Miss Representation Essay

Miss Representation, a documentary created by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, explores the under-representation of women in America, and it objects to the media's skewed image of women in leadership roles in social media. It does not break new ground on these issues, but it gives viewers an array of perspectives to think about. The film scrutinizes many of the issues related to the portrayal of women in American society that includes leadership roles and the affect on youth. The film expresses this mistreatment through vivid media footage, quotes, statistics, interviews with a diverse group of people and Newsom’s personal experience growing up as a woman in America. The documentary begins with a quote by Alice Walker: “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” The words are very powerful and very relevant to the content of this film. Ominous music then plays and statistics appear pertaining to the amount of time American teenagers spend consuming media per week, an estimated ten hours and forty-five minutes a day. An assortment of interviews …show more content…
It’s difficult to put together a film such as this using clips of objectification without objectifying women. The use of these clips does bring about awareness of the situation but it further exploits the women that are viewed. There are many documentaries that immerse the viewer in paranoia and panic without providing applicable solutions or a way to fix the issue. The goal of Miss Representation is to enlighten people of the blatant sexism in society through different sorts of media-television, advertising, politics, and film. In just eighty-eight minutes the documentary covers a lot of information regarding media’s definition and exploitation of women, and it even includes efficient solutions during the end