1. Explore the ways in which your chosen texts reinforce or challenge typical representations
of gender.
...remember that this question could also be about:
Ethnicity or Nationality or Age or Issues
However, Kick-Ass has lots of different representational issues and if you’re theory
knowledge and your notes on the film are good then you should be absolutely fine!
Things to write about...
• Appearance, dress codes, cultural signifiers
• Characters, attitudes, dialogue
• Stereotypical, traditional, challenging representations
Things to consider... • Theoretical perspectives e.g. Gauntlett, Lacey, Mulvey etc
If gender did come up then you will be fine – there is a noticeable absence of women in the
movie and masculinity is a key theme as Dave makes the transition from boy to man. Weak or
inappropriate father figures are also a thematic link between the main characters and could be
discussed at length – this film (like TIE) seems to question the notion of masculinity, but does
it reinforce the white male hero? Also look at the stereotypical representations of women and
the roles they have to play in this movie.
Youth is a key representation in the movie – the action is controlled by youngsters who are
disillusioned by their paents. The adults around are bad role-models and in extreme cases could
be considered as abusing their children. Like TIE the narrative of this film seems to really be
about the ‘journey’ Dave takes through a fantasy driven adolescence.
Ethnicity/Nationality are interesting representations – they seem to use the kind of
stereotypes expected from comic books. So is this a problem? A way of ‘referring to the world’
or are they simply Dyer’s ‘shortcuts to meaning’. The Italians are gangsters, black people are
drug dealers, white people are the heros and the victims of crime.