Representation Analysis

   In Tides commercial, you see a woman talking to the camera as her daughter is blissfully playing with blocks. She ironically talks about how she would rather her Tide pods not work so she could have an excuse to buy her daughter some clothes that are not "hoodies and cargo shorts." Throughout the commercial, the mother was shown to be clearly confused and uncomfortable with the fact that her daughter did not conform into traditional gender representations.

The director was able to clearly show gender stereotypes through the mother by dressing her up in lighter, traditional girl colors as well as having the rest of her house decorated in more flamboyant designs. However, the commercial challenged these stereotypes through the daughter. With the little girl wanting to dress up in baggy hoodies and playing with cars they were able to show how the young generation of children are not paying attention to gender roles and feel comfortable to express who they really are and not what the gender stereotype says they should be.

   H&M's "Close the Loop" ad has a narrator saying to wear stylistic choices that have been labeled as 'inappropriate' or 'contradictory' while a diverse group of all ethnicity's, races, ages, and genders are shown breaking those 'fashion rules.' This ad rejects outdated ethnic, racial, and gender stereotypes for clothing in a manner that is very clear for viewers by using the simple technique of a voice over and video clips on top of it.

Using a narrator made it easier to focus on what was being said, because we could not see who was talking you have to listen in more to what is being said. This helped the viewer to completely understand the message. The shots of the different models completed this piece by showing a broad group of people with different ethnicity's, genders, and races as well as showing them breaking the outdated fashion trends being narrated.

Coming of Age Genre

Coming of age films focus on the protagonist growth from childhood to adulthood. The typical story line involves a teenager reaching an important age- like 16 or 18- which determines the struggles and issues occurring in the teens life. Some reoccurring themes include: virginity, pregnancy, drugs, home life, relationships, death, illness, and friendship.

It is common for teen movies and coming of age movies to overlap. However, the main difference between the two is the level of emotion. A teen movie is typically lighthearted, whimsical, and more celebratory of 'teen-ness.' Where in coming of age pieces there is usually a deeper, spiritual meaning for the protagonists journey.

Some common approaches to creating a coming of age piece include:
The "Moment in Time" approach. This approach focuses on a short period of time for the characters which is used as a metaphor or the bigger picture of their life.

Alyssa

Hello! Welcome to my blog!
Throughout the course of these upcoming months I will be posting on here periodically for my AICE Media studies class. For the most part all posts will be related to film and media- as this is what the class focuses on.
Just some fun things to know about me since your reading this page. I work at a preschool every day after school where I get to work with one year olds. I am also a member of my schools television club, CBTV, where I work on weekly segments as well as main anchor for the show every other week.
Excited to see what future blog posts I create, until next time!

-A