Textual Analysis

Representation of Gender through Cinematography

Textual Analysis – Representations of Gender through Cinematography.

I have decided to look into two similar styles of films and their representation of gender in a coming of age style film. One of the films I will be looking at is Angus thongs and perfect snogging a coming of age film released in 2008, it is a Hollywood production distributed by paramount. The film deals with the issues of a teenage girl as she goes from a teenager into young adulthood. The second film I will be looking into is The Inbetweeners movie, which was released in 2011 and was distributed by Entertainment film Distributers. The film follows the lives of 4 teenage guys who go away before they all leave for university.  The coming of age style has changed quite dramatically in order to keep the teenage audiences entertained. The films take realistic situations and exaggerate them in order to make some entertainment. Most of the styles of films now contain strong language and some nudity, which would have normally been for audiences 18 and over. Films now can show this at a lower age rating as due to the media and how teenage behaviors have changed that this is now considered a normal behavior.

In Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging the main characters are all set within a secondary school and the characters are all friends from this.  The main character Georgia alongside her best friend Jas set out to get the schools newest arrivals Tom and Robbie as well as deal with the popular girl Lindsay. Georgia also has to go through her dad moving away and throwing the best party of the year going against her rival Lindsay. The film is about first loves and popularity. These are all realistic situations that have been exaggerated to ensure they gain an audience.

In The Inbetweeners Movie the film is set as they 4 guys Simon, Neil, Jay and Will are leaving college and are deciding to go away before going on to university. The group decides to go away to Malia to meet girls and get Simon over his breakup with his long-term crush carli.

Through the choice of the characters the age and being able to use school as the backdrop to the films helps teenage audiences relate to the characters and build a relationship with the characters as this mirrors real life and what the audience are or have gone through already. These will help advertise the film to the audience and ensure that the films do get a teenage following. This is all through the exaggerated real life situations the films use.

In Angus thongs and Perfect Snogging the two ‘love interests’ Robbie and Tom are an example of the female gaze. The female gaze is an adaption to the male gaze but now use men for women to look at. The female gaze is used in the film as the film is aimed at teenage girls and so the boys in the film do tend to be sexualized and over exaggerated. The boys are both made to look like ‘models’ dressed in the latest fashions making them seem like the perfect guys.  The female gaze comes in when the girls follow the guys around the area talking about their looks and calling who gets who.

However in The Inbetweeners Movie both the female and the male gaze are used to ensure the film attracts both male and females. The 4 boys are the typical looking boys who look realistic and the girls they meet on holiday are also the typical realistic looking girls so there is something for both the male and the female audience to look at.  The film is the continuation of the story from the TV series The Inbetweeners so already had an audience and had already established the use of both male and female gaze.  The scene where this is best portrayed is the scene where the guys try and attract the girl’s attention in an empty club by showing off their dance moves. This technique has been adapted to be used for both female and male use where as in earlier years would only have been used to attract a male audience.

The use of different camera shots and camera angles on the girl in Angus thongs give them the power and make them look bigger than the male characters in the film.  As the film focuses around the girls trying to get the popular new girls in the school the camera angles tend to be high angle shots and close ups making them look powerful and in control of the situations around them. This also attracts to the young female audience members as this is how girls feel in real life situations and its said that girls play the games so for them to see a film that empowers this it will make them relate to the characters and return to see the film again as there are not many films that celebrate this. The film also focus on the power battles between different types of girls, the popular and confident girls against the geeky under confidant girls.  This is again shown with conflicting camera angles where the high angle shots change from character to character. In one scene Georgia and Lynsey fighting over Robbie the high camera angle changes from Georgia to Lynsey as she is more popular and confident, but at the end of the film where the argument comes around once more the low camera angle stays on Georgia as she has become more popular than Lynsey and “taken her down”.

In The Inbetweeners movie the camera angle changes between the groups of characters as it changes from high angle and low angle shots depending on what is happening from within the scene. In some scenes the camera angle will be low on Will as he saying something smart and superior to the others and so the camera angle will be high on the group and will change to another character as they battle to be cool and popular. In both films there seems to be a constant battle of popularity and this is shown through the high angle and low angle shots.

In both Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging and The Inbetweeners Movie the representation of male and female gender through the use of cinematography has shown that both genders are equal. The films show that the gender groups go through the same battles with relationships and friendships being tested. The cinematography in both films show that not one of the genders are superior to the other and that even within the same gender there are power struggles and so at the end everyone is equal. Although other media texts will show one gender as being stronger or better than another this just a battle for advertisements to draw in specific audiences such as all female audiences or all male audience but by breaking down the different structures we can now see programmes that show that the genders are actually equal and that there are no set structures for male characters or female characters are their stereotypical representations but they can actually be shown the same.