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Portrayals of women in media
Portrayals of women in media
Gender representations in media
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Study on Tom Hardy with regards to Text and Context
This essay will discuss the celebrity Tom Hardy. Within this essay his career within Hollywood films such as Inception, Legend and The Revenant. The essay will focus on his involvement within the given films and look on things such as the context within the film regarding his characters, who he plays, what his ‘style’ is within the film and what connotations his characters portray in relation to the genre. Stars, also known as celebrities were developed by studios “to cultivate their own celebrities as a kind of corporate aesthetic trademark” (Blake, 2008, p. 215). Essentially, the studios were putting their claim on the celebrities and using their status as a marketing plot in order to boost
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Tom Hardy is a perfect example of the change within Hollywood and that this standard of ‘perfect’ has been done away. Tom Hardy has flaws, his accent limits him to certain roles and also his teeth are not ‘perfect’. There has been an everlasting view on TV/Movie stars that they are perfect and flawless, however this has been changed with Tom Hardy. Movies such as The Drop in which Tom Hardy was the star, showed another side of man. This in tune links with this ‘new man’ and although “men and women differentially portray emotions in the media” as stated by Doveling, Scheve & Konijn (2010, p. 120), his character shows have essences of this ‘new man’. He is masculine with regards to his physique and we see his true masculine side at the end of the movie, but his character also shows compassion and emotion, in particular towards women and animals. This is a key demonstration in the different aspect on the typical gender-roles within today’s media, and this type of representation has been key in shaping the industry to what it has …show more content…
Media has been changing a lot and this is extremely true with regards to the representation of stars. Movies from older generations are much more ‘standard’ and ‘in-line’ with other forms in media, whereas today what is seen as ‘normal’ is starting to become more non-existent. For example, Thompson & Carew (no date) found that “from the mid-1910s to the 1930s a few film companies were established with the sole intention of putting on “all-colored cast” productions. Within these productions, roles were not stereotyped into the normal standard of black being seen as poor and weak to them being seen as a more powerful and influential
The only real way to truly understand a story is to understand all aspects of a story and their meanings. The same goes for movies, as they are all just stories being acted out. In Thomas Foster's book, “How to Read Literature Like a Professor”, Foster explains in detail the numerous ingredients of a story. He discusses almost everything that can be found in any given piece of literature. The devices discussed in Foster's book can be found in most movies as well, including in Quentin Tarantino’s cult classic, “Pulp Fiction”. This movie is a complicated tale that follows numerous characters involved in intertwining stories. Tarantino utilizes many devices to make “Pulp Fiction” into an excellent film. In this essay, I will demonstrate how several literary devices described in Foster's book are put to use in Tarantino’s film, “Pulp Fiction”, including quests, archetypes, food, and violence.
Mr. Leo wrote this piece not only for informative purposes, but also to convince a particular audience that, whether intentional or not, characters have taken on harmful images some may find offensive. He is not speaking only to his fairly educated, loyal readers, but also to those who may have taken part in producing the movie. Mr. Leo makes visible to his readers what he believes to be stereotypes in the film. People may not have noticed these before, so he makes clear definitions and comparisons. To the rest of the audience, those who had a hand in making the movie, he makes a plea not to redevelop these characters in future films.
According to PBS.org,”12.5% of film actors were black in 2014.” Only 12.5% of all actors!You would think it would be a lot more in a developed and liberal country like America. On the contrary, it's a lot more compared to the 3.2% it was in the 60’s.Dorothy Dandridge being part of that percent. Dandridge was a black icon in the 60’s starring in many films but, most notably, Carmen Jones. Where she is a seductive factory worker, who falls in love with a soldier after he kills his sergeant.She was so famous in the 60’s but in present times, she's unknown. She should be as famous as other icons in the 60’s such as Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe but she’s not since being black in the 60’s put you at an automatic setback. It caused her to be
The figure of the ‘new lad’ has been a feature of popular culture in the United Kingdom, United States, and elsewhere since the early 1990s. In the book, The Trouble with Men: Masculinities in European and Hollywood Cinema, the author relates to Nick Hornby’s, a screenwriter and English novelist, thoughts on lads. He states that there are two versions of the modern male that have anxieties between the two main constructions of contemporary masculinity: New man and New Lad (Phil Powrie 2004, pp.84). By the start of the twentieth century, the word ‘masculinity’ was always associated with the word ‘crisis’; this is now portrayed in ‘lad flicks’. Masculinity is the central object of contemporary ‘lad flicks’; they combine different genre elements to focus specifically on difficulties that face contemporary masculinity. The male characters in these films...
In the classical Western and Noir films, narrative is driven by the action of a male protagonist towards a clearly defined, relatable goal. Any lack of motivation or action on the part of the protagonist problematizes the classical association between masculinity and action. Due to inherent genre expectations, this crisis of action is equivalent to a crisis of masculinity. Because these genres are structured around male action, the crises of action and masculinity impose a crisis of genre. In the absence of traditional narrative elements and character tropes, these films can only identify as members of their genres through saturation with otherwise empty genre symbols. The equivalency between the crises of genre and masculinity frames this symbol saturation as a sort of compensatory masculine posturing.
...d traditions, but also blending two distant genres together. The blending of genres gives us ideas about common conventions in films that we do not usually pay attention to, and how they can be manipulated to change the way we think about individuals and groups. Edward Scissorhands dives deeper than just a “Beauty and the Beast” narrative, and influences audiences to explore topics of how the gentlest of souls can be misjudged by their appearance, a seemingly normal community can be the “bad guy” if it only has its personal intentions in mind and no one else’s, and that true love is not about what is on the outside, but rather, what is on the inside. Edward Scissorhands can be considered as one of the most appealing films of the 20th century as it keeps audiences guessing, surprises them at the most unexpected times and breaks conventional film boundaries.
It disclosed people’s despair, fears, cowardice, as well as other negative feelings in front of difficulties and challenges, and exposed their stupidity by illustrating their ugliness and laughter as they watched wrestlers sabotaging one another and good friends turning against each other. Chris Hedges depicted a pseudo-world where people tend to seek comfort from other people’s misfortunes and care about nothing but fame and money. Under the “enormous positivity” created by the spectacle, the reality is actually a dead end. As it is said, “The modern spectacle depicts what society can deliver, but within the depiction what is permitted is rigidly distinguished from what is possible.” In the celebrity culture, fame and money are the images, pursued by the public, forming numerous social networks among people engaged. People will get lost alongside the road, yet he/she may not notice, because as it is said, “the spectacle is both the outcome and the goal of the dominant mode of production.” Images are unlimited goals, coming with countless outcomes. The spectacle keeps developing itself, as more and more people need no realities but more detailed
Although blacks have won Academy Awards for acting, screenwriting, and music production they still find trouble in getting quality roles within the film industry. (Common Black Stereotypes) Long before television and films were being produced, there were plays and different forms of entertainment where blacks were stereotyped. They were often played by white people in a demoralizing fashion. Over time blacks became seen as the same and that was bad people.
Woll, Allen L and Randall M Miller. Ethnic and Racial Images in American Film and Television: Historical Essays and Bibliography. n.d. Print.
In today’s society, pre-existing assumptions and stereotypes of other ethnicities and individuals play a large part in the way we see others. This social construct of stereotypes has placed restrictions on many people’s lives which ultimately limits them from achieving certain goals. In this sense, stereotypes misrepresent and restrict people of colour to gain casting within the Hollywood film industry. The issue of how casting actors to certain roles and how these actors are forced to submit and represent these false stereotypes is one worthy of discussion. White Chicks (2004), directed by Keenan Wayans, illustrates this issue through the performance of Latrell, performed by Terry Crews, and his performance of the hyper-sexualised “buck” will be a prime example in this essay to discuss the racial politics and stereotypes in Hollywood casting.
Over the course of approximately one-hundred years there has been a discernible metamorphosis within the realm of African-American cinema. African-Americans have overcome the heavy weight of oppression in forms such as of politics, citizenship and most importantly equal human rights. One of the most evident forms that were withheld from African-Americans came in the structure of the performing arts; specifically film. The common population did not allow blacks to drink from the same water fountain let alone share the same television waves or stage. But over time the strength of the expectant black actors and actresses overwhelmed the majority force to stop blacks from appearing on film. For the longest time the performing arts were the only way for African-Americans to express the deep pain that the white population placed in front of them. Singing, dancing and acting took many African-Americans to a place that no oppressor could reach; considering the exploitation of their character during the 1930's-1960's acting' was an essential technique to African American survival.
Although we have taken monumental strides in the past fifty years towards racial equality and diversity, it is still commonly argued that popular culture lacks some sort of racial representation. In the United States, the people who live here are vastly diverse when it comes to race and culture, yet in the media people of color get marginalized and stereotyped everyday in film, music, and etc.
African American representation in the film industry has always been a topic for discussion. Whether talking about character types and roles, the actors being cast or not cast, and the lack of diversity in front of and behind the camera. ‘The contemporary status of race in mainstream American culture is intimately bound to the process of representation within and through the mass media.’ (Rocchio, 2000, p. 4). Any role that was to be played by an African American kept in with the dominant stereotypes of the time of production; incompetent, child like, hyper-sexualised or criminal.
In his article Stars as a Cinematic Phenomenon, he used the ‘photo effect’ conception of Roland Barthes to examine the present/ absent paradox of stars. He proposed influential qualitative distinctions in between stardom in films and television. He argued that ‘Stars are incomplete images outside the cinema: the performance of the film is the moment of completion of images in subsidiary circulation, in newspapers, fanzines, etc. Further, a paradox is present in these subsidiary forms. The star is at once ordinary and extraordinary, available for desire and unattainable. This paradox is repeated and intensified in cinema by the regime of presence-yet-absence that is the filmic image’(1992). Therefore, the impractical mode of ‘this is was’ on nature of stardom ‘awakens a series of psychic mechanisms which involve various impossible images’, such as ‘the narcissistic experience of the mirror phase’(1992). Ellis then continued to indicate televisual stardom, which is more current or ‘immediate’ than cinematic fame. He argued that ‘What television does present is the “personality”. The personality is someone who is famous for being famous and is famous only in so far as he or she makes frequent television appearances… In some ways, they are the opposite of stars, agreeable voids rather than sites of conflicting meanings’. Ellis’ thesis definitely points out the differences between cinema and television fame, due to the multimedia and transmedia of current era implies a much more diverse and unpredictable relationship in between stars’ images in any kind of
Movie stars. They are celebrated. They are perfect. They are larger than life. The ideas that we have formed in our minds centered on the stars that we idolize make these people seem inhuman. We know everything about them and we know nothing about them; it is this conflicting concept that leaves audiences thirsty for a drink of insight into the lifestyles of the icons that dominate movie theater screens across the nation. This fascination and desire for connection with celebrities whom we have never met stems from a concept elaborated on by Richard Dyer. He speculates about stardom in terms of appearances; those that are representations of reality, and those that are manufactured constructs. Stardom is a result of these appearances—we actually know nothing about them beyond what we see and hear from the information presented to us. The media’s construction of stars encourages us to question these appearances in terms of “really”—what is that actor really like (Dyer, 2)? This enduring query is what keeps audiences coming back for more, in an attempt to decipher which construction of a star is “real”. Is it the character he played in his most recent film? Is it the version of him that graced the latest tabloid cover? Is it a hidden self that we do not know about? Each of these varied and fluctuating presentations of stars that we are forced to analyze create different meanings and effects that frame audience’s opinions about a star and ignite cultural conversations.