The changing identity of women

in film and tv
To understand the ways that women
a collectively represented in film and
television
1940s
Within this decade womens identity changed
within society from mother and wife to
independent worker back to mother and wife.

This identity was both reflected and constructed
with films A Brief Encounter (1945) and A
Vacation from Marriage (1945)
Also print adverts reflected this transformation
1950s
Women were forced back into the home as men
returning from war wanted their jobs back

Film diminished in favour of TV where women
played a mainly supporting role.

Print Adverts had a patriarchal POV


1960s
The pill became legal
Beginning of mass consumerism.
Emergence of the lower working classes (a new target audience)
A more liberal society.

Working Classes becoming central to the narrative Why ????
Representation of women was reflected/constructed firmly within a
social class and seen as curtailing mens sense of freedom A Kind of
Loving (1962) Saturday Night Sunday Morning (1960) Both depicted
women as trapping men and making married life an inevitability

The late 60s began to see the emergence of Feminism as women
sought to re-address an imbalance

1970s
1970 Women get equal pay
1974 Contraception becomes available through
the NHS
1975 Sex Discrimination Act
1977 International Womens Day
1977 First Rape Crisis Line opens
1979 Feminist Review founded
1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes first female
Prime Minister

1970s film and tv
Despite the increasing social change of womens
role in society during this period, female
protagonists within film were very few.
In television they were still being represented
firmly within domesticity

Butterflies & The Good Life
About a middle aged, middle class housewife who is bored with
her domestic duty of looking after the home,
her husband and her two grown up sons

Both female protagonists in this
comedy are middle class wives
supporting their husbands with
their own projects.

Set firmly within middle class
domesticity, without careers
1980's
Thatcher saw the beginning of the post feminist women were doing it for
themselves. Women were now firmly based within the high powered, high paid jobs
which meant they were now a viable target audience. Women were being provided
for.

Educating Rita 1983 is about a young working
class women who decides to complete her
Education and take exams


Shirley Valentine 1989 is about a middle aged
working class woman bored with her
domestic duties so leaves her husband and
grown up daughter to go and live in Greece




Contemporary Film & TV
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen 2011
Made in Dagenham 2010
Tamara Drewe 2010

All the above represent British women firmly fixed within a
particular class
Look at TV -
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen 2011
Made in Dagenham 2010
Tamara Drewe 2010

All the above represent British women firmly fixed within a
particular class
Look at TV -
Contemporary Society
14 million women now in the workforce
35% of them in high managerial roles
Only 16.3% of European films released between
2003 and 2012 were directed by women
Dyer The way we treat people is how we see
them, the way we see them comes from
representation


Looking at two media, describe the ways in
which a particular group of people are
collectively represented or provided for, using
specific examples to support your response