Homework Task: Find examples of both male and female characters in TV Dramas that follow stereotypes and ones that challenge stereotypes. Using images to support and discuss how they have been represented through clothing, location, narrative, dialogue, camera angles etc. Then choose a character from a TV Drama that you feel most closely relates to you, upload and image into your blog and then discuss why you have chosen them.


*(Character Name / Show Name / Conforms or Challenges)*


Annie Cartwright / Life on Mars / Challenges

• Strong supporting character in the show
• Intellectual
• Can be independent, supports Sam and not other way round
• Brave

I have chosen to include Annie as a character that challenges gender stereotypes as there are multiple examples in the show Life on Mars where she is independently capable. In one episode, her and Sam must attend a sex party as a couple, however are working undercover to get secrets out of a suspected murderer. In the episode, all of the men put their car keys in a bowl for the women to pick a key from and have sex with whoever's keys they belong to. The women get undressed to reveal lingerie while posing in front of the men. Annie, at first, finds this uncomfortable, but in a sense her conformity to the gender stereotype shows her challenging nature towards it, since she realises it is degrading, yet is committed enough to the case to continue. Annie takes the suspects keys out the bowl and they go upstairs while Sam gets the suspect's wife. As Sam awkwardly talks to the suspect's wife we hear yelling in the other room. Sam is under the impression Annie is being hurt and runs into the room only to find her with a whip in her hand and the suspect on the floor, claiming he "told [her] everything". Again this shows an ironic strength in Annie, as she knows she is in a position to be sexually objectified and uses that to her advantage by using the man's strange sexual fantasy against him.


As you can see in the image Annie is dressed in appropriate 70's clothing that is not stereotypically revealing and the focus is averted from her appearance very often, more focused on her power and her confidence in herself, which is a lot more important in female main characters in relation to story development


Rose Tyler / Doctor Who / Conforms

• Dependant on the Doctor, especially in the first series
• Not necessarily sexualised in the stereotypical form, but often does flirtatious gazes or body movements
• Only moment she is truly powerful is when she is "possessed" by the power of the Tardis
• Never displays a sense of strength without the Doctor

I have chosen Rose Tyler as a character that conforms to gender stereotypes due to the fact there are plenty of examples of her conformity in Series 1 of Doctor Who. I can recall a particular episode in which the whole episode is her running from a Dalek until she finds the Doctor the blows it up. She is often completely reliant on the Doctor due to gender and species.


In the gif provided you can see her wink to the Doctor. In this particular episode she has been possessed by a space-woman monster thing, called Cassandra, and obviously this gif is biased towards showing she conforms to gender stereotypes, however it is still an example.