Representation of Gender

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGm3ijVMnFA
The opening credits of 'Hollyoaks' uses a wide range of filming techniques all the way through to gives its audience a small taster of what their T.V drama will be like, including its plots, characters and most of all the representation of their characters.
First of all we are faced with the image of an eye, quickly paced with non-diegetic music. the music is played on an electric guitar, this gives the impression of a modern day soap, that fits in with a young hip setting of characters and locations, adding an urban edge to the credits, This creates the overall emotion of the opening clip. This music played is the theme tune for 'Hollyoaks', making it easy for the audience to recognise and associated the piece of music with the programme, the music is what firsts attracts the audience and gives out the immediate message as to what the rest of the content will be like. The music acts as the underscore for the programme, being very fast paced makes the audience link connotations that the music resembles the characters fast-paced life style, but it could also resemble their relationships, as they have many and can be very fleeting.
Another thing that leaps out to the audience is the fast past editing. The audience are immediately plunged into a endless montage, that seems to introduce all of the characters in their individualistic way. the montage, in matched in with the music enhancing the fast paced lifestyle of the characters almost rushing the audience into meeting and recognising each of the characters. the montage consists of faces and people which are all cut differently, forcing each character to stand alone, also the fact that there is only one character in each shot focuses the audiences attention. the fast pace, means lots of action going on at once, tantalising all of the senses as each shot is portrayed differently. The wipe that is introduced early on again suggests that some characters are more dominate than other, especially girls on girls, how some of them demand more attention, possibly from boys? The Action match is mainly shown when the male characters are in shot, this enables the audience to focus in on the athletic ability of the males, compared to the stationary position of most of the women. Some characters are portrayed to appear from a shape dissolving from the next, the shapes of circles sets rounded images in peoples mind such as clam, and less aggressive, again this could portray each of their personalities. all of these different editing techniques are stitched together by cross-cutting, giving the impression of all of the action going on at once.
The editing enhances the camera shots and angles, that play a large roles in separating each of the genders. The very start we are transported to the up close and personal view of an eye, this suggests that there are no limits between personal space of characters. We are also faced with the theme of vanity as we see throughout the clip that women focus a lot and are proud of their looks. Again this is shown when the women are usually paned up from the bottom of their body to the top and the way in which they stand or are positioned suggest sexual connotations, and that they as women are aware of their sexuality. canted angles, gives the impression that everything is slightly different from normal life, there is always an exciting spin to be placed on a situation that maybe elder people may find boring, enabling the audience to face the characters youthfulness and vitality. Wide-shots place the characters in their scenes but also let the audience view their physique, which is something to be proud of and makes each of the characters seem very desirable because of the way they look, which gives the programme so much of their stories as it is their looks which attracts attention from the opposite gender and force relationships between the sexes and this is what the audience wishes to watch. zooming in and out of characters faces gives snapshots of expressions and glimpse's of personalities coming through, the women seem to pout whereas the males seem to smile and give 'cheeky' winks towards the camera, showing the differences between the two.
The mise-en-scene plays a large part in making the characters look real. The main difference in the appearances of the two genders is that the women seem to wear brightly coloured clothing, suggesting parts of their personalities they have of the type of mood that they are portrayed as having. much of the clothing reveals parts of their bodies and also clings tightly to other parts, again showing their knowledge of their sexuality. The heavy make-up seems to make the audience feel as if the women are aware of their beauty and attract a lot of attention from their general demena on shot. their hair is mainly down and adds to their sexual appearance as hair is very appealing. This accompanied by jewellery of golds and silvers suggests lots of connotations of desire and riches and lustful thing. The men are quite different wearing more dull colours, that outline their physique appealing to the women based audience. the clothes do not detract the audiences focus like on the women but instead focuses it on their faces taken in, in a lot of detail. Another factor that enhances the clip, is that of the lighting involved. the fast upbeat lights focuses the attention of the audiences attention onto the character, as their is very little to look at in terms of objects. keeping in sync with the music the lights show a pulsing upbeat outlook of the characters and their approach to life. the contrasting colours of black and white also suggest that opposites attract and could be a double meaning of genders.
the closing scene is that of the title 'Hollyoaks' where the stereotypical colours of 'baby pink/blue' are used, outlining the typical stereotype of boy and girl behaviour. both the 'Os' in the name are changed to the scientific symbols of male and female, which both zoom in, bringing to the attention of the audience that gender is a large factor within this TV drama.


By Hannah