Timed Essay Question 6

 

Question 6:

Discuss how the representation of gender, class or age would appeal to a target audience in one of the media products you have analysed this year.

The representation of class, gender and age I will be focusing on will be from the show “Dinner ladies” which is a sitcom about people from Manchester working in a canteen inside of a factory. 

Age is one of the biggest ranges of the show, with the characters ranging from early twenties to elderly, and each age has its own representation inside of the canteen as well as inside the friendship group. The younger characters are shown to be ignorant and lacking knowledge compared to people older than them, constantly saying stupid things and making foolish mistakes while seeming almost scared of people older than them. The older people in the kitchen seem to be the binary opposition to them, constantly making fun of everyone especially the younger people while also seeming wise and smart. They seem to have less of a filter on what they say compared to the younger people they work with which plays into their characters well, giving them the ability to freely make fun of everyone else, which they do throughout the episode. Middle aged people seem to have the most power in the kitchen, which can be representative of society and how middle aged people seem to wield the most power, and don’t have a character trope set in stone since they are a mix of the younger and older workers depending on the character.

 Gender is also a big factor in the show and separates a lot of the cast while playing into a lot of stereotypes. The females in the show mostly want to leave the canteen, having plans for their life and not wanting to stay there long, but this theme also runs with Tony since the main premise of the episode is him wanting to go to Scotland. Tony is the only male working as a chef in the canteen seems to have the most power, telling everyone what to do and taking charge of situations, which could be indicative of a traditional society and how males were seen as more powerful. Following on from that, the fact that most of the people working in the kitchen are females could also show their “traditional roles” in society which links to Tunstall’s gender theory and women being domestic. The vast majority of men working at the factory are also male which shows who mainly works at the factory.

 Class is a big divider within the show as well, with the majority of the canteen staff being closer to working class but some exceptions can be drawn with Dolly having a posher accent and pronunciation of words while also stating she used to work in a posh café before working at the current canteen. Phillipa is the biggest exception out of them all since she is one of the only people shown to not work in the café, instead she works in Human Resources, shown to wear a suit and always be busy with work. The way she talks and acts the audience can assume that she is middle class unlike the rest of the characters. This is very different to other sitcoms like How I Met Your Mother were all of the main cast shown are roughly the same age (between 25-29 but all seem to do dumb things due to their age) and class (around the middle class but still having potential financial struggles) with different genders but a near enough balance (2 women and 3 men) who all have near enough equal importance in the story bar Ted since he is the main character. This is very different to Dinner Ladies since where it is fairly obvious who has more importance in the story than others.

 Overall, class, gender and age can change the representation and portrayal of certain characters and communities throughout multiple pieces of media. All 3 of these really appeal to the target audience which happens to be roughly middle aged people (generally women) who have the time to watch daytime tv so typically part of the lower class.