Reading The Visual Assignment 2
Length: 450-550 words
PRILIMINARY INFORMATION
l This item of assessment is designed to get you started on the research, planning and image analysis necessary for the final assignment and to provide you with feedback on your approach prior to submitting the essay.
l The final assignment requires you to present a thorough and coherent analysis of a group of related texts (no more than 4). You will be required to focus your analysis of the images on their ideological content, using one or more of the key concepts outlined in the corresponding lecture. You will be required to use the tools of semiotic analysis learned in assignment1. You will be required to use the other appropriate sources to assist your explanation of images.
l Your first task is to read carefully the handout for assignment 3 to make sure you understand what the assignment does and does not require.
BRIEF FOR ESSAY PLAN
1. an introductory paragraph which:
l Identifies clearly the group of visual texts you will analyze, clarifying what the images have in common.
l States briefly your intentions in the essay (Ideology you will use, relevant key concepts, why this is relevant to the images).
l Identifies and explains the relevance of three references you will use to develop tour argument.
2. a list in point form which briefly outlines some of the major and minor points you plan to develop in the essay. Where possible try to make specific connections between the key concepts of your chosen ideology and specific visual elements of the images
3. an in text quotation, correctly referenced from an appropriate reference source. Explain how the quote will support your analysis/ argument.
4. a correctly formatted list of references containing at least 3 references(apart from images) you plan to use in your essay.
5. good quality reproductions of the images you intend to use.
Reading The Visual Assignment 3
Length: 1500 words
ASSIGNMENT BRIEF
Assignment 2 requires you to present a thorough and coherent reading of a group of related visual texts (2-4 images), using the tools of semiotic analysis. This time you should focus your analysis on the ideological content of the images, examining the various ways these images operate to reinforce, directly or indirectly a particular set of values and ideas.
In your account of the ideological content of the images you should draw on one or more key concepts from ONE of the lectures. These lectures present a range of perspectives on the relationship between ideology and the interpretation of visual texts. You must also use at least three other research sources to develop your argument.
Useful Information
1. It is not advisable to mix and match concepts from different ideologies (ie don’t try a feminist/ postcolonial/postmodern mix in your approach to interpreting your images).
2. You are expected to have familiarized yourself with the conceptual framework of the chosen ideology and should be able to draw upon tone or more key concepts related to that ideology to focus the analysis of your selected images.
3. You must employ the semiotic methods of the visual analysis used in assignment to develop your interpretation of the selected images. You should chose a key concept from the corresponding lecture to focus your analysis and analyse the ways in which ideological content is signified.
4. here are some lecture notes about feminism ideology that might help you
Some Artists if your having trouble:
Feminism:
Week 9 Lecture Notes Feminism as Ideological perspective
FEMINISM:
• The definition of feminism incorporates both a doctrine of equal rights for women (the organised movement to attain women’s rights) and an ideology of social transformation aiming to create a world for women based on social equality.
• In general, feminism is the ideology of women’s liberation (from patriarchy) since intrinsic in all its approaches is the belief that women suffer injustice because of their gender / sex.
TYPES OF FEMINISM
• AMAZON FEMINISM
• ANARCHO-FEMINISM
• CULTURAL FEMINISM
• CYBER FEMINISM
• ECO-FEMINISM
• GODDESS FEMINISM
• INDIVIDUALIST / LIBERTARIAN FEMINISM
• LESBIANISM
• LIBERAL FEMINISM
• MARXIST FEMINISM
• MATERIAL FEMINISM
• MODERATE FEMINISM
• ‘POP-FEMINISM’
• POST FEMINISM
• RADICAL FEMINISM
• SEPARATISTS
• SOCIALIST FEMINISM
• POSTMODERN FEMINISM – IRIGARAY, KRISTEVA, CIXOUS
GENDER:
• Sex is what you’re born with, Gender is acquired.
• Gender is culturally and socially constructed according to the dictates of different era’s.
• There is nothing instinctive, innate or inherent in the gender concepts of male and female.
• Rather gender is historically constructed, ie it has historical conditions of existence and is socio-culturally determined.
PATRIARCHAL IDEOLOGY:
• A male centered view of the world which privileges men at the expense of women. The rule of the patriarch, the rule of the males of the species
• Works to perpetuate the notion that the destiny of woman is intimately bound up with her sexuality – woman as wife, mother, mistress, prostitute, femme fatale, spinster, sexual tease – and that woman is by her very nature not suited to playing a major role in the so-called man’s world of politics, economics, law, science, technology and the arts. Her primarily and natural role is that of wife and mother.
• Furthermore patriarchal ideology implies that woman’s role and hence, woman is of secondary importance to man’s role. It requires less intelligence, ability, strength and skill to be a wife/ mother/ mistress or to carry out the traditionally defined female occupations of nurse, teacher, secretary – the so-called helping professions.
KEY TENETS – PATRIARCHAL IDEOLOGY
Ø Women is defined by her sexuality
Ø Women are defined in relation to men
Ø Woman as woman is largely absent
Ø Males occupy subject positions, woman is object
Ø Women is presented as what she represents for man
Ø Emphasis in cinema on woman as spectacle
Ø Male values are dominant
Ø Patriarchal ideology
Ø Phallocentric cultural viewpoint
Ø Sexist ideology and male-dominant cinema
MATRIARCHY:
• Literally the rule of the mother. A social organisation in which women are the heads of their families and descent and inheritance are reckoned in the female line.
MISOGYNY: hatred of women
PHALLOCENTRIC: tendencies which describe male characteristics as central and female ones as marginal. Anything which foregrounds the masculine or patriarchy can be considered phallocentric.
PHALLUS: a symbol or representation of the penis, especially one representing the power of men to reproduce.
1975 “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” 1989 Visual and Other Pleasures
In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness (1975).
An active/passive heterosexual division of labour has similarly controlled narrative structure…the split between spectacle and narrative supports the man’s role as the active one of advancing the story, making things happen. The man controls the film fantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense: as the bearer of the look of the spectator… (Mulvey, 1975:20).
Feminist analysis:
• Not necessarily or primarily to promote feminism
• Focus on Women
• How is gender constructed? Stereotypical?
• Are women exploited, subordinate?
• BINARY OPPOSITIONS
• Female or male POV?
• Is male behaviour, interests, POV put forward (c/overtly) as the norm against which woman is measured as ‘different’
• Are female characters real or male fantasy constructions (what males think women are, are interested in, think, etc.)?
• Who has the power?
• Is female co-star only there only to provide romantic interest? To be bonked?
• Is the female ultimately punished if she transgresses societal norms?
• The Male gaze.
• It’s the first picture that I’ve chosen for this assignment, please find the other 2-3 images to discuss this assignment with the following image.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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