In our Representation lesson we learned about Stereotypes and where they come from. We also learned about how the media represents people in different ways. There were a lot of debates in the class about their opinions on different examples such as magazine covers and the way some celebrities are portrayed in the media. Here are some of the key words we came across in the lesson, there definitions.
Representation: The way that which people, events and ideas are presented to the audience.
Stereotype: A stereotype is a 'Visual Short-Cut' they are used so much that people assume that its normal or true.
Archetype: The 'Ultimate' stereotype. For example a french man wearing a striped top, holding a baguette whilst drinking red wine.
Countertype: A representation that challenges original stereotypes.
Gatekeeper: A media gate keeper is someone involved in allowing or disallowing something to be seen by an audience.
We were set the task to watch the beginning of a film and write about the representation that has been used. I have chosen to analyse the representation of this clip from the movie "The Shawshank Redemption".
In this clip there are several representations that are being showed. The film is about prison life and in this clip the prison itself is an archetype. It is a towering building, frightening to look at, made to look very dull, dark and miserable. Most the characters in the scene are stereotypical prisoners, they all wear the same uniform and all look ugly, dirty and grim. The character on the coach 'Andy' is a countertype to these prisoners, he seems to be handsome and intelligent looking. This could have been the writers way of saying that not all prisons are bad people.This clip shows a stereotypical prison, dark and gloomy.