Representation question- Essay

Question 1

Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.

-regional fashion magazine

I positioned my model on the front cover to look very powerful as a strong female character, this was achieved as she looks down on the camera as well as the audience. It gives the impression that she is taller and therefore has more authority. At first glance of the model she appears to be smart which is the opposite of what people expect on a fashion magazine with a woman on the front. The connotations of a woman on a front cover, if she has more than average amount of skin showing, is that she is dominated by the male gender and she is only there to provide men with pleasure from watching. This is known as male gaze by the theorist Laura Mulvey. In an attempt to alter our perception of how we see women on the front of magazines I have used a low angle medium camera shot to represent Rebecca as being the dominant one. Usually females are to be seen looking straight at the camera or below them as a way of objectifying, especially if they have sexualised clothes. However in my magazine I want to convey just the opposite as she can be a role model to the young girls who I aim to sell the magazine to.

My magazine is aimed at women and to do this I created a typical theme of colours such as pink, black, and white. These colours also occur on the average fashion magazine as they represent a woman's magazine due to the connotations of the selected colours and association with the female gender. I chose these colours as I researched many fashion magazines which showed that my colours corresponded with theirs. Society has created a stigma where girls have to wear pink to be girly or feminine. In my magazine this is not the case. I have the colour pink involved but my model doesn't wear this colour as she does not need it to appear girly. This is further explained in my double page analysis with the colour red. The denotation of using pink in my magazine is that I think grabbing the audience's attention is a primary objective in which I used the bright colour pink to stand out amongst the black and white. I was going to chose red but instead I used this for the double page. The connotation of using pink could be completely different in the fact that people associate this colour with girls, but this is not the reason why I chose this colour. 

My models wears a striped, long pencil skirt which can mean two things. One, it elongates her legs and body so she looks a lot taller than she really is thus creating a sense of power and strength over the audience. Two, the pencil form of the skirt suggests formality and intelligence which can be seen as a role model for other women who buy the magazine. A pencil skirt is most commonly associated with intelligence because is has a 'formal business' look and is taken seriously but also has male gaze included as parts of her legs will be shown.  However, on my magazine, I have cut the image so that her legs are barely visible because this magazine is tailored to represent women in a positive strong light, and not for the males attention. My intention was not to create a male gaze but instead for women to aspire to be like her and have her sense of fashion. The over the shoulder jumper, on the other hand, dresses her down a bit to a more casual level so she doesn't appear to be too serious or overpowering because my target audience is for young women of ages 16-25. I think that if my model dresses too old she will not grab the attention of the audience as expected. As younger people are found to dress older than they appear in todays society, I have created an outfit tailored to suit the tastes in fashion of those aged 16-25. My model represents the older side of about 20 as this is her age and she is made up to look this particular age. I did this because it is in the middle of the age range and Rebecca's overall presentation can represent the young and older as well. 

The left hand side image shows a medium shot of my model, Rebecca, who wears the same dress but without the jumper on the top. This exposes more of her skin, however, the front cover image has already gave a first impression of her strength and power so this pose is purely for making her look stronger in a typical 'objectified' position. I achieved this by making her have a dead stare into the camera with a slight smile as an invitation but her hair covers some of her face, this makes her appear quite feminine without the use of the colour pink or exposing her skin in a way that existing fashion magazines do. For example, a model with her hips/waste showing or the majority of her legs. The soft light on the side of her face also shows her to be feminine and pretty and the direct eye contact makes a personal address with the target audience. Young girls may aspire to be like her.

The right hand side image has Rebecca looking down on her shirt to direct the attention to her red shirt. This links in with the colour scheme of red which will be explained in the next paragraph. The reason I chose to do one medium shot and one long shot is because it shows a variety of poses that she does to show off her clothes and face.

I used red because it's a very powerful colour and represents her personality as fiery. The eye contact on the red traces the audiences focus on the shirt which I have made up to be one of her designs. This particular shirt is not an obvious female choice for clothes as it doesn't convey the typical conventions of a feminine article of clothing. We would see men wearing this kind of shirt more often. This, therefore, shows that my intention was not to make Rebecca seem in any way, in this particular image, girly. The red is neither a strictly male or female colour so the immediate representation of her in this photo is that she is becoming of importance without the use of objectifying or stereotyping. I stuck to plain colours as much as possible because in my personal opinion I think that calm colours tend to make the magazine look more professional and target my audience effectively. If I had used bolder and brighter colours such as greens, blues and yellows then it would not seem like enough effort went into it as it could have. The consistent use of the colours black and white carry a theme throughout. This is also shown in my billboard so my target audience can link each product back to one another. The white shows up really good against the red and black which I used consciously knowing that it is an easy colour to read from. The text is really important to the story therefore it is quite imperative to make sure all the writing is clear in terms of colour co-ordination and font clarity.

As mentioned above I used the colour red as a focal point. The rest of the right hand side image is in black and white. I did this to get the attention of the readers to follow the red writing and onto the shirt, in between is the text which would hopefully be read as the writing is in one top corner and the shirt is in the other bottom corner. I dressed her more casually to represent her as casual but she also has an elegant side. In this case I have shown her on the left hand page in the same dress as the front cover, but I have taken the jumper away. I used a medium shot to show the upper half of her body. This image could be seen to use male gaze by the theorist Laura Mulvey as she is wearing a cut out dress. However, this wasn't my intention as it is aimed at primarily females. I did this kind of shot to emphasise the beauty side of her. I have displayed her hair as soft and light from the light behind her. She has the typical blonde hair blue eyes beauty that I wanted to strongly convey as this magazine aims to inspire and act as a role model. The type of shot I used, with her head to the side, is an invitation and presents her as friendly as she has a slight smile. The image also blends in with the white of the background which creates an illusion that this image is attached to the whole page instead of a separate one. In my opinion I think that this can look more professional rather than having the image suddenly stop.