representation

What is representation?

The term Representation is used to talk about how the media, including film and TV, deal with issues of class, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, ethnicity and national or regional identity.

Film is a very powerful and persuasive art-form and can do a lot to shape an audience’s knowledge, understanding and opinions about these issues.

Stereotypes

A stereotype is a simplified depiction of a person or groups of people through the use of obvious and overly generalised characteristics.

Stereotypes are often wildly exaggerated and can be positive or negative.

A positive stereotype can benefit people in the group being depicted.

Negative stereotypes can be harmful as they may lead some audience members to make damaging generalisations about vast groups of people.

Women in horror films are often portrayed as helpless victims, while ethnic minorities in action films are sometimes portrayed as criminals.

Depictions like these can also make audience members from those groups feel excluded or marginalised.

How a character is portrayed on screen can have a huge impact if that character is from a class, race or place that is not normally given prominence.

James Bond is generally portrayed as a handsome, well-spoken Englishman and is usually seen in expensive suits and formal wear.

A character who behaved the same way but had an unpolished look and spoke with a heavy foreign accent might not be seen in the same way.

Camera

Camera angles and framing can add to how a character is represented.

A character the director wants us to view as important will be given a prominent position in the frame and may be filmed from a low angle so as to stress their dominance.

Likewise, characters who are being given less prominence might be pushed into the background of a shot or relegated to the edges of the frame.

Sound

Music and the use of sound also have an impact on representation.

A character’s appearances on screen might be linked to a positive and heroic musical theme.

A speech might be given extra prominence on the soundtrack, at a higher volume than everything else.

Genre and representation

Certain genres rely heavily upon stereotypes and film-makers and audiences often accept those stereotypes without questioning them.

^{In the action thriller Die Hard (1988), the hero’s wife drives the main character’s actions by needing to be rescued.}

Action films usually feature stereotypically tough male heroes, whereas female characters are sometimes presented as almost completely passive.

Romantic comedies, meanwhile, sometimes feature female main characters whose failure to find a boyfriend or husband is seen to undermine all of their achievements.

However, film-makers can challenge these kinds of stereotypes.

Female characters in the sci-fi action genre are often either just love interests for the hero or victims in need of rescuing.