All posts by Aimee M

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representation

The male gaze is how a straight man feels empowered by objectifying and sexualising women in general and in media platforms.

Laura Mulvey created the idea of the so called ‘male gaze’ and revealed the amount of sexualisation women were getting. Then also presumed all men who play these games are only interested in seeing the sexualised version of a woman.

John Berger is well known for his piece of writing “Ways of seeing” which had many feminists viewing it around the male gaze.

John Berger sight of seeing

“Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. The surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed is female. Thus she turns herself into an object of vision: a sight.”

This is proving women are objectified and overly sexualised. Video games have proved the male gaze influenced how women are treated and looked at.

Levelling up article

“don’t look like they’re from around here” and appear “dirty.”

“Asian women perpetuates the stereotype that they are meek, submissive, sexual objects who exist purely for men’s entertainment.”

Why diversity matters article

 “As a girl growing up playing games I was always like, why do I have to play as a boy?”

“If we can show just one of them that they can be accepted anywhere – in both gaming and in the real, working world – and that gaming is not just about being super gender- or sexually conforming, then all the months of work is worth it. That’s why it’s important.”

Laura Mulvey- Visual pleasure and narrative cinema

“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.”

“The determining male gaze projects its phantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly.

key language

CS Pierce

index – A sign with a link to its object

icon– a sign which looks like its object

symbol– a sign with a more random link to its object

Semiotics

sign– something that stands in for something else

code– symbolic tools that are used to create meaning

dominant signifier– the main representative

anchorage– words that have an image to give context

Ferdinand De Saussure

signified– an idea which is summoned by the signifier

signifier– something which stands in for something else

Roland Barthes

Myth– the most apparent quantity of signification which disfigures the meaning by validating arbitrary cultural assumptions in a similar way to the denotative sign.

Radical– something which challenges dominant ideas.

Reactionary– dominant ideas which are confirmed by something

ideology– the reinforcement of codes which are congruent with structures of power

denotation– literal or basic meaning of a sign

connotation– the secondary cultural meaning of signs or “signifying signs,” which are then used as the signifiers for a secondary meaning.

paradigm – A collection of similar signs.

syntagm – The sequence which words have been put in to.

induction task evaluation

In my summer task my main aim was figuring out a different perspective on friendship, I did this by asking a close friend multiple questions about her views and thoughts on particular situations involving friendship. I asked how she observes others in a friendship and how they present their friendship, also how she projects hers onto others and how its shown.

The language used in my interview was based in a Q and A format, I used a main image which captured our friendship and revolved my questions around that. I used colours and highlighted certain sentences to make them stand out more as they were more straight forward and short answered.

In this interview, friendship is portrayed as accepting and understandable whilst being trustworthy and respectable. My friend who I interviewed (Adora) is not a stereotypical teen as she gets involved with anything she can get her hands on which shows she is reactionary.