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Extract A
My New Tiny Drone 0.45 to 2.07
Extract B
The Food Pong Challenge 0.00 to 4.25
Extract C
Cooking with Alfie 0.50 to 2.26
Watch the films and answer the questions.
1. What sort of representations of masculinity and femininity are suggested through extract A? Think carefully about:
The way that Zoella reinforces conventional beauty ideals through makeup, hair and costume decisions
The different performance styles of Alfie and Zoella
The ways that traditional gender binaries are reinforced in the upload
The very different roles assumed by Alfie and Zoella in the video.
Zoella’s heavy make-up reinforces conventional beauty ideals, suggesting to the audience that femininity is achieved through a specific aesthetic look. This contrasts with Alfie’s apparent lack of self-regard and his technology based role. Men are promoted as active, whilst Zoella’s passive presentation style, her relegation to the side-lines of the shot, coupled with her evaluation of the bag in aesthetic terms construct a clearly delineated set of gender based stereotypes. Zoella and Alfie, in this sense, represent the conventional gender binary - a carefully controlled expression of a traditional male/female relationship - the kinds of traditional representation that permeates mainstream mass media.
2. What gender based stereotypes are constructed through extract B? Think carefully about:
How Alfie and his co-presenter reflect different representations of masculinity
The laddish stereotypes offered.
The competitive nature of their relationship
Masculinity is assessed through the response to the challenge in this clip, in terms of who can ‘stomach’ the most disgusting foods. The ‘banter’ and light-hearted rivalry between Alfie and Marcus establishes a laddish tone, while their ‘game’ is quite juvenile, also reflective of stereotypes of young males. Their inability to structure a serious response offers us a glimpse of a purely masculine arena - a world that is competitive and lacking in terms of emotional content, for example at one point Alfie describes Marcus as ‘pathetic’ when he has to eat cat food. Again, this upload reinforces a specific version of masculinity - a version that associated males with the qualities of competitiveness, and strength.
3. In what ways does extract C present a feminized version of masculinity? Think carefully about:
The counter typical representation of masculinity constructed
The way that Alfie’s performance contrasts with extracts A and B
The potential connotations of Alfie’s t-shirt.
Alfie presents a very different version of masculinity here - his presentational style is softer, more introspective, whilst the use of the ‘romantic t-shirt’ and flowers enhance the counter typical intentions of the piece. The invitation to watch Alfie cook, to take control of a stereotypically female activity suggests a more feminized version of Alfie - a version that lies at odds with those produced in other uploads. PointlessBlog might normally construct a heteronormative version of gender, but uploads like these reinforce Butler’s theoretical notion of gender as performative - as constructed through a deliberate performance.
4. Investigate PointlessBlog using this link - watch three or four uploads and identify the ethnicities and sexual identities that dominate. Write four sentences about:
The potential impact on audiences of any absent representations
The way that PointlessBlog might be subconsciously associating beauty ideals with specific ethnic groups for the channel’s audience
How those absences might reinforce ‘otherness’ and any other potential links that can be made to the theoretical thinking of Paul Gilroy.
Gilroy is not a named theorist that you need to study in relation to PointlessBlog, but his ideas may be helpful to your analysis of the representations here. Stuart Hall’s ideas about inequalities of power and ‘otherness’ would also be useful here.
One could argue that PointlessBlog unwittingly reinforces cultural binaries through its almost total exclusion of non-white participants. The channel’s marginalisation of non-white participants suggests a segregated view of UK society, constructing a sense of ‘otherness’ through the absence of those ethnic groups. Moreover, the channel’s construction of an aspirational, ideal lifestyle coupled with its reinforcement of beauty ideals might lead an audience to perceive that these are states that a non-white audience might be excluded from.
Hint: For an overview and reminder of Paul Gilroy’s thinking visit this link
