In his introductory lecture, Representation and the Media, Hall focuses on the concept of “representation”, one of the key ideas of media and cultural studies. He shows how reality is never experienced directly, but always through the symbolic categories made available by society. He examines gender and racial stereotyping in the media. Stuart Hall
“Representation means using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people. It involves the use of language, of signs and images which stand for or represent objects, people and concepts.
The meaning of signs is constructed by the system of representation. It is constructed and fixed by the code, which sets up the correlation between our conceptual system and our language system. The meaning is not in the object or person or thing, nor is it in the signifier. It is we who fix the meaning so firmly that, after a while, it comes to seem natural and inevitable.
Hall states that the media not only represent our cliched notion of people but that conversely stereotypes are often created by the Media.
For Foucault systems of representation (knowledge) are intrinsically linked to systems of power.
Hegemonic = ruling or dominant (meaning) in a political or social context. The image of women in the media is constructed (given meaning) by a patriarchal ideology i.e. a system of representation that is dominantly Male, i.e. White, Middle/Upper Middle Class (rich), Male.
If we think about the relationship between power and the system of representation we can also think about who controls this idea of woman(ness), or any form of representation in the media.
Second Wave Feminists wanted to deconstruct the process of fetishism… that separates the viewer from what they see (as in traditional theatre, movies, illustration, photography)…. but enthrals them into identifying with the images through various seductive practices.
Laura Mulvey’s essay is one of the most influential texts of the last 30 years or so in visual theory. Her theories have been argued for and against, and used in much academic discussion of film, video and still image making.
Women are positioned in this structure, both in the film and in the audience… in such a way that they only exist as objects within the narrative. Actresses are directed to embody male fantasies and objectify/sexualize the female body through gesture.
SCOPOPHILIC GAZE – Active eroticised pleasure in looking at objects on the screen. (separation from object on screen, function of sexual instincts)
NARCISSISTIC GAZE– passive identification with the image seen. (function of the ego libido)
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