Year 10 English
Term 1 – Representations of women –
Buffy the Vampire Slayer – Episode 22 Season 7 ‘Chosen’
In analyzing the representation of women in a text, you should consider the following questions.
1. What do/ does she look like? Pay particular attention to the question of whether she is considered beautiful/ physically attractive? Is she young?
Buffy is quite young, maybe in her early 20's. She is considered very beautiful and attractive to males.
2. What qualities are valued in women in the text?
- Strong
- Can fend for herself
- Doesn't rely on others/independent
- Fights doesn't run away
- Courages
3. What aspects of the text challenge the traditional representation you identified in your fairy tale?
- She doesn't rely on males to help her when a hard situation occurs
- She fights her own battles
- Doesn't listen to people's orders
- Does things on her own
- Offers the choice of being powerful and strong,
4. How is the message presented to us? Consider the positioning techniques discussed at the beginning of the term.(Character(Buffy in particular), costume, camera angles, dialogue etc)
- Close camera angles are used on Buffy's face to show the audience what emotion she's showing and feeling
- The message shows that women are strong and can fend for themselves and don't need a man to keep care of them and be by their side.
5. How are men presented in this text? (Consider power, hero, villain etc)
- Shown as the backup of the girls. Their helpers
6. Who has power in this text? Why do they have power?
- Buffy has a lot of power in this text because everyone listen to her and her ideas of how they should kill the Vampires
- All the girls because they are in more control
- They chose to break the rules and gain that power
7. Consequences: Who is rewarded? How? Who is punished? How?
- Buffy is punished because Spike dies
- All are punished because they see their friends die fighting but are rewarded because they beat the Vampires
8. How are women represented in this episode?
- Strong willed and determined
- Independent
- Confident
- Courages
- Opinionated
- They have the choice to be powerful and strong
