How we interpreted representation theory in our construction

1. As a group we were given the task to create a 90 second teaser trailer for an original Neo-
Noir film. Together we came up with the idea of a man called Sam, who wakes up with no
memory of who he is or what happened to him. He then meets a women named Mary who
claims to be his wife who then explains who he is and what happened to him. After
explaining that he was an undercover police officer investigating a drug cartel who was
found out and was thought to have been beaten to death but was just beaten unconscious
and lost his memory Mary begins to ask Sam to go out and kill people she claimed where a
threat to them. As the story develops Sam starts to question Mary until he finds out that
Mary is the leader of a rival drug cartel and was just using him to weaken her rivals. She kills
him and takes over the territory of the rival cartel. Representation is the process by which
the media re-presents society though the use of genre and technological. There are loads of
theorist who have a variety of views on how representation is used in mass media and the
meaning behind it.
Some theorists use a simplistic approach to representation theory. Daniel Chandler is the
film theorist who came up with the general theory. He theorises that all media texts are in
reality just representations of society and not reflections of society. He theorises that the
constant re-use of representations in media result in certain representations becoming
‘normal’ and accepted. For example, in Noir films of the past there has been either a male
protagonist or a male in a position of power, despite being really bad people or by having
extreme character flaws. This had led to the idea and stereotype that men should be in
power at all times. For example, J.J. Gittes, Chinatown (1974, Polanski) is a dumb lug and
yet he’s still the protagonists of the film. However, we subvert this idea of men being in
power and the theory by having a woman, Mary, having total control and power over a
man, Sam, and is not just a representation of society.
Another representation theory is pluralism in main stream media. The theory is that media
is democratic thanks to 3 factors. The first is that the quantity of media consumed by a lot of
different audiences. Second is that in order to keep all these audiences happy and not to be
offended they will have different representations of the same thing in order to satisfy the
audiences. And finally, the fact that all of these representations exists create an accurate
representation of society when they’re all put together. We used this theory to realise that
we had to try and make as many people happy with the representations of our film and so
we are appealing to the modern, feminist audiences as they are for women having more
power than they do now and so they who would enjoy to see Mary having the level of
power and control she has over Sam.
Another representation theorist is Stuart Hall, who’s theory talks about hegemony. Cultural
hegemony is the idea that people who are in higher classes and who have control of media
production create media texts that push desired messages onto the lower classes of society
who consume the media the higher classes produce. This theory says that this means the
representations in the media will become stereotypes. For example, using Noir as an
example, the stereotype of women being highly sexualised and not much more than objects
was established by the representations of femme fatales like Lynn Bracken, L.A. Confidential
(1997, Hansan). Out of all the theories the Hall theory is the theory least relevant to our
piece and the theory we subvert the most since none of the members of the group hold a
position of power but we did produce media texts that try to create stereotypes of women

2. whose dominance is based on their intelligence and their power as we represent Mary as
being dominant based off of these characteristic.
Another theorist who talks about representation but who focuses on the representation of
women in cinema is Laura Mulvey. She has a Male Gaze theory that talks about the idea of
how the voyeurism, pleasure of looking, of men is the most important thing when the story
is being written and when production companies are deciding how they are going to
represent certain characters. However, she also talks about how certain representations are
used to satisfy the narcissismof men. According to Mulvey, men are so narcissistic that they
enjoy seeing other men in power and that’s why in Drive (2011, Refn) the only characters
who have any power are men, Driver and the Mob bosses, and the only female character is
vulnerable, Irene. However, we decided to subvert Mulvey’s theory swap the roles of
characters based off of their gender so that instead of being in a position of power and
control because he’s a man, Sam, the protagonist, is vulnerable and completely trusting of
the character who possesses the real power in Mary as he has no choice. We also go against
Mulvey’s theory by not sexualising Mary by not having her in revealing clothing.