Research Investigation: Ideologies

"a system of ideas and ideals, especially one which forms the basis of economic or political theory and policy; the set of beliefs characteristic of a social group or individual"

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/ideology

Both gender ideology and gender role ideology refer to attitudes regarding the appropriate roles, rights, and responsibilities of women and men in society. The concept can reflect these attitudes generally or in a specific domain, such as an economic, familial, legal, political, and/or social domain. Most gender ideology constructs are unidimensional and range from traditional, conservative, or anti-feminist to egalitarian, liberal, or feminist. Traditional gender ideologies emphasize the value of distinctive roles for women and men. According to a traditional gender ideology about the family, for example, men fulfill their family roles through instrumental, breadwinning activities and women fulfill their roles through nurturant, homemaker, and parenting activities. Egalitarian ideologies regarding the family, by contrast, endorse and value men's and women's equal and shared breadwinning and nurturant family roles. Gender ideology also sometimes refers to widespread societal beliefs that legitimate gender inequality. For example, Lorber (1994 : 30) defines gender ideology as “the justification of gender statuses, particularly, their differential evaluation. The dominant ideology tends to suppress criticism by making these evaluations seem natural.”

http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/tocnode?id=g9781405124331_yr2012_chunk_g978140512433113_ss1-19

...application to Iron Man 3

• conforms to ideology and traditional belief of women being wives and spouses first
• needed a man to provide protection
• Pepper is CEO, shattering male breadwinner belief
• however, Stark is main breadwinner and brings the most income, most desirable due to his skill

...application to The Hunger Games

• repels ideology of women homemakers
• Katniss is responsible for her family, and is the main breadwinner
• takes the head-of-the-house role and protects and provides for her family
• doesn't need a man to provide protection, skilled in archery

Research Investigation: 'Iron Man 3' Film Poster

May 2013

Research Investigation: The Hunger Games Film Poster

March 2012

Sin City: How typical of their genre(s) are your chosen texts?

Sin City is classified as a hybrid genre as it has a mixture of comic book and film noir conventions. The film is very typical of its genres due to the techniques and conventions it uses.
One of these relates to the characters within the film. In a film noir genre, a common protagonist tends to be male and normally has a health condition that maims them in some way and makes them seem less of a hero character, such as a mental condition or physical trait. In Sin City, this is applied and used with the main protagonists of the piece as each one seems to have a condition, e.g John Hartigan has angina and Marv has scars and cuts from fighting. These conditions push the protagonists to do some good, as they treat themselves like less of a person because of them, regularly insulting themselves in dialogue throughout the film, for example when John Hartigan is going to save Nancy when she's a child, one of the lines of dialogue he says is "prove you're not completely useless Old Man". This is a common trait in the film noir genre, and this film is no exception.

Another way that Sin City is typical of its genres is the fighting scenes it includes, which are typical of a comic book film because of their unrealistic appeal. In one scene where John is saving young Nancy and first goes to enter the place where she is, he completely breaks down the door with one arm and is shot around 10 times with a gun in vital places but still continues on. This is typical of a comic book genre film as the hero tends to be seen as almost invincible in most and isn't affected by "simple" injuries such as gun shot wounds or otherwise.

Fish Tank: To what extent are your chosen texts typical of their genre?

'Fish Tank' is a social realist film and is very typical of its genre due to the representations and narrative styles that it uses.
One of the ways in which it conforms to its genre is through it's representation of the under-represented, which in this case is the underclass population. It shows a real-life view of the people that tend to be hidden and shunned by society. An example of this would be the small clip at the start of the film that shows the flat block alleyways in front of the apartments and the children running up and down the walkway on one of the floors, showing what life is like for the 'regular' and common people living in Britain.
Another way that 'Fish Tank' is typical of social realism is due to the conventions it uses, specifically the use of handheld camera shots. In a scene towards the end of the film, when Mia 'kidnaps' Keira, the scene shows Mia running after the child. In a different genre, this scene would probably have been shot as a still camera movement but due to the features of this genre, the camera is handheld and moves with her, following her movements as she runs and blurring the landscape as it does so. This makes the shot and the film seem more realistic as this is how the action occurs in real life and makes it feel like more of a documentary than a fictional film. This therefore makes 'Fish Tank' typical of it's genre as social realistic films try to keep as close to reality as they can get.