Analyzing Jennifer Siebel Newsom's Miss Representation

The director, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, in her documentary, “Miss Representation,” asserts the gender inequality in the US which is affected by mainstream media. Newsome’s purpose is to promote that people should pay conscious attention to the skewed images of women in the media and bring about changes in the portrayals and perception of women in the media. She adopts serious and motivational tone in order to appeal to the gravity of the issue and challenge to change the media in her audiences. Jennifer Siebel Newsom effectively convinces the audience of Miss Representation that the degraded image of women in the media should be changed for gender equality through the array of the shocking statistics, interviews with the experts, and disparaging

women’s images in the media.
(logos)First of all, the director illustrated the astonishing statistics to support her claim, and this strategy is effective to make the audience aware of the reality of gender inequality. She used various statistics in political, social and economic aspects such as the portion of women in national legislatures, how much money women spend on their beauty, the proportion of women in the big media companies’ boards and so on. For example, the ranking that the U.S is 90th in the world in terms of women in national legislatures might be a shocking truth for the audiences who think that the United States of America is in a different class from other countries. Also, this might be a powerful impact on the audience who have become numb to the desperate reality of women’s rights in the U.S.
(ethos)Secondly, interviews with well-known experts is a successful strategy to appeal to credibility in the film.

The most interviewees are in the fabulous position of politics, economy or society. Due to their background or positions, Newsom could gain the audience’ trust on the issue. For example, Condoleezza Rice who was the former U.S Secretary of State and a professor at Stanford University provides her hard experiences in politics as an African-American woman. Rice shared an experience that many people asked whether or not she is tough enough to be commander in chief during the campaign, and she argued, “I’ve known plenty of men who aren’t tough enough to be commander in chief and nobody asked that question.” After her comment, John Boehner’s sobbing scene was overlapped. Because of Rice’s background, her opinions or experiences are powerful to influence the audience. Also, the overlapped image of sobbing Boehner refutes the stereotype that women are too sentimental to perform significant roles. Therefore, Newsom’s argument could achieve her purpose by the interviews that the audiences realize the misrepresentation of women’s roles or portrayals, and it needs to be

changed
(pathos)Lastly, Newsom appeals to emotions of anxiety by the derogatory portrayals of women in media.

The director created montages from the media such as a rapper scattering money over a woman having a sexy dance in a music video, women’s tussles with curse, female anchors or reporters who wore very low-cut shirts and lots of makeup in news shows, and so on. Newsom tried to reflect the reality of women’s images in the media. One of the effective strategies by the filmmaker to appeal to the audiences’ emotion is the images of female politicians in the media. She presents how the media treat female politicians, for instance, Michael Savage who is the host of “Savage Nation” which has 8.1 million average weekly listeners called Madeleine Albright who was the former Secretary of State a psycho. Many audiences feel distinctly uncomfortable due to his offensive remarks in the show and realize how the media express the disrespect for the female politicians. From many radio show recording files and distorted views against women that Newsom provided can make the audiences distressed about the issue and move forward to improvement for women’s

right.
This documentary film has a powerful impact on the audience to discuss the issue of gender discrimination. The director used various methods to provide effective information such as statistics, interviews and the portrayals of the degraded women in the media. Eventually, the ways she appeals people are very effective and persuasive, so she achieved to evoke public attention to the issue and response to the movement of gender inequality by these methods.