Pretty Little Liars

Representation of teenage girls on Pretty Little Liars

Pretty Little liars is a TV series that represents four specific teenage girls. In Pretty Little Liars teenage girls are represented as mischievous  backstabbing but always having to look perfect in every way possible with layers of make up on. Features used to convey the representation include costume and dialogue. The girls are always seen in this TV series dressed in new fashionable clothing that can sometimes be revealing showing off their figures. All four girls have flawless skin even though they cake their faces with natural looking make up giving us a false sense of what is perfect. This makes teenage girls in real life feel as though they need to wear a lot of makeup in order to look pretty like the girls on Pretty Little Liars. Teenagers look to the girls on the TV series as role models as they are what they believe 'perfect'. They are then willing to change to look like them and become perfect which we all know doesn't happen. The opening scene of is related to making yourself perfect looking because one of the girls that has luscious blonde hair is seen putting mascara on and hair curlers in her hair making her look flawless in teenage girls eyes. 
I think that teenage girls are represented in both a positive and negative way. We see a positive representation of teenage girls when the four girls stay loyal to their friend group and accept their lesbian friend for who she is not what she is. Teenage girls who watch this look unto these girls and aspire to be like them. However there is a negative representation of teenage girls on this series. We see this when they are snooping around, backstabbing and lying to people around them just to cover up their secret. They are shown having to deal with the loss of their friend and blackmail form an anonymous unidentified person "A" making them look vulnerable and powerless. The negative representation is seen through the girls still requiring to look perfect even when they are going through hard times. We never see them without make up on and their hair perfectly done or in other words looking natural. Because of this the idea that to be seen as perfect you have to wear make up and nothing can be a spec out of place is portrayed. Dialogue is used quite often in a backstabbing way. For example, Hanna talks about Kate behind her back saying,"It looks like something laid eggs on her face and then exploded." Representing teenage girls as bullies which not all teenage girls are.

In this photo all of the girls are wearing figure hugging formal but fashionable dresses, the ends of the dresses are rugged and of a short length shoeing off their bodies. The girls complete the look with slight grins on their faces but looking otherwise "too cool" for anyone else. The slight grin on their faces suggests  that they are hiding something like a secret. The fact that they are perfectly dressed and have their make up and hair done gives the impression that they want nothing but their presence left behind. This gives teenager girls a mischievous feeling but hey use their beauty to their advantage. 
I think the director has used the good mischievous, suspicious, pretty girl look in this series because that is what the viewers are interested in. The stereotype of a of a good looking girl is what sells the programme. Pretty Little liars can be compared with Gossip girls. In one of the episodes of Gossip Girl we see one of the main characters Serena going into the bar with her older boyfriend which gives the representation and impression that it is okay for teenage girls to go into a bar and consume alcohol until they don't know what they are doing. This gives us a negative representation but also an unrealistic representation of most teenage girls. Gossip Girls gives a negative representation of teenage girls. 
Both TV series represent teenage girls in a bad way. They are shown to society as mischievous liars. They use their bodies to their advantage and they exaggerate the fact that you have to wear make up.  

I think that Pretty Little Liars could be a reasonably fair representation of some teenage girls but certainly not all. Int he series the girls always stay loyal to each other being a positive reflection of teenage girls unlike in the series Gossip girl where the girls are constantly back stabbing each other and trying to make each others lives a misery. 
In Pretty Little liars the normal way of life is that you have a group of friends and nothing changes with them, you have perfect body, skin wearing lots of makeup and fashionable clothes. Teenage girls are represented as very secretive and cunning which i think is because people are more interested in the bad girl image in programmes. More than half of white adolescent girls who are normal weight view themselves as fat and are more afraid of gaining weight than getting cancer, losing their parents or nuclear war.
Pretty Little liars could affect societies perception of teenage girls making them think less of teenage girls because the girls on pretty little liars often use their bodies to get what they want. 
Teenage girls could be majorly affected by the representation on pretty little liars because not everyone has a perfect body, skin and hair so teenagers may go to extreme lengths to make themselves look like the actors on pretty little liars do. In fact 90% of people with eating disorders are female. From an early age we are bombarded with images and message reinforcing  the idea that in order to be happy and successful in life we must be thin. When teenagers feel that their bodies don't match up to those of supermodels or actors they feel fatally flawed when it really doesn't matter. 
The miss representation of teenage girls in the media is already affecting the world wound us as a study from the University of Central Florida showed that nearly 50% of girls aged three to six were already concerned about their weight.

Teen Magazines

New Idea

The cover girl for New idea magazine is Taylor Swift. She has obviously been photoshopped to enhance the look of her luscious blonde lochs, perfect skin, the colour of her eyes and just her overall flawlessness. 
The magazine represents teenage girls as a group who are mostly interested in tips for being more beautiful and having relationships 
Once feature used is Taylor Swift on the cover. Many teenage girls would currently idolise Taylor swift which attracts attention and her flawless skin, luscious hair, plump red lips would all be features that those girls would aspire to have. The cover of the magazine has a dominant colour of red suggesting the magazine is about Taylor Swifts relationship or failure of relationship. I think they used red lipstick and a red title to draw attention to "Taylor's Love Curse". There are other images on he front cover. One is of Prince Harry about "Harry's Heartbreak - Chelsea moves on" with the next one being of a dream wedding of two famous actors, and the last photo being Kelly Osbourne's new body with a food magazine cover beside it. it affects teenage girls in a negative way as they see the outstanding beauty that she is supposedly upholding and they try to get themselves to look like her as they look at her as an idol. Every year the average teenage girl sees over 5,000 advertisements mentioning attractiveness and 50% of commercials aimed at women mention physical appearance.
In order for teenage girls to make themselves look like Taylor they go and buy beauty products; make up, hair products,skin care products etc..In the magazine there were 14 advertisements for beauty products which the teenage girls see and assume that is what Taylor uses to make herself this beautiful. It also had a section that had articles on "top 10 beauty products" or "relationship advise" which immediately draws the attention of teenage girls.
When girls are in their teenage years they are the prime market for beauty product advertisements as they become so self conscious about what they look like and thinking they need to impress boys or just generally becoming what they think is perfect. Their self esteem decreases because they are always comparing themselves to photoshopped magazine cover girls that have an unattainable level of "perfection".
The magazine may then be portraying that being wafer thin is important in life which may then lead to eating disorders or depression in teenage girls. 
This representation of what teenage girls  are supposed to look like affects societies perception and attitude towards teenage girls negatively. Teenage girls are surrounded by girls, ladies, idols that have no imperfections because of photoshop the consequence of this is that teenage boys also raise their standards of what a 'perfect girl' should look like. 
Personally i think the magazines portrays teenage girls as having to be perfect so that the advertised products make more money. The fact is more than 90% if not 100% of teenage girls would rather have flawless skin, hair, teeth and body. The stereotype of a stereotypical beautiful girl isn't reality which cause major problems with teenagers not being happy with their appearance and losing confidence.

Pitch Perfect

Representation on Pitch Perfect

Pitch perfect is a comedy movie about a female acapella group called The Bardon Bella's. I found it very funny but realised  that stereotypes are relied on to make it funny. All kinds of girls and all in different ways are stereotyped constantly. These stereotypes show us how teenage girls are represented in the media. 

In one of the very first scenes on Pitch Perfect the acapella group "The Bella's" are shown performing at a national competition portrayed as a group of skinny, beautiful, model like girls.

There are close-up camera shots used to show The Bella's wearing tight short skirts, figure hugging blazers looking sophisticated. Wearing their white blouses open revealing their chest giving their outfits mrs of a sexual look. Their outfits portray to teenage girls that the way to get guys and that is accepted in society is with what they wear and having flawless skin, nice looking figures and hair that isn't a touch out of place. This can have a big effect on society as teenage girls are led to believe that they have to look like The Bardon Bellas to be accepted. This can lead to self harm and because elf the stereotypes we now see regularly a lot of teenage girls are changing to try and fit in. A People magazine survey showed that 80% of females felt that women in movies and television programs made them feel insecure about their bodies.
Becca is recruited into the Bellas hoping to make the Bardon Bellas achieve better at the national competition. Throughout the movie she is shown frustrated with how Aubrey is making them do a repeat of the year before. Teenage girls are represented through the use of costume on pitch perfect. Becca is new to the school and is shown wearing gothic kind of clothing not really fitting in with the crowd. She wears black nail polish, heavy eye make up and casual clothes. This show teenage girls that when you stet a new school it is okay to bee different so it is a positive and or negative affect on teenage girls.  

Another example is with Cynthia Rose one of the new members of the Bardon Bella's. The first time the new Bellas perform the first thing one of the commentators says is "Wow Gail these aren't your average Bellas!". We know that she is an African-American female but Pitch Perfect stereotypes her race by having her be the rapper in their acapella group. The way she dresses isn't your average girly way, he is seen in this photo wearing a farmer checkered kind of shirt over a plain red singlet. She has short hair shaven on one side and coloured on the other. She is a lesbian and this is stereotyped by her dress sense being to look like a boy. Another member Lily is also stereotyped to be your typical Asian that no one can understand when she speaks.

This can affect teenage girls as they are lead to believe that to be seen as "cool" in society they have to fit this look, causing them to get depressed all because they are unhappy with their appearance.

The representation of how teenage girls are supposed to look affects societies perception of teenage girls as what their expectations increase but become unachievable or fake. Boys may start to put girls into categories for example, thin, fat, pretty, ugly etc.. 

Most girls in real life don't look like movie stars that we are shown in the media, girls get themselves down about this leading to disorders, depression and even more extreme acts. Girls loose confidence in themselves which restricts them in their day to day life maybe not succeeding to the standard they may wish to. I think the media use flawless people with perfect bodies because that is what society would prefer to see rather than a less fortunate actor.

The Bardon Bellas can be compared to The Plasics from the movie Mean girls. Both groups change throughout the movies. Both the plastics and bellas resolve all of their issues towards the end but unlike the plastics that separated and became individual, the bellas stayed together.



We learn from both groups that you don't need cliques to get along, they are not needed and often are not like later on in life. Both movies have a new school member joining a group; Kaydi got 'accepted into the plastics quite quickly because of her looks and Becca got accept into the Bellas because of her singing ability. They are both easy for teenage girls to relate to because they are what we expect normal girls to be like.

In this photo of the plastics teenagers are represented as wearing lots and lots of make up and barely any clothes. They have a certain way they have to dress and their hair is always perfectly placed. They have a seductive look to them portraying that teenagers are seductive. The look on their faces almost suggests that you wouldn't want to mess with them representing teenage girls as mean if you look like them.

Both the plastics and bellas have "rules" that have to be met in order to be a member. For example, the plastics wear pink on wednesdays and wear jeans or track pants on fridays and the bellas aren't allowed to have a relationship with one of the treble makers.
One of the main differences between mean girls and pitch perfect is that in mean girls most of the characters are quoted on comments they make, where as on pitch perfect the only girl that is really quoted is Fat Amy.

Pitch perfect portrays the idea that different is good and always having a new perspective on things helps with difficult situations. So it does give some good morals for life to teenage girls.
Pitch Perfect Homework

BECA

Beca is a independent girl that comes across as slightly alternative or emo or seen as a rebel with a voice. She is a student at Bardon University and is forced to go there after her father, who is a professor at the university, doesn't agree to let Beca go to Los Angeles to become a music producer. She is into tehno music, producing her own remix's and even singing in some of them. She is seen wearing black nail polish, heavy eye liner/make up, accessories and casual attire which is how i get the impression of her being an emo. Beca has split parents and quotes that she has a "sarcastic stepmother". We see he independence when she takes her own bags out of the taxi when she arrives at University. I think this is a stereotypical representation because we automatically categorise Beca just from her style of clothing and independence. We use assumptions to with Beca assuming she is lonely when she is seen to have no friends or group of friends when she arrives at Bardon.

FAT AMY
Fat amy is an outgoing girl who is different but very confident in her own skin. She is overweight and a lot bigger than the other characters int he film. She tells the girls they can call her Fat Amy.

She is a stereotypical confident fat funny girl that doesn't let other peoples opinions affect her. She can be a little bit cocky, for example when she lists all the things she is good at to the Bella girls. This representation is not so stereotypical because she calls herself fat. usually we would expect fat people to avoid talking about their weight. Where as Fat Amy knows she is fat but doesn't let it bother her.

Stereotypes

A stereotype is a thought about a specific type of individual or about a certain way of doing things. Stereotyped thoughts or beliefs are not always an accurate reflect in reality. A stereotype is used to categorise a group of people. For example, the stereotype used for teenage girls are; all the do is whine and complain, they can't be as strong as guys, they don't know anything about cars and when they wear make up they cake it on.

We stereotype against people, religions, races and many more things because we see them as being different so we have to put them into categories. People stereotype because the human mind likes order and attempts to see patterns in a disorderly situation. People also become lazy and don't make an effort to change their views.

The media uses stereotypes to get more views or followers and gain those followers interest. The more interest that the media can get the more money they make therefore using stereotypes and information they don't know for sure is true.