Analysis Of Miss Representation

Throughout a women’s life she is faced with many obstacles just because of the gender she is. A little girl will eventually hear, “you can’t do that because you are not a boy”. It never occurred to me that the media has a hand in this way of society’s thinking. At the end of watching Miss Representation the viewer will actually feel that the media is the primary reason for undermining the growth of women in the United States. Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the director of Miss Representation, does an excellent job to convince her audience that women need to be portrayed as more than just pretty objects in the media. She does this by sharing many disheartening statistics, interviewing various types of people, and by showing offensive images and
This persuasion method is great because you hear the point of view of young women, celebrities, doctors, women in power and, men. As Caroline Heldman PhD says, “The more women and girls self-objectify, the more likely they are to be depressed, to have eating disorders, they have lower confidence, they have lower ambition, lower cognitive-functioning, [and] they have lower GPA’s.” The viewer is now seeing the detrimental effects of women pursuing these unrealistic levels of beauty that the media has shown us. By Newsom incorporating commentary from doctors you get the validity needed to persuade the audience of how important it is for women to be portrayed as more than just objects in print and television. Another part to the film that is welcoming, is the commentary by men. For example, the former Mayor of San Francisco Gavin Newsom says, “When you are not treated the same, you are dehumanized”. Having the element of male commentaries in the film helps the male viewer connect with the issue at hand and make them angry as well for the prejudices women face. By having the male perspective in the film, it shows that this film is not biased and gives the director’s argument more credibility. Last and definitely not least, Newsom interviews young girls, who all explicitly express their need for change. There’s one young girl named Maria who cries to the camera as she explains that her
For example, we are shown a picture of Sarah Palin at the podium, but the image is shot between her legs. Here we have a woman trying to advance in politics and all we see are her legs. This woman is trying to be taken seriously yet the media is still knocking her down as just a ‘pretty object”. For the female audience of the film this type of imagery is terribly upsetting. Also, throughout the film the audience is shown many images of women licking their fingers, prancing around in bikinis, and being sexy. These images make the viewer shake their head because it makes them think, “is this what women really are?” Newsom selected many images that make the audience’s skin crawl, because women are more than just sexual objects. Another great example of the how the images in the film are persuasive are the images of how models are photoshopped. Models are considered to be some of the most beautiful women of the world, yet they are still being altered. Women are being fed these unrealistic ideas of beauty, when the women they are viewing, do not even really look this way. By Newsom including this ‘unmasking” it is a great way to show the audience of how the media disillusions us. Overall, Newsom did a sperb job of the images and television clip selection for her film, because they paint the media in a horrible light. The imagery she gives us shows us how