Timed Essay 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 studied this year.

The long form TV drama Stranger Things presents various representations of gender, class and age throughout the first episode, and successfully uses these to appeal to a wide audience. I will be comparing these to the uses of those topics in the JRPG Persona 5 to illustrate how despite some cultural differences, they both cultivate a vast appeal to target audiences through their representations of gender, class and age.

Foremost, whilst Stranger Things has two contrasting representations of women throughout the first episode. Karen Wheeler, Mike’s mum, is presented as a stereotypical stay at home mum – a housewife. This links to gender theory as it emphasises the ideology that women are presented as domestic, consumer, marital, or sexual, and in this case, she is presented as both marital and domestic through how she does the cooking and the cleaning for the family whilst her husband works a job. Contrastingly, Mike’s sister Nancy is used to challenge these ideals, and is portrayed as highly academic, with a talent for science, which is something that men are predominantly represented in, and also subverts to being presented sexually, seen when she turns down her boyfriend Steve each time, he seemingly tries to make a move on her in that way, which shows a conscious sense of her independence. This would appeal to a wide audience of both older and younger women, particularly those with feminist ideals, as it highlights how women do not need to conform to the stereotypes that are placed on them, and that they have various important roles in society. Persona 5 uses similar examples of this, but more predominantly displays an ideology of female empowerment. The character of Kawakami also plays into gender theory due to how she is presented sexually in her job as a maid outside of her career in teaching, however, at the same time she subverts this as it is clearly not a job she enjoys, and she only does it to earn money to help out the family of one of her previous students. Another way that the primarily sexual stereotypes of Asian women is pushed against is the use of the three female protagonists on the game. Ann, Makoto, and Futaba are all presented with different issues that they are struggling with, for example Ann being manipulated sexually by the school’s PE teacher, yet they overcome these and continue to challenge the stereotypes that try to define them. This would appeal to a feminist target audience, primarily teens and young adults, as it shows them a sense of encouragement to challenge what is expected of them and do what will make them happiest and feel most empowered. 

In Stranger Things, the contrasting ideologies that different age groups have is displayed by using both Hopper, and the boys as vessels. Mike, Dustin, and Lucas are all strong-willed and want to help with the search for Will, however Hopper, albeit with their best interests at heart, doesn’t want them to get involved as they are just kids and it could be dangerous. They go against this, which could link to binary opposition and create a situation of children vs adults. This would appeal to a target audience of young teens as it would show them how they can still be independent and solve situations without the help of adults, as they are still rational enough to be conscious of the decisions they are making. Persona 5’s young group of high school protagonists highlights the cultural differences between the expectations of teenagers, and those of younger generations. Due to Japan’s high respect for those of older generations, these characters are often not taken seriously, and their problems are seemingly ignored by the adults, emphasises by how Shujin Academy covered up the cases of physical and sexual abuse from the PE that some students became victims of. The protagonists chose to take this into their own hands and resolved the issues by themselves. Whilst this links to media effects, and could potentially create copycat behaviour, it is not entirely a negative outcome, and could potentially appeal to both audiences of older and younger generations as it shows the younger that they don’t have to rely on adults to resolve difficult situations, and it also shows the older that they need to take the issues and concerns of the younger generation a lot more seriously, as can be just as conscious and educated on problematic situations.

Stranger Things does not represent differences in class to a wide range, but it does emphasise the differences in lifestyles. For example, the Wheeler family are very obviously middle class, they have a good house in the suburbs, and a generally good family situation. The Byers family on the other hand are a representation of the working class, they live in a smaller house, and Will and Jonathan’s dad is not present in their family life. Joyce is a single mum who works a full-time job and takes care of her sons at the same time, which immediately subverts a typical conservative representation of a family. This appeals to an older audience of women as her character is easy to empathise with and relate to. Persona 5 has a more extreme representation of the differences in class. It highlights the vast amount of corruption in the political world, and how it is dominated by upper class men who only seek outcomes that will benefit themselves. The character of Shido is a prime example of this, with each negative situation throughout the game inevitably leading back to him, as he is the reason Ren unfairly gained a criminal record due to helping in a way that was morally right, yet Shido abused his power and used it to manipulate the situation in his favour. A similar situation is displayed with Ryuji and the PE teacher. This can create a binary opposition of lower vs upper class and emphasises the similarity of these situations to those of real life. The fact that the protagonists manage to overcome all of these situations creates hope for the audience, and shows that while it is not difficult, it is not entirely impossible. This can also link in with the theory of Uses and Gratifications, as these characters overcoming difficult issues could be uses as a form is escapism from the same issues that weigh people down in real life. It could also be used for personal identity, as due to the characters being regular teenagers in high school, they are easy to relate to, and will appeal to an audience of teenagers due to how raw and realistic they are.

In conclusion, Stranger Things and Persona 5 both use gender, class, and age, to appeal to target audiences and encourage them to engage further with them. Despite the cultural differences, they both manage to appeal to their audiences successfully in a similar way to each other, and emphasise the common ideologies that are shared within their individual audiences.