With reference to your own detailed examples, explore the ways in which women are represented in the media today?

One of the oldest and most notorious representations of women that is around today and has been for hundreds of years is of course the motherly, maternal figure. This representation has been used throughout media advertising and film for years and has been shown in many different ways.

 

This P&G advert celebrates women as a motherly figure, the whole advert is dedicated to thanking mothers and shows mothers at different stages of life with their children. Audiences can immediately identify why this advert is thanking mothers because it is well known that mothers go through a lot for their children. This advert stereotypes mothers as women who are passive and humble, who let children take the priority while they sit back and watch. There seems to be no strong presence of males in this advert suggesting that mothers are the prime or most important parent and can be strong and independent - which is actually a rather modern approach to mothers considering just 50 years ago women were seen as submissive and dominated by men. However they have always been seen as the passionate parent - as reflected in this advert.

Another representation of women is the dumb blonde, this too has been shown numerous times throughout the media. The dumb blonde has quite typical characteristics that are the bleach blonde hair, slim toned body and whiney often Californian accent.

Anna Faris in the House Bunny is a perfect example of a 'dumb blonde' not only is the film set on her ambition of being a Playboy Bunny, the worlds most notorious celebration of the fake skinny bimbo but she is also shown as quite unable to handle being around 'regular' girls who are so much brighter than her.  The way this picture is composed with Anna being in a typical slutty pink outfit even with the playboy bunny ears on while the drably dressed girls are placed in the background even standing behind a door reinforces the ideology that average girls often feel intimidated our out shined by the so called 'perfect' girls. This film definitely hits the subject of teen insecurities and gives us a great representation of a materialistic white girl. 

Legally Blonde would appear to be almost a blueprint of the above House Bunny, in fact the girls in the cover Reese Witherspoon and Anna Faris look almost identical. However, Legally Blonde does put a different view on the dumb blonde - obviously there is an ongoing controversy over whether the dumb blonde stereotype is true or not, as intelligence isn't determined by your hair colour. Legally Blonde shows a girl who we would assume to be dumb, but is actually so intelligent she goes to Harvard to study law and becomes an extremely successful lawyer, this challenges the idea that all blondes are dumb. This cover too is set out like the first, she is dressed in again, bright pink and revealing dress. All of the characters behind her are dressed dull and are looking at her almost in the same way while far in the background. The fact that two of these 'white chick' films covers are so similar shows just how strong this archetype is in culture today. 

A final representation is of the Bad Ass female. Its no secret that film for many years has been dominated by male protagonists. Women were used as an add in for the male gaze or the 'damsel in distress' which often had to be saved by the male character. However the Bad Ass female is a representation in which the female is the leader - she dominates the actions she does and often is un phased by male presence, or even resents males as shown in Kill Bill. This is a very modern take on women, Uma Thurman's character throughout this film is completely dominant over men, challenging traditional ideologies of how it's supposed to be vice versa.