Film Analysis: Miss Representation

80% of women say that images of women on television, movies, fashion magazines, and advertising make them insecure (Dam). A visually stimulating documentary such as in Jennifer Siebel Newsoms’ documentary “Miss Representation” provides a logic supplemented presentation of gender in media driven by the emotions evoked from the images of the film resulting in readers thinking of gender in a more personal way as face to face interviews with teenagers who feel negatively affected by this problem are shown. On the other hand, a scientifically based academic journal such as in Rebecca Collins’ “Content Analysis of Gender Roles in Media: Where Are We Now and Where Should We Go?” delivers an extremely logic based presentation of the gender discussion …show more content…
Although the entire film will likely be narrated, the part that will be paid attention to most and remembered by the readers will be the imagery. In this way, an audience’s understanding of gender will likely become more emotional and personal as one may not remember statistics that a narrator throws out, but will likely remember the look of embarrassment as one must play a role objectifying and stereotyping of their gender. An academic journal article may present you with the statistic that a 26.6% of woman actors get partially naked in film (Smith), but how likely are you to remember such a statistic? Conversely, how likely are you to remember the repeated visual examples of hypersexualization a documentary can present – how it exists overwhelmingly in films, advertisements, pop culture, and music videos in a way one may not even be aware of? It is one thing for a words and numbers in an academic article to tell you 42% of girls in first through third grade want to be thinner (Collins, E.), but in the end it’s just words and numbers on a page that are likely to be forgotten. This is a well-documented psychological observation that episodic memories like experiences presented in a film are much more powerful and last much longer than semantic memories like facts and statistics do (Cioraneanu). With this in mind, imagine instead a second grader telling you face to face she wants to …show more content…
For Collins to establish the existence of over sexualization in media, the proof must come in statistics such as 51% of women in rap music videos are thin despite only 24% of US women being thin or 41% of female characters in video games [wearing] revealing clothing (Collins, R.). A documentary on the other hand can adequately convince viewers sexualization exists in media by flashing numerous examples across the screen as “Miss Representation” does in it’s introductory few minutes. Although, individual examples in a population of millions of mediums of media do not prove it is widespread, it suffices for the viewer. An academic journal article like Collins’ on the other hand cannot rely on individual examples, it needs representative samples collected in a non-bias manner. This difference in the presentation of an argument, where an academic article has a much higher burden of proof shows just how much more scientifically based the writing must be and how it is restrained on what it can conclude, and thus what the reader can understand, by what data is available. Furthermore, an academic journal article writer is not concerned with the emotional aspect of the argument because that aspect holds no merit in the scientific community. Consequentially, their arguments on gender