- TV Industry - Representation

Exam questions:
Explore the different ways in which people are represented in your three main texts. [30]

Key terms:

Dominant ideology
In Marxist philosophy, the term dominant ideology denotes the attitudes, beliefs, values, and morals shared by the majority of the people in a given society. As a mechanism of social control, the dominant ideology frames how the majority of the population thinks about the nature of society, their place in society, and their connection to a social class

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Approaching this question for TV industry:

Intro: 

Define representation

Representations are the ways in which the media portrays particular groups, communities, experiences, ideas, or topics from a particular ideological or value perspective. This includes the representation of types of people.

Indicate the texts; 

Happy Valley, First Dates and Always Sunny. (Include episode and series numbers).

Discuss stereotypes in the media.

Though not all stereotypes are negative, they can form the basis for prejudice and discrimination.
Certain characteristics within stereotypical representations can become self-fulfilling prophesies for those defined as having them.

Stereotyping can negatively impact our own self-image and performance and our interactions with others. 

The three texts can be said to both reinforce and challenge stereotypical representations of people but the messages encoded by the producers of each remain faithful to dominant western ideologies.

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In the three texts, some of the representations are characters and some are real people.

(Don't simply describe the appearances of your characters but refer to the attitudes).

The key areas for analysis when exploring representation are age and gender.

Happy Valley uses representations of men and women of varying ages with encoded messages that deal with the achievement of happiness in life.

The protagonist Catherine Cawood, played by Sarah Lancashire, can be said to challenge the stereotypical roles of women. From the first scene of episode one she is represented as being competent and caring and capable of dealing with different roles in her work and home life. Catherine is a police sergeant who works with tireless good humour, she is good at her job and not one to messsed with. Beneath Catherine's robust good humour, we start to understand there lurks a woman to whom something tragic has happened. Her daughter, Becky, took her own life after giving birth to a baby conceived as a result of rape. The character is representative of the never give up (British) spirit.

While Catherine is shown to have a strong work ethic, some of the male characters are represented as trying to achieve their life goals through crime.

Kevin Weatherill (played by Steve Pemberton) feels that life has been unkind to him and despite working diligently as an accountant at Nevison Gallagher Associates, he is refused a payrise that would enable him to pay for his daughter's education. Becoming desperate, Kevin then instigates the kidnapping of his bosses daughter but the plot takes some unexpected turns. 

We can say that Kevin challenges dominant ideology of working hard to achieve happiness and that he reinforces the encoded message that crime doesn't pay.

Technical codes of camera angles are used to clearly show Kevin's guilt and desperation.

Nevison Gallagher (George Costigan) is a company owner in Happy Valley and is represented as a boss that holds strong family values. The character is constructed through the use of technical codes, body language and dress codes to show superiority over his accountant Kevin. The representation however, also describes someone who works hard to retain their position, often shown with top button open and without a tie at work. Mise en scene around Nevison shows his modest wealth and describes someone who is comfortably off. This character is represented as a man who has tried to achieve happiness through hard work and determination.

Tommy Lee Royce is a villain played by James Norton. The use of sound, a low level humming typical of crime dramas signifies that he is dangerous. This character can be said to be the most stereotypical and straight forward hyper masculine type in the episode. the message encoded through Tommy Lee is that crime doesn't pay and that criminals deserve to be punished.