Thursday, 13 October 2011

How's the representation of gender constructed in Primeval?

the 2nd scene opens with a mid shot of the blond guy in a what we'd call an exotic location -a small forest- covered with mud and a close up of a girl manipulating a tractor, the representation of the woman manipulating the tractor go against the general stereotype of women playing the damsel in distress as she doesn't look like she needs any help and she knows what she's doing in contrast to the man who looks puzzled and confused when he hear the sabre tooth tiger coming form far. we also have a couple of low angle shots of the man in wall which emphasises his position of weakness throughout this scene, we can see a clear role reversal there. we also have a long shot of the girl shooting the tiger from far, this shows how confidence although she misses her target, then the camera tilts from right to left in a low angle to show us the group of heroes who are manly men with girl at the end to show that she plays a heroin in the extract. We can tell that by her costume and makeup, she has short blond hair and she's wearing a leather jacket and she barely has any makeup on, this gives her some manly qualities or attributes however in the last scene, the woman with long hair clearly fulfils the stereaotype of women being the damsel in dietress when we have a low angle shot of her laying on the floor with the man pointing his gun at her, being manipulative in her dialogue as she tries to get the man assume the responsabilities for something he didn't do and finally her makeup which makes her look like a femme fatale.
The editing manly favorises the man with the blond hair who seems to be principal hero in the extract as we always get a clear view of him in each scene, and whenever he speaks it's always to give an order - ''no, no  don't... we have to finds her...put your gun down...'' the fast pace editing not only emphasises how fast the blonde man is when he tries to escape from the sabre tooth tiger but also how agile the woman is to try and keep on the track with the events and this set equal representation of both genders.
In terms of sound the dialogue is very effective in constructing the representation of gender the blonde girl doesn't speak a lot, her actions speak for her, while the blond guy is the one who's panting, shouting to her what to do; her speach is always short and doesn't have more than 4 words, so she has all the attributes of a manl hero. The woman in the barn's dialogue with the fat man, suggest that she's been given the possition of power as she's so confident and a bit arrogant in what she says. And her complainning about ruining her best coat always makes her fit the stereotype of women being quite vain, given that she nearly died!