Gender representation in TV drama: Holby City

Throughout the extract of Holby city women are represented as manipulative. An example of this is through sound and dialogue. After the women is dumped by the male doctor and her first attempt at retaining him fails after she says “you don’t want to do this Mikey” she swiftly comes back and says “Does Hanson know about Amelia?” as an attempt to blackmail him. She says this in a condescending, sarcastic tone the fast change in personality and the fact that she goes to the extent to threaten her colleague shows her and women in the programme to be manipulative.   

Women are also shown to be manipulative through the mise en scene of the extract. An example of this is the facial expression and body language of the female nurse as she attempts to blackmail her colleague. She appears to smirk after threatening the male doctor. The fact that she is grinning at his discomfort shows that she is enjoying her power of her colleague and thereby shown to be manipulative. This represents women as manipulative and forceful.

Holby City represents men to be aggressive in the extract. An example of this is through the editing technique shot reverse shot. This occurs when the doctor and the visitor begin to argue. The shot reverse shot allows the audience see that the two men are against/oppose each other. The fact that they are aggressive is later emphasized by the match on action of the visitor throwing a punch at the doctor.

Women are also represented as vulnerable. This is due to the camera techniques throughout the extract. One example of this is through the aerial shot of the nurse crying on the stairs whilst on the phone. Aerial shots generally emit a sense of inferiority whilst focusing on a subject due to the fact that they are seen as small from that perspective. This fits the context of the scene due to the fact that the nurse is crying as she was not able to get her own way which also in a sense depicts and represents women as obstinate.