All posts by Molly McCaffrey
Filters
audience theory
Hypodermic model (passvie consumption)
its passive and about changing behaviour, a linear consumptive model.
Harold Lasswell wrote a book called Propaganda Technique in the World war written in 1927 . it highlighted the brew of ‘subtle poison, which industrious men injected into the veins of a staggering people until the smashing powers . . . knocked them into submission’
analysis of style models
Advertisment style models
CSP 1 & 2
key terms – representation
| Male Gaze | The idea of how men look at women and sexualise and objectify them. |
| Voyeurism | the interest in getting sexual pleasure from watching/engaging in sexual activity and nudity |
| Patriarchy | Social system which states men take power and gain social privilege. |
| Positive and negative stereotypes | the traits and characteristics that link to certain social classes. (good and bad) |
| Counter-types | a positive stereotype and emphasizes the positive features about a person or thing. |
| Misrepresentation | something that misrepresents an object, idea, fact or person. |
| Selective representation | only presenting some ideas and fats but not all. selecting the good bits to put out but ignoring and leaving out all the bad. |
| Dominant ideology | the attitudes, beliefs, values, and morals shared by the majority of the people in a given society |
| Constructed reality | That we construct and create our own reality and what we do affects the reality we’ve constructed. |
| Hegemony | leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others |
| Audience positioning | the relationships between the audience and the text, how an audience receives, reads and responds to a text |
| Fluidity of identity | having the ability to change how you see yourself, the world, and your actions. |
| Constructed identity | conventional models of the person as a bounded or monadic individual with a fixed or essential identity |
| Negotiated identity | the processes through which people reach agreements regarding “who is who” in their relationships |
| Collective identity | all the cognitive and affective aspects deriving from belonging to certain groups with which adolescents identify themselves and which place them within certain social categories such as ethnicity, nationality, or gender |
Essay prep
I produced a ghost busters’ game. I used both ganders within my games cover. I used the male character as the ghost because men are considered to be mysterious due to not sharing emotions and details about themselves. The female character is used as the buster. I used a female character to go against those ideas of society that females cannot do what males do. I also decided to cover up the female to not sexualise her which corresponds to Laura Mulvey’s idea that women in video games are usually sexualised.
I used a female character as my dominant signifier of busters of the ghosts. I decided to do this because if women are presented to be lower than men I wanted to put a woman above a man in status to prove that in video games its not just men who can play the fighter character roles with male players but female characters can which helps show that female players can also do the same.
After doing wider research I came across some facts which show how the female characters in games are presented less.
“playable female characters were found to appear less frequently than male characters”
“The sexualization of women involves the use of female bodies in a way that renders them the object of a sexual gaze or perception by others; their bodies are objectified and they are reduced to that of a sex object”
These quotes can be found on Wikipedia.
Social media forms have learnt to accept these conventional ideas as its how it has been for years and video game companies refuse to change their dominant signifier from a male to a female. That’s why I made the decision to change the main character to become a female in order to change people’s opinions and views on women in video games.
My video game is countertype; radical as it goes against what has been done before and what works in the video game community. It shows positivity towards women without presenting negativity to men due to the fact that we cannot just flip gender roles as that will be deemed as unfair and its not what people such as Jean Kilbourne works towards and works for. Jean works for equality not the flip of gender roles.
I was told my games cover had a good representation of gender roles and that I’ve created the perfect split between genders to keep it fair and just.
If I were to completely alter my representation id use the female as the ghost and the male as the buster and give back the male role of being the strong hero trying to save the town. Id also oversexualise the female character and bring back all the same representations of characters we already have no matter how unfair and unjust they are.
GAMES COVER
games cover statement of intent
I intend on creating a video game box based on the film Ghost Busters.
The main image will be a woman with the vacuum thing that sucks up the ghosts ready to attack. I will also have the female version of the male to show two different perspectives on the game. The background of the game will be around the houses of parliament in London to show possible players the widescale ideas of ground they have to cover to complete the game.
I intend on calling the game Busters of the ghosts as its a twist on the film Ghost busters therefore audiences can grasp the concept of what the game is actually about.
On the back of the games cover my main character will be in many different locations to show to potential buyers where a bouts you can play within the game and show different maps and weathers.
I will have the games company and the type of games box you can use for it, for example mine will be an Xbox one. Also ill have an age restriction clearly shown on all sides of the cover to emphasise to buyers that you have to be this certain age to play this game as it may include flashing lights and graphic images and isn’t suitable for younger children.
representation
the male gaze- is the perspective of a heterosexual man and how it creates a feeling of empowerment of men objectifying and sexualising women in video games and other forms of media.
Laura Mulvey- is a creator who created the idea of the male gaze and exposing game creators for sexualising women and making the assumption that all men who play the game wants to see the woman’s butt per say.
John Berger- The voice actor for both Archie and Albert Crisp in the video game Grande Theft Auto: London 1969
“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.”
John Berger sight of seeing
This shows how men overly sexualised woman and treat them like objects. The male gaze shows how video games have an influence on how we act today and how women get treated due to being sexualised in videogames.
QUOTES
why diversity matters:
“The industry traditionally projects an image that is young, white, straight and male.”
“We aim to provide a welcoming and safe space for everyone who attends, to experiment with costume, gender and sexuality, and know that they will not only not be judged, but entirely supported and celebrated.” – xbox
LEVELLING UP
“Latinx characters have often been portrayed as gangbangers and drug dealers, as seen in the Grand Theft Auto franchise, with ridiculous, cliched gang names like “The Cholos” and “The Cubans,” voiced in exaggerated, stereotypical Hispanic accents”
“Worse still are the portrayals of Muslim/Arab/Middle Eastern people, who are often relegated to the role of terrorist.”
VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA
“The cinema satisfies a primordial wish for pleasurable looking”
“ultimately the meaning of women is sexual difference”
FEMINIST FREQUENCT SITE