What is going on in this photo (although it is not initially apparent) is that our daughter has become completely obsessed with the lead female character in Ponyo by Japanese film maker Hayao Miyazaki (released by Disney). Our daughter is 18 months old and going through a critical period in the formation of her gender schema. She is learning how to categorize everything and is especially drawn to the "boy" /"girl"categorization (and emulating examples thereof) and so the portrayals of masculine and feminine that she sees are very important.
On page 82 in the section on "Children's Learning" the author indicates that relying solely on portrayals in the media of femininity leads us to believe that girls and women "need to be rescued, are less adventurous, engage in fewer occupations and play less powerful and more passive roles...[and that]..to make characters ˜bad' [one need only] have them deviate from gender stereotypes."
According to our textbook, children's learning can be described through social cognitive theory. Under this theory children actively learn the particulars of our culture through differential treatment or gender typing. In this photo I am focusing on one of the three major aspects of social cognitive theory, the socializing agents. With more and more families relying on both parents working out of the home and the omnipresent nature of the media in our culture, socializing agents appear to have one of the most profound impacts on the socialization of our children.
This image is a 4 second exposure with 800 speed sensitivity which really brings out the glow on our daughters face representing the gender schema information conveyed through the media. I used a long exposure to highlight the cumulative effect of the media on gender schema formation (the room was actually quite dark). To their right is a bag of laundry that needs folding and to their left is a pillow with a picture of a Robin representing the outside world (both represent lost opportunities for parental involvement). The computer screen and foreground are representative of the omnipresent and oppressive nature of the media. The bench the laptop is sitting on is pushed literally right up in front of them physically blocking them in. The whiteness of the couch represents the intention of providing a pristine environment for our daughter but you can see the information from the media coloring even those intentions. The image is broken up into thirds horizontally (computer, couch, background). The background in this image is used as the contrast between daily life (important but often neglected) and media (unimportant but much consumed). The choice to highlight the blue and green colors is because of their somewhat hypnotizing effects which represents the way we interact with this type of media.
3 comments:
Wow, this is definitely a strong picture! i think it does a great job is portraying how young girls become obsessed with characters in movies but i also think it shows how they become obsessed with what the media has created. It is evident that young girls feel pressured and in a way intrigued by this characters that the media creates and how they portray young girls. All of these things have a huge influence in how girls develop and see themselves.
I love how this photo is set up. The little girl's face being highlighted is perfect for the message yu are trying to get across. The media tries to influence children of all ages, and as seen here, a toddler has already become influenced by it. It is crazy to think that sucha young age a child could become obsessed with anything. But if the media continues to cony their messages in these ways, I can only assume that the audiences will continue to be younger.
This picture really shows how young children begin to be affected by their gender. It's something that happens before we can even stop it. Gender schemas are in our lives everyday and are nearly impossible to escape. From this picture it seems as though younger generations after us will not be an exception to this rule.
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