Film Analysis: Miss Representation

Miss Representation, the title of the film, is a play on words that refers to how women are represented in media, a misrepresentation and a distorted view of what it means to be a woman. The film argues that media offers limiting portrayals of women as a class in contrast to men. Media representations largely follow the premise that women should be objectified, specifically by men, and should embody very traditional ideas around femininity that is arguably impossible to fulfill. The film implies how media represents women is an attributing factor to spikes in mental health; for instance, 65 percent of women and girls have eating disorders, and depression among women and girls have doubled between 2000 and 2010. The film frames that this phenomenon

There is a disparity between women and men that are represented as politicians in media as well as other positions/fields of power and influence. The film then represents how that affects gender socialization and what women can see as a possibility in their lives. To contextualize this more, women make up about 51 percent of the population in the U.S. while 17 percent of congress is made up of women. Another example, that’s related to the previous, is the representation of women in film and tv shows when they inhabit positions of power. On the surface, it may seem empowering and broadening the scope of possibility for women, but in reality, it frames these situations in the context that in order for women to gain these positions, they have to sacrifice families, child-rearing, and personal lives to attain it. So the way in which they represent women in positions of power, they implicitly deem it as undesirable to women, which is a limiting representation. There is another example how the portrayal is limiting in film, specifically. 16 percent of protagonists in film are protagonists and even then, those portrayals are limiting. Women protagonists are either featured in chick flicks where it revolves around heterosexual relationships, i.e. men, or women protagonists are featured in action/superhero films where there is an illusion given that they