As such, this film provides a narrative of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM, in the same way that we could look at other stories that are concerned with other institutional prejudices – racism, homophobia, Islamophobia etc.

Roger Alies was an American television executive and media consultant. He was the chairman and CEO of Fox News. He resigned from Fox News after being accused of sexual harassment by several female Fox employees.

Women who work at Fox News a news company based in the US try to expose the CEO Roger Ailes for his sexual harrassments.

Roger Ailes was offering the female workers of Fox News a rise in pay if they were to sleep with him. He abused his power for his sexual intentions and got away with it for a while due to the fact that he had such a high position. Women who he had encountered and offered such raises to set out to expose him of his crimes to eventually fire him.

Gretchen won 20 million dollars after suing roger for sexual assault.

 Linking some of the ideas that we covered in terms of Feminist Critical Thinking towards the 4th KEY CONCEPTUAL AREA OF A LEVEL MEDIA STUDIES: INSTITUTION. Bombshell is a story based upon the accounts of the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment.

 Brief summary of the plot.

As a way of linking some of the ideas that we covered in terms of Feminist Critical Thinking towards the 4th KEY CONCEPTUAL AREA OF A LEVEL MEDIA STUDIES: INSTITUTION, let’s look at Bombshell (2019, Dir. Jay Roach) a story based upon the accounts of the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Follow this link for a brief summary of the plot.

LINKING WITH PREVIOUS THEORIES:

You can understand misogyny (the poor representation of women in the media) in the same way you can understand racism, homophobia, ultra-nationalism and other forms of casual stereotyping, bias and prejudice, that is, through TEXTUAL ANALYSIS and the notion of REPRESENTATION.

However, prejudice may also occur beyond the level of text and can be identified as operating at a systemic INSTITUTIONAL intersection of race/class/gender <> power. Such ideas are proposed by Sut Jhally in his work for the Media Education Foundation – ‘Dreamworlds’ which looks at the role of MTV and music videos as a form of institutional / corporate sexism and misogyny

As such, this film provides a narrative of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM, in the same way that we could look at other stories that are concerned with other institutional prejudices – racism, homophobia, Islamaphobia etc. In other words, this film presents a version of the story of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM and MISOGYNY. It suggests a link between the presentation / representation of the female form and the ideas of a ruling patriarchy (Fox News, specifically Roger Ailes) and perhaps explains why we are presented with the stories we are presented with and how those stories are presented to us.

As a way of linking some of the ideas that we covered in terms of Feminist Critical Thinking towards the 4th KEY CONCEPTUAL AREA OF A LEVEL MEDIA STUDIES: INSTITUTION, let’s look at Bombshell (2019, Dir. Jay Roach) a story based upon the accounts of the women at Fox News who set out to expose CEO Roger Ailes for sexual harassment. Follow this link for a brief summary of the plot.

As such, this film provides a narrative of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM, in the same way that we could look at other stories that are concerned with other institutional prejudices – racism, homophobia, Islamaphobia etc. In other words, this film presents a version of the story of INSTITUTIONAL SEXISM and MISOGYNY. It suggests a link between the presentation / representation of the female form and the ideas of a ruling patriarchy (Fox News, specifically Roger Ailes) and perhaps explains why we are presented with the stories we are presented with and how those stories are presented to us.

You can understand misogyny (the poor representation of women in the media) in the same way you can understand racism, homophobia, ultra-nationalism and other forms of casual stereotyping, bias and prejudice, that is, through TEXTUAL ANALYSIS and the notion of REPRESENTATION.

Understanding gender is, in my opinion, a crucial part of understanding the Score and Maybelline advertising campaigns as the idea of gender is the main selling point in both ads, even though they are presented and used in different ways.

In the case of the Score advertising campaign, I can tell that it was heavily influenced by “The Male Gaze”, a theory developed by Laura Mulvey in which she theorises about how quite often in the media women are perceived as a sexual object who is there to provide pleasure to the male heterosexual viewer. “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 on to the female form which is styled accordingly.” is what she says in her book Visual and Other Pleasure and is essentially the whole base of the score advert. In an advert where the underlining message is that if you (male) use this product you will be more attractive to females- if you don’t understand this concept and also the traditional idea of gender (male & female) then the advert will lack in meaning. This ad is also a good examples of Judith’s theory on “Raunch culture” which “Is the sexualised performance of women in the media that can play into male stereotypes of women as high sexually available. If you are also unable to understand the ideas of gender more specifically male, female and heterosexual attraction then this specific advert will become meaningless. This specific example is one portraying a traditional belief of patriarchy by showing a male being pampered by females in a borderline sexual way while they wear very little clothes, gaze inventively at the male, reach up towards him and just generally cohere to the male gaze. This shows how Score is using gender/ sexuality to attract customers and gain sales but this is also just a common tactic which has been taken advantage of by most major companies.

Understanding gender is also a crucial part of Maybelline’s “Boss Up” adverts as their selling point of the product is that they have included a gay male in a makeup advertisement for the first time. Manny’s sexuality is greatly exaggerated, along with his “cringe” vocabulary which I think represents the makeup brand Maybelline trying to make an impactful advert that you will remember, even if its remembered for being tacky and cringe the point will still be there”. Not only does this advert represent inclusion of different sexuality’s, it also represents inclusion of different genders and races too. For example in the original Maybelline boss up advert a man is “bossed” up as well between shots whereas in the second advert it is a woman. This is Maybelline’s attempt at breaking down the dominant ideology that makeup is only for females- which could either be perceived as a step towards a more inclusive society or just a smart marketing tactic to increase their target audience. By making adverts such as these Maybelline is moving away from ideas such as Laura Mulvey’s theory that “gender is fixed – male/female” and “it is structured by institutions and those powerful individuals who are able to exert power and control” and towards the more modern ideas such as Judith Butlers thoughts on how “gender is fluid, changeable, plural a set of categories to be played out and performed by individual subjects in individual moments in time and space.” which is displayed in the advert through Manny’s character being against the typical makeup user’s stereotype- such as Judith Butler’s so called “Girly Girls,” which could be described as “a female who chooses to display themselves in a more traditionally feminine way i.e. pink clothes, makeup, dresses gossiping, etc,”. The fact that Maybelline has Manny as their first male representative (who is also gay), shows that slowly society is moving further and further away from the outdated expectation that “The roles that men and women are expected to fulfil are tightly regulated and heavily moderated by social customs, family expectations, and rigid social codes” and more towards that of Judith Butlers where “Our genders are formed culturally rather than naturally” and “Our genders are not stable but are constructed through repeated actions.”.

Overall the idea of gender is represented differently on both the Score and Maybelline adverts but like I said before this idea of gender being the defining feature and selling point for both products will be completely missed if the viewer doesn’t understand the concepts and theory’s such as Judith Butler‘s idea that “an identity instituted through a stylized repetition of acts”. in other words, it is something learnt through repeated performance.” then the advertisement will not have the same effect. Both adverts also use gender in different ways to get to the viewer; for example score uses the more outdated “standard” that males should attract females and Maybelline uses Manny who is homosexual to enforce that while gender used to be a set of specific behaviours and characteristics that everyone of the same physical gender should follow- they are now no longer “Tightly regulated and heavily moderated by social customs, family expectations, and rigid social codes” as Gauntlett says but are more fluid and known that “Biological anatomies do not determine our gender” as Butler states. Judith states “Our genders are formed culturally rather than naturally” and “Our genders are not stable but are constructed through repeated actions.” and this is what is being shown through these contrasting adverts.

1. Introduce the overall aim and argument that you are going to make
2. Establish your first main critical approach (I would suggest Gender as Performance by Butler, but . . . )
3. Develop this approach by using key words, phrases and quotation (Mulvey, Kilbourne, Moi, Wander, Wollstonescraft, Woolf, de Beauvoir, Van Zoonen, Dollimore, Woolf, Levy)
4. Apply your theoretical ideas to either or both of the set CSP’s
5. Show some historical knowledge about societal changes
6. Establish a secondary theme or idea that you wish to raise (1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th wave feminism, Raunch Culture, Queer Theory, Intersectionality)
7. Develop this approach by using key words, phrases and quotation
8. Apply your theoretical ideas to either or both of the set CSP’s
9. Show some historical knowledge about societal changes
10. Establish a contradictory argument that shows your ability to think and engage
11. Develop this approach by using key words, phrases and quotation
12. Apply your theoretical ideas to either or both of the set CSP’s
13. Apply your theoretical ideas to either or both of the set CSP’s
14. Summarise your main arguments
15. Ensure you have a summative, final sentence / short paragraph