Discuss The social implications of media in relation to collective identity. You may refer to one group of people more in your answer.

Collective identity refers to the shared group is represented due to their characteristics. This means a whole social group can be represented in a certain manor due to a select group of certain individuals. In this essay i am going to be focusing on the male gender and how they people may agree and disagree with the collective identify of them in certain case studies.

The first representation we are going to look at is through the fitness magazine mens health magazine. This magazine’s purpose is to promote mens health and the lifestyle that follows with it. The male gender is represented as a very vain and body conscious personality. This collective identify is a much more popular life style in the contemporary male gender. This is due to the male gender over time becoming much more body conscious and starting to develop a more modern representation. although, this collective identity may be challenged by people who do not share this body conscious personality. Example of these people can be people who are of an older age and simply do not understand the content that mens health are producing. these people generally tend to be people of a lower social grade , people within the D social grade are low skilled workers who man not have the disposable income to be spending on gym membership and the fairly expensive lifestyle it entails. For this reason this collective identity is being represented in mens health magazine is becoming a much more popular representation of the male gender, but it will also still have the people who aren't with the time and dont agree with the representation of men. 

A second example where collective identity may be challenged is the way that the male gender is represented in the BBC’s The Night Manager. This sky drama documents an undercover agent infiltrate an British millionaire who is a secret illegal arms dealer. In this example we are shown the male gender represented in different way to the previous example. In the night manager we are shown representations of a few characters, the first being Jonathan Pine. Pine is the spy character in which the series document him bringing down the villain Richard Roper. Pine , played by Tom Hiddleston Pine is a well kept white male who conforms to stereotypical conventions of a British spy character. Good with seducing women and using his looks to help gather information we are shown remarkably similar characteristics of James Bond possibly one of the most successful British characters of all time. This shows that we are shown aspects of an older representation of the male gender. My reasons for seeing this as an older representations is due to newer spy content this has came across in the last couple of years. An example of this can be kingsman are film which tells the story of a teenager from a council estate who is brought into a  secret spy agency. This specific representation i personally feel is a much more contemporary version of a spy story this is due to the characters being much more relatable due to them being everyday normal people. Whereas in the night manager we are shown a character who is from a background and history of activities which the common person are not able to relate to. Yet on the other hand there are aspects of the representation of the male gender in the night manager which is much more up to date then the past is what women take from the content. By this i am talking about how through the use of the male gender in such a way that women are able to seek satisfaction from the content also. In pervious interactions of British spy films such as James bond we notice that the  plot of the film always implements an attractive women to give the audience content which they can get satisfaction from , this is a prime example of Laura Mulvey’s male gaze theory which states that when men look women appear. Although people claim that their theory is rather outdated and should consider this theory the other way round as well. i personally agree with this and feel that we should consider the male gender being interpreted in such a way that women are also able to achieve pleasure from them. The night manager is one example where they have chosen to implement a good looking character to claim the hero role in this series, in doing this they have appealed to a wide audience. but a backlash from this is that the collective identity of male gender is becoming something which is relatable to the everyday male. 

In conclusion The social implications to collective identity with reference to the male gender is that it can ultimately lead to the complete opposite, it can in fact segregate the group. this is due to the male gender nowadays being so diverse and practically impossible to place under one set of characteristics. But in the media it is all about where the representation of the gender is coming from, this is because they can interpret the male gender in such a way that they can produce a certain piece of content as a result of placing the male gender in a certain way. 

“Media Representations are complex, not simple and straightforward .” How far do you agree with this statement in relation to the collective group that you have studied?

Media representations are shown in a number of different lights in a

number of different examples. The examples that I am going to be using            

for this essay is going to be both Marvel Entertainments ‘Deadpool’

and the BBC’s ‘The Night Manager.’ these two show the male gender

which is the media representation that I have researched in great

detail to see how different media outputs have altered the perceived

representation of the male gender.

The first way we have seen the male gender represented is in Deadpool.

Deadpool is a revolutionary film in the fact that it has subverted the

stereotypical representation of the male gender. Previously we have

seen superhero’s have a set range of characteristics, these being

companionate and selfless and all for helping society. these are a

set of characteristics which Deadpool does not posses. Deadpool is

Rude , selfish and only concerned about himself in fact the only thing

making him “super” is the mutation in which he underwent to solve his

cancer. This set of characterises completely challenge what currently

makes a superhero character a superhero. we can use Buckingham’s

concept of “ contemporary representation of gender cannot be

encompassed by outdated notions of ‘stereotyping‘ , ‘negative images‘

and the ‘male gaze‘. This concept could have been the view that marvel

could have seen when they when they went ahead with making Deadpool.

Even though Deadpool has been a huge success it was a huge risk for

them to create a superhero movie which was aimed towards an adult

audience.

With the film Deadpool we can use Stuart  halls reception theory to analyse the audience and how they have handled this new concept of an R rated superhero movie. Due to rating and feedback from the film we can see that the film has done extremely well and the audience have agreed with themes that the director has created. We could take this example where the audience have adapted a new concept positively. This can be used to show the progress that society is making to adapt new media representations for certain media groups. This is something that would not have necessarily worked in past due to the audiences being much more less active and simply taking media for the way it was.    

Secondly we can also see this this statement from another perspective. There are also other cases of media being produced which stick to a strict set of conventions and don’t tend to push the boundaries to create something unique. My example where this has been implemented is the BBC’s “The Night Manager”. This television series is a crime drama which entails an undercover spy trying to take down an international arms dealer. We are made clear that the spy is the main character who is a young British male. This is a stereotypical set of characteristics for a spy characters, we can see other example of this through looking back at the James Bond film series going back to the early 60’s. We can use Vladimir Propp’s narrative theory to explain the set of commonly reoccurring characters. In The Night Manager we have both the main hero and the main villain are both British males. Looking more at the villain named Richard Roper, Roper Is a British capitalist male which is what the world has been led to believe is characteristics of a spy drama villain. This can show that the male gender can also not be very complex and sometimes media producers simply stick to the typical norm that has been created by previous media content.

Another interpretation and what I feel is the true answer to this question is that media representations can be complex and not simple if the creator of the content wants that to be. By this I mean creators who are wanted to produce a unique piece of content and not conform to stereotypical conventions of the male gender have the potential to make the media representations very complex and something that hasn’t been done before. This is where our Deadpool character can be used as an example for showing a male gender in a way that has not been done before, therefore giving the male gender a complex representation. The risk associated with Deadpool could have been down to the lack of responsibility that Marvel entertainment had to produce a piece of content. Whereas the night manager was produced by the BBC, the BBC have responsibilities to produce a certain type of content due to them being the television network responsible of bringing information to the United Kingdom and for this reason are limited to how able them are to push the boat out in the direction of creating a now perception of the male gender.

In my opinion I feel that with time media representations are becoming more and more complex. My reasoning for this the more that people are starting to branch out and challenge the stereotypical conventions of how a certain group is represented. using the male gender which is what I have personally researched into i came to find that the contemporary representation and the past representations of the male gender has become much more complex. Using the examples that i have featured in my response we can see how deadpool's character can be see to show how society's view on what makes a hero a hero in modern day media products. in the night manager we are shown an old outdated representation of a male hero character, this consists of compassion and completely  selfless. Where as the way that society is going nowadays it is more realistic for the hero to not be perfect and consist of other characteristics. for these reasons I agree with the statement that media representations are complex.