public has turned women to believing they can only be beautiful in a specific way and successful in life with certain career limitations. Women are unfairly treated in the United States and when given the opportunity to be on television, they are forced to present themselves in a sexually revealing way in order to appeal to the male audience. Overall I thought the film was very well made and reinforced the ideas that I was already introduced to by applying them to real people.
No comments:
Post a Comment