Saturday 27 December 2008

Detailed essay plan

'Historically, James Bond films have confirmed to Laura Mulvey's theory. Is this still the case today?' Looking at Casino Royale (2006) as main text.


My independent study is all about whether or not the recent Bond movie Casino Royale (2006), obejectifies women and whether or not it still confirms to Laura Mulvey's theory of the "male gaze". The main reason i have chosen to look at James Bond movies in particualar is because the Bond movies have a wide range of followers, which makes the issue of women being objectified more controversial and looked at more. The other reason why i chose to look at this particular James Bond movie is because of the 'Bondgirl', who for the first time in any of the movies challenges the James Bond character. (T, A, N, Mulvey)


The other texts that i have decided to focus on partly are Dr No (1962) and Die another day (2002) and from a different genre, Cool Hand luke (1967), just for a comparison with a different genre and to see how women are represented in other movies. The Bond movies are important to my study as they will give an indication of how far the roles of women have come in the same genre of movie over a 40 year period. 'Cool hand luke' will allow me to determine whether or not the same representations of women are widely distributed around the movie industry. (OT, R, H)

Casino Royale confirms to Mulvey's 'male gaze':



-It is easy to make the decision that Bond movies on a whole confirm to mulvey's theory of the male gaze, as specific scenes in the Bond movies all point in the same direction, however in some cases it is argued that the objectification of women in Bond movies goes beyond just sex objects, as David Gauntlett argues that "Bond and moneypenny's flirtation could be seen as sexual harrasment".

-These scenes and examples from the Bond movies would make it easier for the audience to interpret the movie in any way, this view from Gauntlett is his own interpretation, which makes it easier for the audience to judge the movie and what they see of women. (Gauntlett, R, A, T)


The fascination of women and sex lies within the character make-up of James Bond.


-As well as certain things being drawn from the text, most interpretation would point in the direction that the sex and women is all part of the charcter of James Bond and needs to be to make him Bond and play his role well.

-Looking at Dr No (1962) and Casino Royale (2006), there are specific scenes in both movies that show off Bond's fascination with women and having sex, most notably the scene with Ursula Andress coming out of the water and Bond watching her in comparison with Casino Royale when Bond is having sex with Bondgirl Caterina Murino, as these scenes demonstrate no change in representation of women over a period of 40 years. (N, R, H)

-Another key point concerning the representation of Bondgirls and women in general has to do with the narrative and the ending of the movies. In all of the James Bond movies, Bond saves the woman, as she is presented as a 'damzel in distress'. (R, N)



Womens roles are limited to being "merely token females"?



- Another arguement stems from the other and it concerns how seriously women are taken in film. At the moment, womens roles are limited, as Barry Gunter describes it as being "merely token females", which takes all seriousness out of the womens roles. (Gunter)

- Going along with this quotation from Barry Gunter, some scenes could also be looked at, for example the scene with Bond in Casino Royale where he gives Eva Green the dress and tells her exactly what to do, where to walk and how to act, as he tells her to walk in front of the players so that they notice her. This is a clear demonstration that women are being led on and not able to express their opinions in the industry or in the movies. (ML, N)



Some problems may lie within genders of directors



- More emphasis could be placed upon this dilemma by argueing that the problem may have been caused due to the lack of female directors and producers. As already known, the movie industry is lacking a womans perspective on things and with most directors being men, this could lead to marxism in film where only males point of view is being portrayed. With a womans perspective, female roles would be given more thought. (T)

-"All the actresses had to perform a bedroom scene with Daniel where Bond says he's leaving the service to be with Vesper Lynd. Barbara Broccoli was particularly impressed by Rose."This is a clear indication of the intentions of the directors where this example shows a hint of patriachal society within the institutions and directors and producers. (SHEP, I)



Casino Royale disagrees with Mulvey's theory:




- Even though it can be argued that women are partly presented as sex objects and it is argued that women do not get the parts and the attention that they may deserve, they do however play a massive role in the narrative of the Bond movies. Even though the narrative of the films is to save the world, Bond gets side tracked by love and women and in most movies, the women who become bondgirls help him to beat the villian in all cases. (R, N, G)



'M' being the lead lady in Bond movies



- The leader of the 'MI6' organisation is 'M' who is being played by Judi Dench and she has played the character of 'M' for a number of years now appearing in various Bond movies and her power is demonstrated through her leadership and telling Bond what to do. In the case of 'M', the directors and producers have chosen a woman to show the power women have and to show that rather than men and women being equal, women can be more powerful than men. (H, N)

- "His boss 'm' is now Judi Dench, an authoratative woman who tells him, 'you are a sexist mysoganistic dinosaur, a relic from the cold war". Bond isn't used to this kind of thing, as David Gauntlett puts it and he draws more attention to the evolution of the women in James bond, when he says "Although bond changes little, the female characters have become more resourceful as the series progressed". (Gauntlett)



Bond having met his match?



- Some have argued that in the previous Bond movies, the women that have played roles have been presented as passive and haven't been given challenging roles however in Casino Royale, Eva Green who plays vesper lynd has been hailed as Bond's match from the first time they meet.

- This has been achieved mostly through the use of media language and the mise-en-scene, especially through the clothing of the character. In the scene where they first meet, the woman is wearing black, which in her case presents mystery and masculinity to her character. Bond makes an attempt at guessing vesper's past and she has a go aswell, both of them getting it right, showing equality amongst their brains and judgements. (N, ML)


Role reversal during the series of movies

-One major factor to consider with the presentation of women is also how the men are being presented through the movie and whether or not they are being objectified and the answer to this question can be easily found by looking at a particular scene with James Bond coming out of the water with only his trunks on and this could be percieved as him being objectified. This scene has been in several James Bond movies dating back to Dr No, where it was made famous and in 2002, Die another day re-inacted this scene using a highly recognised actor in Halle Berry. The scene is all about portraying women in a sexy yet aggresive manner with the women coming out of the water in their bikini's but on the side of their costumes having a weapon, in both cases a knife. In Casino Royale however, Daniel Craig is the person being objectified, however in this specific case, he is unarmed and has no weapon, which makes him seem powerless. (ML, I, SHEP)

Key scenes that will be focussed on in detail:

All of the presentation is done through the media language and done through the connotations behind the scenes and that is why i have chosen a few specific scene to focus on, as they best typify the symbolic and literate presentations of women and how the institution has been able to adapt and confirm or not confirm to the male gaze theory.

The main scene that will be the main focus of the older texts will be the iconic scene from Dr No where Ursula Andress comes out of the water in nothing but a bikini and James Bond is singing along with her, after watching her for some time, illustrating the male gaze to an extent. Other scenes that will be focussed on during the course of this essay will be the identical scene from Die another day (2002), when Halle Berry arises from the water in an identical fashion to when Ursula Andress done her scene. The main reason for looking at this scene is because of the fact that, with the scenes being identical it shows the pattern of no change in the presentations and attitudes towards women. The other main scene that will be looked at will be the scene from Casino Royale, where the structure of the scene is identical to the previous scenes however in this scene, rather than having a woman arising from the water, Daniel Craig is shown coming out of the water, which shows the change of attitudes of gender over a period of 40 years.



List of (book) references to include:

1. Gauntlett, David, (2002), 'Media, gender and identity' (published by Routlage)


2. Tuchman, Gaye, (1978), 'The symbolic annilation of women in the mass media'


3. Gunter, Barry, (1995), 'Television and gender representation', London: John Libby


4. Turner, Graham, (1989:20), 'The film cultures reader'


5. Mulvey, Laura, (1975), 'Visual pleasure and narrative cinema'


List of (website) references to include:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_Royale_2006

http://www.007.com/

http://cid.nada.kth.se/pdf/cid_51.pdf

http://www.jahsonic.com/VPNC.html

http://www.sonypictures.co.uk/movies/casinoroyale/index.html

Friday 26 December 2008

Historical texts

Text: Cool hand luke (1967)

Scene: Car wash scene

Analysis: This scene is very symbolic of what the attitudes towards women were back in the 1960's and essentially these perceptions of women and their roles in movies and the media became fixed stereotypes.

The scene starts off with a bunch of sweaty men doing manual labour with their shirts off and this could be percieved as the female gaze as the men are being shown as pieces of meat literaly and figuratively. "Am i not gonna see something look like that", is the reaction from one of the men who spots a woman coming out of her house and immediatly stares at her because of her clothes and her breasts. This was a typical woman representation in the 1960's when women had no secure place in society. "Look at that" is the phrase uttered by paul newman and by calling the woman 'that' he gives her no identity in the film but only as an object. The fact that the woman comes straight out of the house and starts washing a car, which confirms to the stereotypical assumtion of what women are really after and what they are most concerned about, which was cleaning and family. The segment of the scene when the woman picks up a hosepipe is very significant as it represents two things, one being a phallic symbol which shows that she needs a man in her life and the other being that she is far from the stereotypical woman who is just concerned about cleanliness, as she is playing with phallic symbols, which portrays her as promiscuous and provokative towards the men who are working. "She aint got nothing but a safety pin holding that thing together", this is very symbolic of what men used to think about women other than beneath them and this thought is all to do with sex and what women are wearing and its shown well, as it distracts the men from their work and their task in hand.
The sex factor fo the woman is emphasized upon even more as the camera only zooms in to the body and doesn't look at the face and the womans hair is covering her face aswell as her face not being focussed upon at all. This woman is definately seen as promiscuous and very provokative, as she squeezes the sponge and all the foam and water 'accidently' drops down onto her dress, which arrouses the men as in a sexual way it symbolizes the mans pleasure. She is not the typical passive woman who doesn't take notice of whats going on around her and she plays upon the feelings and the attention that the men are giving her and starts to play with them again, portraying her as promiscuous and provokative and sexually being able to dominant the men.

In comparison with my main text and my second choice of text, it goes some way in showing what the typical representations of women were and what kind of stereotypes they had to confirm to and what they still have to confirm to. Comparing the woman in 'cool hand luke' and 'casino royale' is a comparison with a lot of similarities and alot of differences, one of the differences being that the woman in 'cool hand luke' is only shown as a sex object and only her body is being looked at whereas, in 'casino royale' Eva Green plays a key role throughout the movie and is portrayed as abit of a 'tomboy' as she dresses up in trousers at the start while trying to gain the upper hand on the male gender. The only similarity between the two women in the two texts in the fact that even though they are being represented as sex objects in parts of the movie, they are smart enough to realize that they can use their charm and sexual appeal to their advantage and it works well for both.

Monday 15 December 2008

Subvertisment no 3

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Contemporary texts

Jadore dior
This advert is a bit different to the other contemporary adverts chosen as their is one character in the advert and the only character in the advert in a celebrity, charlize theron and that adds a credibility factor to the product which will attract an audience of both female, who would want to buy the product because of the actress and males who would be gazing at the woman.

The actress in this advert is one of high recognition and it makes it even more eye catching in the advert when she takes her clothes off and is representing a pure woman with her body but also at the same time she could be seen to be representing the promiscuous and provocative woman, historical stereotypes are shining through in this advert, the male gaze.

Contemporary texts

'Diet coke break'
The advert for the diet coke is one of the adverts that presents women in a very contrasting ways, as they are presented as having the same interests and concerns as the men with the women working in the first part but then taking a break to have some coke, which presents them as being all about fun and temptation, which in essence presents them as weak.

The most contrasting and obvious change in the advert is the fact that the roles have changed between the two genders with the women taking a break, having fun and looking at the men, opposition to mulvey's male gaze and the men are the ones who are being sexually objectified. The men are seemed to be the bait for the women who in the advert are looking at the can of coke and not the men, which makes it even more ironic.

Contemporary texts

Sheila's wheels
This advert represents women in a different light as the women in this advert are not trying to attract men towards the product but are trying to attract more women then men as they make the females feel independent with their own car insurance and 'for ladies who insure their cars' obviously confirms that point.

The whole theme of the advert is all about the independence of women and the colours in the advert emphasizes the theme and the attitude of the women, which is independence and the pink, which is seen as a 'girly' colour is the main colour.

Historical texts

Cadbury's flake advert
Chocolate is something which is widely associated with women and what women stereotypically like and the first scene in the clip is a woman who is eating the flake chocolate, but in this case its not a product that is associated with domestic things.

The facial expressions of the woman in the advert connotes alot of sexuality and adds sell factor to the product and most of all it will attract the male audience as well as the female audience which has already been secured by the product itself

Historical texts

Flash
Being that 'flash' is a domestic product and this advert is all about 'spring cleaning' and it contrast with the time of the advert, as the 1960's was all about the revolution about sex and the pill and this advert contrasts with the time of the advert.

Again in this advert, much like the last one is about cleaning and again the first person we see in the advert is a woman, which again illustrates that women were in the fireing line when it came to cleaning. Also women still being passive toward the way advertisers are presenting them, confirming to their stereotypes.

Historical texts

Shake and vac
The shake and vac advert is a typical example of an advert which objectifies women not sexually but domestically, which is one of the main features that women are associated with, historically and in modern times.

The fact that a woman is the first person we see, gives the female a leading role, however in domestic adverts like cleaning products and other things only women were in these adverts and men were no where to be seen when domesticated things were about.

Having a woman starring in a advert about cleaning is one issue but the other notable thing is that the voiceover is done by a woman as well, which makes it seem as if no men at all are interested in housing or cleaning, the things that women are most concerned about.
Exploitation of women in advertisment
The first scene in the clip there is a woman being sexually objectified by the man and by the advertisers, as again they are playing a big part in the way women are being represented and they way that they are beng presented as confirming to their stereotypes.

"Women projected as bodies only". This is the attitude of all feminists towards how women in the media are being represented and it is a growing way of looking at the representation of women througout the media world. The fact that the background to the text is black, shows the darkness behind the quotation.

Most of the scenes in this clip are of women being objectified as sex objects with them showing different adverts where women are being dressed up in skimpy clothes and showing them to be enjoying it, which is presenting the men as being passive to the treatment that they are recieving, also showing evidence of a patriachal society.

The 'get the power advert' is one of the few adverts in this clip that shows women in any position of power and even though they are being shown in positions of power, 'power to clean anything' is the most notable thing about this adverts as it contradicts the original message being sent about women actually having the power.

At the end of the advert, there is a chnage in the way that women are being presented and it comes in the form of them being shown as having some power and achieving major achievments, which is one of the things that men were said to be most concerned about in their minds, for example the woman with the medal and the woman who is a politician, shows wmen as having alot of power within their professions.

Sunday 14 December 2008

Gender in advertsing

The representation of women in commercials
The first scene in the commercial is of two women cleaning their clothes, which still shows abit of the stereotype of women, which is that women historically have been more concerned about cleanliness it is shines through even in modern advertisment.

The men in the advertisment are seen as having fun, which is what is said about the male gender, that the only things that men are concerned about achievements and having fun, in the case of this advert having fun is top of the conerns for the men.

The woman who walks into the house has a bag of shopping in her hand, again the stereotypes coming into light with the woman being concerned about family and domesticated things, but then another concept is shown in the text, the concept is that of a patriachal society with the woman being dominated by the male askin for pizza.

The role of the woman then changes as the clip continues with the woman taking on the more sexual role as she gets herself dirty and rips her skirt off revealing her legs and this can be seen as provocative on the womans part. "Thats okay, i'll clean up" is what the woman says at the table, which again goes someway in agreeing with the idea that women are more concerned with cleanliness and domesticated things.

In the rest of the clip, various products are being shown as on different adverts, but the most notable thing to take note of is the fact that only women are being shown in the adverts, especially when the cleaning is being shown it is the woman who is doing the cleaning, which again matches with the stereotypes. There is one notable segment of the advertising products section and that is when the woman is doing the dusting inside the house and the mans part in is lifting his legs so that the woman can clean. This is a perfect example of the dominance that the males have over the females even in the adverts and the advertisers are partly to blame for the women being subverted to their historical stereotypes.

Theorists in 'gender in advertising'

Gunter- Gunter(1995) is a theorist who is focussing on how gender (specifically women) are being represented in magazines, comparing their representations in different decades. He found out that women in magazines adverts prior to the 70's were hardly shown in paid work and if they were shown in paid work then they would be in jobs that would usually be associated with the female gender, for example a secretary or a hairdresser. Gunter also concludes that the 'housewife' image was in decline after the 50's but was still quite common in the 60's and 70's. Even though women were shown more as working women, Gunter still found that women were still assumed to be performing domestic duties.

Cumberbatch- Cumberbatch (1995) done a study of 500 prime time tv ads in the uk and found that advertisers had seemingly become wary of showing women doing housework, which was seen in 7% of the ad's, but also it was shown for the first time that men were shown in the kitchen doing the cooking more often than women. This could be described as one of the instances of the 'new man' coming into affect and men were introduced to more domesticated jobs and women were shown as more dominant than men with there being a role reversal.

Scheibe- Scheibe (1979) done a study of tv ad's and included an assessment of what male and female characters were shown to be concerned about. He concluded that women in ad's were shown to be more concerned about beauty, cleanliness, family and pleasing others, whereas men were only more concerned about achievements and having fun and even if both gender groups were ahown in unusual places or settings, these characteristics were seen to be shining through their role at the moment. This goes some way to show that once a group in the media has been placed in a catagory or has been given a 'label', that stereotype stays with them even when not in their 'mediated habitat'.

Macdonald- Macdonald (1995) was taking an oppositional view to the concept that groups in ad's were normally confirming to their stereotypes in other forms of the media and he noted that "advertisers generally lagged behind women's magazines in the cultivation of new modes of address, even when the evidence suggested that commercial advantages could be gained from modernising their approach", this is macdonalds arguement that advertsiers were doing nothing to update and modernise womens stereotypes and how they were shown and the conclusion can be drawn that advertisers were the group of people who carried on with the stereotypes given to the women.

Greer- "every woman knows that she is a failure if she is not beautiful", this is one of the more noticable quotations from greer as he sums up the representation of women both modernised and stereotypical, even in the news where all of the news readers are good looking and young as half of the hype about the news shows is if the news readers are good looking or not. This quotation is a reminder from greer that the gender equality situation remains unchanged nowadays. "Thirty years ago it was enough to look beautiful now a woman has to have a tight, toned body, including her buttocks and thighs, so that she is in good touch all over", this quotations best describes what messages modelling agencies send out and what attitudes women have these days.

Walter- Natasha walters (1998) quotes suggest that women nowadays are more or less happy with the way they look and instead of women being the unsatisfied with the way they look, it is actually the vast majority of the men who are left feeling unsatisfied with the way that they look, which can be co-insided with the new man and even further towards the metrosexual man who is alot more feminine. "If only 4% of men think that they are attractive, we should not be too quick to argue that only women feel cast down by the pressures of beautiful ideals" (1998). She then goes onto making the point about how more attractive people earn more money than their plain counterparts and this was more apparant for men then women. However, there have been statistics who disagree with walter as it was concluded from a survey that women are ten times more likely to be more unhappy with their body image than men.

Cortese- Anthony Cortese, who wrote in a book called 'provocateur', argues that women are more or less shown to be the perfect provocateur as they are made to look provocative through editing and make up and clothing. " Displays youth, good looks, sexual seductivness and [beauty] perfection", and this is very illustrative of how various companies make women look for any type of commercial or tv advert and this is a common factor, for example in the 'male gaze' theory where mulveys argues that women are just sexual objects and have no purpose in the media, this is going some way as to why this is the case, as women are made to look sexy and seductive, therefore attracting the males attention.

Monday 8 December 2008

Bibliography books (so far)

Gauntlett, David, (2002), 'Media, gender and identity' (published by Routlage)
- "Bond and moneypenny's flirtation could be seen as sexual harrasment"p49

Tuchman, Gaye, (1978), 'The symbolic annilation of women in the mass media'
- "symbolically annilated"

Gunter, Barry, (1995), 'Television and gender representation', London: John Libby
- "merely token females"

Turner, Graham, (1989:20), 'The film cultures reader'
- "figure in a landscape"

Gauntlett, David, (2002), 'Media, gender and identity' (published by Routlage)
- "His boss 'm' is now Judi Dench, an authoratative woman who tells him, 'you are a sexist mysoganistic dinosaur, a relic from the cold war'. Bond isn't used to this kind of thing. p49

Gauntlett, David, (2002), 'Media, gender and identity' (published by Routlage)
- "Although bond changes little, the female characters have become more resourceful as the series progressed". p49

Mulvey, Laura, (1975), 'Visual pleasure and narrative cinema'
- "Woman then stands in the patriachal culture as signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his phantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of women still tied to her place as bearer of meaning not maker of meaning"

Mulvey, Laura, (1975), 'Visual pleasure and narrative cinema'
- "The image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze.....The arguement returns again to the psychoanalytic background that woman as representation signifies castration".

1990's

Second clip: Basic Instinct
Basic instinct is a movie that follows on with the plot of the previous Michael Douglas movie 'Fatal Attraction' where he comes to discover that a woman is a killer who murders her victims in strange way and with strange weapons. This scene is the famous scene with the 'leg cross' and it shows her power as she refuses to answer their questions and puts them under a spell by being seductive, showing her power over men.

1990's

First clip: Goodfellas
Goodfellas is a movie that tells a real life story of Henry Hill and in this movie the men are represented as dominant even when they go to jail as the are still running the cells and smuggling food into the prison. The women however, are presented in a very different light with the two main women actresses being portrayed as sex objects at least once in the movie and this confirms to Mulvey's theory.

1980's

Second clip: Three men and a baby
This movie was a movie that didn't follow any feminist theories however, it did bring another theory to the frontline and that was the theory of the new man who is shown in this movie as three men find that they have to take care of babies. This movie revealed a more sensitive side to the male character in the movies.

1980's

First clip: Terminator (1984)
The first of the terminator movies reinforced the final girl theory even though at the end of the movie she survives with a man at the end, but the woman at the end symbolizes women being in a mixed role as during the movie she is portrayed as a sex object when having sex, however the other role she plays is the fighter and the surviver, perhaps a mix of male and female gaze?

1970's

Second clip: Texas chainsaw massacre trailer (1974)
This movie is another good example of the concept of the final girl as she is the last person surviving. In the trailer we first see the woman getting captured by 'leatherface' but towards the end we see the woman fighting back from his torture and this is a symbol of the females getting some leading roles within the movies.

1970's

First clip: Alien trailer (1979)
Signory Weaver is the female in this movie and she is represented as a heroin however, at the start of this trailer she is running away from the aliens which portrays her as weak and unable to defend herself but at the end of the movie the final girl comes into effect as she is the last surviver of the aliens.

1960's

Second clip: Dr No, Ursula Andress scene
This scene is very important as it has been voted and thought of for some time as the most iconic scene of all time, due to the context of the movie and how sexual nature has been incorporated. Also important as it was made in the 60's when the revolution of sex and drugs were going on and the woman in this is attracting the male gaze by wearing provokative clothing.

Sunday 7 December 2008

1960's

First text: Cool Hand Luke
The scene that i have chosen is a scene of a woman washing a car, a stereotypical way to show a woman being promiscuous and sexy, and she catches the full attention of the men, which is a perfect example of Laura Mulvey's theory of the male gaze.

Monday 1 December 2008

Representations of gender in the past and present

In the past the representation of women was somewhat degrading and even can go as far as mysoganistic with the poor allocated jobs that the women especially in the media used to receive. Examples of these women in the media not getting decent jobs but getting unrecognisable jobs very much run throughout the media arena. For the women who were working very much in the media, they would not get the top jobs but would mostly be taking orders from their male counterparts who were all ways above them in the job ranking throughout numerous countries. For the women who were acting in the media, their job titles were obviously actor however, the acting would not be seen as major roles in the programmes as they were still playing second fiddle to the men who ere involved in the same job title. The description of the james bond series is significant as it shows how the role of women has changed over a period of time in the same series, which shows the different attitudes of the producers and the directors, what they feel should be the role of the woman. 'M' shows a solid female character throughout the bond series as she is the leading woman and she is also the most powerful character in the movies however, even though she is the most powerful character because she is in charge of bond, he still goes out of his way in order to disobey his boss and it is seen quite often during the bond series.

Gender in the present
With the issue of gender in the present time, there are various arguements to suggest that gender has become more advanced and that it has become more about equality and less about a patriachal society, however strong cases can and have been made to suggest that the roles of gender and the gender roles have not changed the slightest bit. One of the arguements to suggest that gender roles have become more advanced and alot more different can be seen by some of the texts that have been talked about, for example in the hit sitcom show 'Friends' the male characters have often been shown to have a very feminine side to their personalities and the women in the show have been seen to be wearing the trousers in the text and equality can be seen from the same text as a group from both genders are in one apartment where they are being represented as being equal to each other, which goes some way to suggest that there is no such thing as a patriachal society in todays world. An example to show that men are still getting the more prestigious roles in the media were seen and witnessed during the 2001 election where people like paxman and snow were taking care of the more serious things like the heavy, solid interviews and the bbc correspondant Fiona Bruce was taking care off and just giving little interviews to the 'ordinary people'. So by the two examples that have been given it is easy to see why there are strong arguements against both sides of the arguement however in my opinio women are coming up in the media world but not quick enough, judging by the media guardian top 100.