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Gender identity
Character development introduction
Gender identity
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In general, when someone speaks, they reveal something about gender, either by upholding or subverting social expectations and ideology about gender. By analyzing the linguistic forms of a conversation, we can gather information about the ways in which gender ideologies permeate language. Examining a conversation from the media can additionally reveal something about how gender is viewed and upheld or subverted in our society. In the animated children’s television show Avatar: The Last Airbender, there are a variety of characters who challenge gender roles, but there are also instances in which characters uphold them. A conversation from the episode “The Blind Bandit” includes examples of both of these, and shows how the characters perform …show more content…
Aang, a twelve-year-old boy, is the Avatar, meaning he has the ability to control all four elements, though at this point in the show he only knows how to airbend well. He, Katara, a waterbender, and Sokka, her nonbending (meaning he can’t control any elements) brother, are on a mission to save the world from the Fire Nation. The conversation in question is between Aang, Katara, Sokka, and Toph, a master earthbender who happens to be the young blind daughter of an aristocratic family. The first three are hoping that Toph will teach Aang earthbending, since they saw her beat multiple older, strong men in an underground earthbending competition, which Toph secretly participates in under the pseudonym “The Blind Bandit.” Aang had tried to talk to her there, but she fought him instead of listening, and lost because although she has the ability to “see” by feeling vibrations in the earth – she couldn’t find Aang easily or anticipate his moves since he spent much of the fight (though he wasn’t trying to hurt her) in the …show more content…
Toph speaks commandingly and with hostility, in a way that wouldn’t normally be expected for a young aristocratic girl, and insults Aang with a nickname that, according to Sokka, is not “manly,” because men should be strong, not gentle and light on their feet. Aang, however, didn’t seem to be bothered by the insult, and easily ignored it. The fact that Sokka then berates Aang for his lack of manliness shows that the two of them have different concerns and beliefs regarding gender, and Sokka’s views are clearly based in a stricter gender ideology than Aang’s, one that aligns more with the common views of masculinity and femininity. Katara’s retort reveals two things. The first is that she also has a stricter view of gender roles and expected gender performance, or at least that she is aware enough of Sokka’s to use it against him. The second further shows that Aang doesn’t care about masculine and feminine ideologies, because he makes no attempt to defend himself. Katara, however, does feel the need to defend him, which means that she does, to some extent, believe that there is something shameful in being a man who acts in a more “feminine” way, such as caring about one’s appearance and
Deborah Tannen’s, “Fighting For Our Lives,” explores the ideas and concepts behind human sociology. She delves into the sociolinguistic relationship between women and men in conversation. Tannen amplifies the importance between language and gender and how they affect interpersonal relationships. Tannen showcases her analytical thinking processes by using rhetorical strategies to support her claim on conflicted communication within the argument culture. Specifically, focusing on politics, the law, education, spousal relationships, the media and within work environments. She gives many examples to support her claim by using figurative language and literary devices such as metaphors and logic and reasoning to accurately convey her message.
Gender Matters is a collection of various essays on feminist linguistic texts analysis, by Sara Mills. Mills develops methods of analyzing literary and non-literary texts, in addition to conversational analysis based on a feminist approach. The author draws on data from her collection of essays gathered over the last two decades on feminism during the 1990s. The essays focus on gender issues, the representation of gender in reading, writing, and in public speaking. Furthermore, it highlights the importance of feminists’ analysis of sexism in literature and the relation between gender and politeness. The article is informative for my research paper, as my topic is going to cover language analysis of the text and who women reading and writing differs according to the discourse analysis within linguistic, psychology, case studies audiences and surveys. The book would be helpful, particularly the last three essays that discusses gender, public speaking, the question of politeness and impoliteness in public speaking. Mills’ analysis is not complete without including the idea of global notions of both women and men, to see whether women and men write and read in the same way globally. Therefore, an update would enrich the book’s discussion section. Although, Mills addresses the class and race theme in language and public speaking, I will only look into the role of language that plays a part in doing or reducing gender in literary, non-literary texts and in conversation.
This study intended to observe the behavior of characters in Disney movies in order to examine their potential influence on the development of gender roles in society’s youth. First, we were interested in determining whether or not, Disney products do in fact contain characters that portray gender stereotypical behaviors as has been discovered in previous studies. If we were able to determine that stereotypical gender behaviors are present in Disney tales, then we would like to build off of previous studies. Therefore, next we attempted to analyze whether the characters in these movies have any fluidity in their behavior in that is either gender more likely to cross over and exhibit
In recent years, gender differences have already been one of the most controversial issues in various research. As an important communication tool of mankind, language is inevitably involved in controversies. However, Rachel Rafelman, a Canadian journalist and the author of “The Party Line” express her thought and opinion in her essay. She not only have some great points on what and how women and men are likely to talk, but also have different points on the talking environment. She comes up with facts and fit real and particle examples in her essay to make it understood. Whereas, Ronald Macaulay, a professor of linguistics and the author of “Sex Difference” uses words of novels to argue and promotes them as a cause of reinforce to men’s and women’s stereotypes in his essay. He argues through his whole as rebuttal and gives some examples to oppose the preconceived notion of sex differences. Over all, both Rafelman and Macaulay are the good writer but Rafelman is having upper to prove her essay better organized using her tones as per requirement.
A little girl sits on the floor with her gaze fixed on the television screen in front of her, watching magical images dance before her eyes and catchy songs flow through her ears. Even though she had seen it at least twenty times before, she still loved The Little Mermaid just as much as she did the first time she watched it. As she watched it, she longed to be a beautiful mermaid with a curvy body and wonderful singing voice like Ariel. She longed to be saved by the handsome Prince Eric, and fall in love and live happily ever-after like Ariel did. In today’s society, women strive to achieve equality between the sexes. Despite the tremendous steps that have been taken towards reaching gender equality, mainstream media contradicts these accomplishments with stereotypes of women present in Walt Disney movies. These unrealistic stereotypes may be detrimental to children because they grow up with a distorted view of how men and women interact. Disney animated films assign gender roles to characters, and young children should not be exposed to inequality between genders because its effect on their view of what is right and wrong in society is harmful to their future.
There are so many codes of cultural context to learn, social rulebooks to observe and accept norms to understand. It’s flung at us in disjointed bits and pieces, seemingly offhand phrases and at informal moments. Maybe the core stereotyping role we are all passed from birth is based on gender and the norms that surround it, that never leaves our side. Director Siebel Newsom is no newcomer to gender issues. With 2011’s “Miss Representation,” a study of the damaging effects of mainstream media on women and girls, she addressed the frequently accepted underdog gender in an inspirational
I have decided to examine gender role expectations and inequality in modern media and see how and if expectations and norms have changed over the years. I have studied three modern day teen comedy movies and found examples of many things including gender stereotypes, gender role socialization, gender inequality, and heteronormativity. Each movie contained examples of each and I have analyzed them by describing how each example shows what I interpreted it as.
One of the main ideas acknowledged in this cartoon is that a woman’s job is cooking, cleaning, taking care of her husband and kids. It reveals Western gender ideologies at that period and demonstrates how society idealized gender roles. Feminist critiques by Gifford-Gonzales, explain that the perspective on women and men in the society and how women’s place is at home is cumulative. In other words, she demonstrated how women’s stereotypical image concerning their role in societies is spreading even in cartoons. Moreover, the cartoons represent two different ages so we have a combination of the past and the present. For example, people did not exist at the time of dinosaurs and telephones weren’t created until the nineteenth century. In addition, some fictional elements are added such as the elephant vacuum cleaner. Therefore, confusion between eras but also between fiction and reality is created. That affects how children apprehend issues represented in this cartoon. Growing up watching this animated series, youngsters develop the idea of gender stereotypes until the belief of women as background objects. Especially that these simple characters, with whom children identify, have a great impact on them and make it easier to convey a certain message
A third major point in the film is the roles of the men and women of the Baka village. In Laicono’s family, the women are seen as the ones who built the camps for shelter when they traveled during the rainy season. Laicono’s wife Deni is seen making the framework of the shelter and cuts part of the stems of big leaves to be put on as roofing. When women are searching for fruit, the men are hunting for meat. The film also shows the different ways men and women hunt for fish. The men use the chemicals of vines that are called rotenones and in order to get the chemicals out, they have to beat them into a pulp. The men put the pulp in baskets and by washing out the pulp in the river, the chemicals are spread causing the fish to float to the surface;
Wood, Julia T. Gendered Lives: Communication, Gender, and Culture. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub., 1994. Print.
The Disney movie, Mulan, is a fantastic movie that depicts gender-stereotyped roles, socialization of gender roles, and consequences of over stepping one’s gender role. Both males and females have a specific role in the Chinese society that one must follow. Mulan made a brave choice pretending to be a man and going to war against the Huns in place of her father, risking serious consequences if she were to get caught. She broke the socialization of gender roles and could have been faced with very serious consequences of her actions. The Chinese society in Mulan exemplifies the typical gender roles of males and females, the consequences of displaying the opposite gender role, and showed what the society expected in males and females in characteristics and attitudes.
During a review by Vox, of the gender biases in Hollywood that were reported by the data visualization website Polygraph, over 2,000 movies underwent scrutiny in determining why men have more dialogue in movies, even in those that are supposed to be focused on the lead female characters. In what was stated to be one of the largest analyses of script reviews of all time, it was determined that the male characters within the study overrule women in over 78% of the analyzed films. This was concluded through a cross-analysis of character information such as name, gender, and age, with the information reported by the popular movie database, IMDB. The results of their study are astonishing. In the 2,005 screenplays across all movie genres that were reviewed by Polygraph, only two movies were delivered 100% by the lead female character. Conversely, the male dominated list has not only the largest number of results;
For example, the representation of women on television was for a long time restricted to roles of “loving wives, dutiful daughters, gossiping girlfriends, fashion plates, and the occasional dowdy maid, nanny, or granny” (Zeisler 2008, p. 9), which is a reflection on the roles it was considered ‘acceptable’ for women to take on in real life. Often going against the hegemonic gender ideal is used as shorthand for comedy within popular culture, such as men dressed femininely being played for laughs on countless sitcoms. Popular culture that genuinely challenges hegemonic ideology often faces backlash, as was the case when Ellen DeGeneres’ character coming out on Ellen (1997), as did the actress in real life, resulted in the show being cancelled after only one more season. This is reflective of what was the pervasive belief, that heterosexuality is the only acceptable option, though the changing attitudes about this can be seen through the increased inclusion of gay and bisexual characters in pop culture over the past two decades. Looking at the relationship between gender and popular culture consequently becomes important to the field of gender studies as it provides a way to study not only what is considered to be the gender norms in a society, but how these norms have
O'Barr, William M., and Bowman K. Atkins. ""Women's Language" or "Powerless Language"?" Making Sense of Language: Readings in Culture and Communication. Comp. Susan D. Blum. New York, NY [etc.: Oxford UP, 2013. 401-06.
Our capacity as human beings to acquire and express complex methods of communication has been one of the biggest driving forces of humanity’s success. These complex linguistic systems are what we know as language. Language gives us a method of expressing concepts, emotions, and ideas in a varied way which sets us apart from all other animals. Language and gender is an area of sociolinguistics and related fields which attempt to define the differences in language related to gender, and what the inferences of these differences may be.