How is gender represented in the Dalziel & Pascoe episode 'a clubbable woman'?

Through out the episode 'a clubbable woman' gender is represented in various ways producing different effects.  This crime drama from 1996 would represent gender different than a piece of footage today as it is older and people have changed over the years.

The first way gender is represented is through costume (mise-en-scene), in this episode most of the men are sporting shirts and trousers (as many worked in offices at this time) where as the women are wearing dresses/skirts, hats and bags, this is showing gender as the trousers and shirt is masculine as it looks like work/business clothes and the skirt is feminine so the men feel attracted to them after a long day at work, also the Head of police regularly wears a double breasted coat when others are wearing normal jackets, this connotes power as he stands out and looks more regal/higher class, by a man wearing this coat and a woman not it shows the stereotypical feeling that men are generally more powerful than women.

Also characters are used to show gender (mise-en-scene). For example there is a scene at the pub where there is a large group of men surrounding a woman who is considered to be one of the most attractive there, this connotes gender as men are attracted to good looking women and instantly flirt with them. Another example of the use of character to show gender is when the woman walks into the police station, this is a counter hegemonic as at this time the police force and the criminals was mainly occupied by men (except secretary work)  so by seeing the woman at the police station it connoted that she shouldn't be there as she seemed out of place.

Dialect (sound) was also a good way to show gender in this piece, a good example of this is that the women did not use offensive language a quarter as much as the men did an example of the language that the men used words such as bastard etc. This therefore connotes gender as women are always perceived as the nicer less rude gender. So by giving the males more offensive language to use it accentuates this point of view and therefore helps the viewer define gender just through the dialect of the characters.

Gender is also showed through camera shots and angles (camera). When a woman was in the frame (from close up to mid shot) the angle of the shot was high, but when a male was in shot it was low angle to connote power over the woman, which in the times when this footage was made men were the dominant sex and seen as stronger etc. So by placing the shot angles differently it connotes gender and helps the viewer refine gender and their social status through this.

Editing was not an effective way of  showing gender in the footage. This there fore makes it inappropriate for me to utilise my analysis skills to form a constructive paragraph on the topic.

In conclusion the most effective way of showing gender within this footage is through mise-en-scene, this is because it gives visual aids to the viewer to actually determine gender of characters etc. The worst area of analysis would be editing as this gave no indication of gender throughout the piece.

Half Term Homework

Spooks

Who made the show?

It is produced by a business called “Kudos film and television” which is part of the “shine group”, and this business produced this piece of media for the “BBC”

What channel is it on?

It is on the BBC 1 channel

What time is it on?

The usual time for “Spooks” to be on is 9 o’clock in the evening.

What is the sun-genre?

The sub-genre of this programme is “Action and Adventure”

Who is the target audience?

I believe the target audience of “Spooks” would be people in the range from teenagers through the ”twenty-some things” and up to middle aged men.

What was the narrative?

The Narrative of this programme is about  6 main characters ranging from “twenty-something” to maybe over 60, and the challenges they face, when working  for the British Counter-Terrorist Department in MI5, to protect the nation.

What/who was being represented?

In this programme I believe that the main representation is of events represented, e.g.  terrorist attacks and how the CTD and their agents try to stop this.

ryan and jamie analysis

Ryan & Jamie's DVD cover answers.

Conventions;
spine
title
synopsis
special features
DVD logo
reviews
credits
size
barcode

1) The genre that is denoted through the images placed on the the cover is sci-fy/thriller through the synopsis and denoted quotes which state "a thrilling ride" this is connotating that the film will be fast paced and a good film to watch. The image of all the characters connotates that they are futuristic as they are all in similar clothes (one piece jumpsuits) and pulling similar faces.

2) On the cover people places and events are denoted on the cover through an image of all the characters lined up, and on the back there are screen shots from the film. By having these screen shots it helps connote that the film will take place in different places at different times.

3) There are many different institutions involved in the production, distribution and exhibition of the film. For the production Dimension films was used, the distribution would have been the film sent out to cinemas such as warnerbrothers and also to shops. the exhibition of the film would have been at a special event at a certain cinema.

4) The target audience are teen or young adults and they do this by choosing a popular genre in that age group. And by having the characters looking attractive, it draws the teens in as they like visually attractive people.