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Abstract

Gender studies are formed through the key distinctions between the binaries of sex and gender as a separation of biology and culture. Niall Richardson and Sadie Wearing note that the divergence between the “chromosomal” formation of sex, as male and female, and the “cultural” formation of gender, as masculinity and femininity, can be explored through the patterns of behaviour influenced through social constructs (Richardson & Wearing, 2014, p. 1). Through an in-depth exploration of film, television, print, and social media, this dissertation argues that social constructions regarding the ambiguity of gender roles and identities are a manufactured “performative twist of cultural language and discourse” (Butler, 2006, p. 26), and that through distinct media images of “influential cultural practise”, we internalise the appropriations of gender to form an alliance with social order (Richardson & Wearing, 2014, p. 5).
Over the course of three chapters, key periods and moments of social-cultural change are examined with particular focus on the sexual revolution of the 70s, HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 80s, third wave feminist ideologies of the 90s, as well as the rise of post-feminism in the awakening of social media in the early noughties. Textual analysis of key media products from these decades, such as Playboy magazine, Roger Vadim’s Barbarella (1968), and Michael Patrick King’s Sex and the City (1998-2004), will help in establishing a shifting timeline for better understanding the transformative nature of gender representation over time and enable a more expansive context by which to better access Butler’s argument that gender performance is an integral part of identity formation and expression.

Course: Media Studies - BA (Hons) - C1346

Date Deposited: 2024-08-08

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14431.html