Representation Theories

Semiotics:

• Developed by Ferdinand De Sessure
• Studied how language created meaning
• Language doesn't reflect reality - meaning is constructed.   

SIGNS ------------------ >  REPRESENTATION ------------------- > INTERPRETATION OF SIGNS

Signs:  

SIGNIFIER + SIGNIFIED = SIGN

EG:   Heart  = Love

Visual Pleasure + Male Gaze:

• Theory developed by Laura Mulvey
• Feminist Film Scholar - 'Visual pleasure and narrative cinema'
• Argued that female characters were objects for male characters sexual desire. 
• The Male Gaze - male characters are 'the barer of the look' which is usually aimed at physically desirable, sexually submissive characters.
• Mulvey argues that spectators watch the films though the eyes of male due to 'The Male Gaze'
• Cinema offers voyeuristic pleasures. 
• Women connote 'to-be-looked-at-ness' 

Stereotypes:

• Stereotypes are often used as a cultural shorthand when represented by the media. 
• Dyer had argued that stereotypes are only used to reinforce peoples differences and singling people out as this stereotype. 
• Dyer had also argued that stereotypes are used to represent peoples differences as natural.  

 EG: Stereotypes about youth represents that they are all wreck less and  irresponsible - giving the brand of 'youth' to everyone.   

Simulacra:

• Theory developed by Jean Baudrillard
• Representation is problematic
• Simulations of realities which don't exist
• Hyper reality - 'a condition in which what is real and what is fiction are blended together so there is no clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins'
• Celebrity images are a good example of this. 
• There is no distinction between reality and and representation, only the simulacrum.
• Baudrillard researched hyper reality, noting how humans accepted simulation as reality. 
• Realized that many people now couldn't identify the line between reality and altered representation. 
• Baudrillard questioned if anything was truly real in the age of mass media. 

 EG: The Only Way is Essex.