- Mediation (The Marxist theory)Abbie Blundell

What is ‘Mediation’?

“Misunderstandings are the medium in which the non communicable is communicated.”

– Theodor Adorno, PrismsMediation is being presented with something that is not reality but

somebodies representation of the subject matter. For example: Within media people tend to present the world in a number of different ways in order to

represent the message they’re trying to convey.

Mediation can be presented through:• Gender

• Social class• and ethnicity

How is gender represented through mediation?

When directors want the audience to be able to recognise that a female character who has been recused by the protagonist, the male character then creates the reorientation that he has rescued the ‘Damsel in destress’ . The women is often stereotypically blonde and seen as ‘dumb’ and the male is seen as strong and the most ‘heroic’ character. An example of a film in which this happens in is ‘Taken’ when ‘Maggie Grace’ needs to be recused by her father – who is represented as a ‘manly’ and ‘strong’ character.

How is social class represented through

mediation? The director may represent different social classes based upon the stereotype that they’re normally associated with

( this Is normally done in comedies) Working class may be represented as a ‘typical’ family who live on a council estate and often use bad language and only wear certain

brands ( such as Adidas and Nike) Whereas middle class families are shown having jobs

such as being a lawyer or doctors and therefore bringing in a significant income.

An example of a film on when mediation is shown in is, Notting hill when a man meets and falls in love with a

movie star, the male character is the other extreme since he is working class and she is classed as ‘higher class’.

How is ethnicity represented through mediation?

Directors use mediation to portray certain aspect of personalities. For example: Something that is stereotypically used within films is the representation of people from the Asian culture as being really smart \ clever. When using ethnicity directors need to be very careful as it can be taken as racism. An example of when ethnicity is used is in Mean girls. This includes references to the ‘gender specific’ representations (Karen, the blonde, intellectually challenged ‘Plastic’) a particular part which shows this is Indian or Asian, are smarter than others. A quote from the film singles out a table called ‘Asian Nerds’, and one of the characters, ‘Kevin Gnapoor’ an Indian/American, is team captain for the Mathletes team.