Gender – A Binary Opposition

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Within our Conceptualised Reality as discussed in the last post, Binary Oppositions play a big part within The Media. These Binary Oppositions create myth as a Culture, which leads to conceptualisation. The most common example of this is Male and Female, or as society now know it: Masculinity and Femininity. These stereotypes have been culturally constructed and encoded to the extent where society have been completely desensitised to how much it penetrates them through the ideologies portrayed in The Media e.g. Patriarchy.

As shown in every form of Media, being Masculine is a vital part of being a ‘proper’ stereotypical Man. The Media represent the ‘normal’ Masculine Man to be responsible, hard-working and the person who makes all the decisions within a Household, whereas women are seen as either the passive Mother figure or a mere sexualised object. In the mainstream Media, women are shown to be either killed, being evil or being attractive. This concept was proposed in the 1960’s, but still it is a prominent underlying conceptualised reality The Media continue to portray.

Until recently, no part of being Masculine would involve products like moisturiser or other cosmetics as this is seen as Feminine; however gap in the market was realised, so now cosmetic companies are actually targeting men. As well as this gaining companies more profit opportunities, it could also of been instigated due to men feeling neglected by this area of advertisement, as The Media portray men above women, the latter cannot be seen being offered something the former isn’t. This has led to the coined term ‘meterosexual’, most likely invented by a man to bring normality to the new concept that men using cosmetic products is now acceptable and ‘the done thing’.

The aged consensus that Men are more intelligent than women is due to the fact that in the past women have not been given the option of having a education and have therefore been shown within The Media as a dependent domestic housewife or been objectified sexually. Despite women now having a vote and for many years had the choice of furthering their education beyond cookery, the stereotype is still very much rooted in our conceptualised society and is likely to never change.

Representation – Conceptualisation of Reality

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When considering Representation, Binary and Symbolic Oppositions are brought up regularly. These Oppositions create myths within our Culture, and these myths naturalise this conceptualisation process. An example of this is masculinity and femininity, as what society sees and therefore thinks is culturally constructed and encoded. This conceptualisation of reality within our Culture also links to ideologically constructions under-pinning the Media Landscape e.g. Patriarchy. The latter is a very prominent conceptualisation as the genderised stereotypes have been perpetuated into society for a long time. This myth of femininity/women is represented in The Media, but in a negative way, they are more represented as people who aren’t men. This and practically every other representation is realistic in our conceptualised society, but none of what’s portrayed is a fair depiction.

By the early 1950’s, classic Hollywood cinematic narratives and cinematic codes were embedded, understood and perpetuated into society (e.g. ‘Coupling’). This was done successfully with IMR (Institutional Modes of Representation), using methods such as Mise-en-scene and Propp’s Character Functions. This worked and continues to work now because the audience expect these specific conventions and need to see them in order to feel comfortable and happy with what they’re viewing.

Laura Mulvey used psycho analysis to create the Castration and Male Gaze Theories. In particular the former, she argued our patriarchal society is a phallocentric society (phallocentrism). To put it modestly, Mulvey contended that since women represent the absence of a penis, men embody the fear of castration (which is so fundamental for the male subject) when threatened. Mainstream Hollywood films perpetuate this further, consistently showing how women must be put in their place – either being killed, being evil or just being attractive (objectified). This was proposed around the 1960’s, but is still evident and underlying throughout the mainstream Media Landscape now.

The Castration Theory is split into two categories; Narcissism (aka Voyeurism) and Scopophilia. The former is described as pleasure lying in guilt, such as men’s ego, sexual instincts and sadism. Whereas, Scopophilia is the pleasure in looking and being looked at, namely sexual stimulants. Similarly to Freud’s theories, this looks at society, in particular women, in a very monochrome manner. What theorists like this believe (and I agree with to and extent) seems very unadorned and clear-cut. Despite them coming at the argument from different angles, Freud seems to be on a parallel to Mulvey’s Castration Theory, saying women only bore children in order to enter the symbolic order and use it to fulfil their desire to possess a penis.