Miss Representation Questions

Directions: Please answer the following questions in complete sentences and provide examples
when asked.

1. How are women/girls portrayed in the media, based on the information from this
documentary?
Women and girls are, for the most part, either hypersexualized or shown as
rude and nasty.
2. What common stereotypes/ideas are shared in this documentary about women?
There are two common stereotypes about women: the pretty face or the
prude.
3. In the documentary film by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, it was quoted "You can't be what
you can't see." Please explain what is meant by this quote.
This quote shows that people will become what they see portrayed to them. If
they see strength, they will be strong. If they see intelligence, they will be
intelligent. If they see hypersexuality and pretty faces, this is what they will strive
to emulate.
4. What is one step you can take to change the way media and films portray
women/girls?
One step I could take to change the way media and films portray women and
girls is to try and impact my corner of the world. I’m not going to be able to
change an entire cultural belief system in one night. However, I can try to
change the people around me, and hope that they will create a ripple effect,
spreading messages of love, acceptance, and empowerment further and
further into the nation and its media until the entire system is infiltrated by
such ideas.
5. Overall, do you agree or disagree with the sentiments expressed in the film?
I do agree with the sentiments expressed in the film. I believe that, whether I
always see it for what it is or not, sexism is ever-present on the screen. This
can be seen with the hypersexualization of women in many music videos, as
well as the trashing of female political figures and candidates for their
“bitchy-ness”.

Please provide a two-three paragraph response/reaction to the film Miss Representation.

Some questions you can respond to:
● Was there any new information presented to you?
● Do you see any connections/themes similar to Gender Revolution?
● React to any/all general thoughts or quotes you pulled/can remember.
 The film Miss Representation showed the theme that society will always attempt to
put people into boxes. In one box are the men. They are meant to dominate pretty much
everything, from conversations to families to physical encounters. Women are in another
box. They are meant to submit, never to shine, to accept their lower place, and to be sexual
objects for men who are so incapable of controlling their “urges” that women must be ready
to “give it up” from, sickeningly, just about the youngest age that they can. If they don’t,
they are a “bitch”, or a “prude”. However (and here is where things get really interesting), if
they do it, they are “easy”, or a “slut”, or any other demeaning thing they can be called.
These are, essentially, the two ways that society allows women to be seen. These are the two
ways society allows women to see themselves.
In this way, society has backed women very much into the box they wanted to put
them in. Women are cornered, with literally no way out, really not even having their own
space to exist. The only way that women are really allowed to exist in this society is behind,
below, underneath, or in service of, a man. And even then, they are ridiculed, belittled, and
trivialized as they accept the only position that was ever offered to them. This begs many
questions: where can women go, and what can they do, without being ridiculed? How, and
why, for the love of Pete, did we let it get this bad? And last but not least, how, in a world
that is so set in these beliefs, do we get it to see the light?