Girls "You're the wound" Gender Analysis

The décor in the apartment is very feminine with colours such as: light blue, pink and cream. These colours have been carefully chosen by the director to make the apartment seem tasteful; immediately you could tell it was a woman’s apartment from the decoration. The prints on the walls and art on the walls combined with the ironing board and feminine choice of furniture clearly displays that the television show has a strong representation of a female gender genre. The exterior establishing shot, of the New York streets at night displays some sort of insecurity as New York is known for its crime; it is a dangerous place for two women living alone, this is a juxtaposing representation of gender in a female perspective as two women living alone in New York is not such a safe plan. The props used in the scene for example the toothbrush represents hygiene, which is more commonly connected to women who usually have a great sense of hygiene. The toothbrush also represents the fact that the second speaker is preparing to go to bed. Marnie (speaker 2) has been sexualized as she is wearing revealing pyjamas, this is probably to gain a stronger male audience as the show is mainly targeted at women. This is a representation of gender as Marnie is more of a typical “girly girl,” whereas Hannah (speaker 1) has tattoos which is strongly linked with manliness and tends to be less revealing. The book is a brilliant representation of gender as women are closely linked to intelligence and reading for enjoyment and entertainment; the fact that Hannah dislikes the book links her more to the manly side of things. Mainly the fact that both actors are women this represents the target audience and the type of context most of the shows will take place in, by choosing two women as main characters gender is represented predominantly as female.

The Sound in the scene is generally diegetic however for the first 20 seconds the sound is all non-diegetic; it tends to be background music from the establishing shot with no lyrics. It is made up of minimal amounts of flute or woodwind instruments and a main acoustic guitar. This gives a gentle and calm feel to the begging in of the scene. Some of the features of women are the gentle calm touch as well as the rationality; this is visible in the music. The first diegetic sound is of the door slamming this displays how Hannah might be annoyed or not in control which is not a feature we connect with women. Hannah makes many loud noises for example throwing the keys on the table, slamming the door, loudness and banging has connotations of aggression, which is closely linked to manliness. Hannah seems to be very closely linked to male attributes but this is juxtaposed, as she seems to be the most emotional out of the two women. It seems that she has no self-confident and seems to think that she is incomparable to Marnie who seems to be confident and in control of her life. Their speech starts off in conversational volume but when the comments gain in cruelty they begin to shout; this is clever as the writers are building up to a climax which both characters storm out of the room slamming their doors displaying emotion and that they are both offended.

The lighting in this scene is very differential. We see the gloomy sombre lighting In the establishing shot of the straight which could represent the mood of one of the characters. In a similar way when Hannah walks into the apartment the gloom and darkness from the hallway is almost expelled from the apartment; it is as if once you get home all the misery and problems you have had in your day are gone. Unfortunately for Hannah this doesn’t happen she comes home and is represented with further problems. This could be a representation that for women there is always some problem, this may be due to the fact that women are always very bus. The scene is shot in high key lighting that juxtaposes the theme of the scene as high key lighting is meant to have a happy and joyful theme to it however in this scene there is a lot of spite and hatefulness.
The scene begins with an establishing shot which pans and focuses on to an apartment building supposedly where the scene will take place. We see a mid-shot then of Hannah opening the door

The scene begins with a panning establishing shot which sets the time mood and area of where the scene is shot. Then the tracking panning shot which displays the interior of the apartment. The tracking shot follows the action as Hannah walks in from the door, stops and puts her keys down and then walks into the Marnie’s bedroom, this act almost like an interior shot which establishes the surroundings inside. We then see an over the shoulder shot which shows Marnie’s room, the shot reverse shot is effective as it displays a conversational mood. The over the shoulder shot gives a sense of reality and it is as if the viewer is stood directly behind Hannah. We see a change in camera shot from the match on action; a mid-shot is used when Marnie is leaving the room this shows her whole body language, she seems to be annoyed here. There is use of sound where Marnie puts her washing down the chute. This is clever editing as the sound is enhanced so the viewers can grasp the full action. There is use of a low angle shot on Hannah (low angle usually shows dominance when it used) this is juxtaposed in this scene as Hannah seems he most afraid and upset. Even though Hannah seems to have more male attributes in the scene, in this short section she seems to be more female. There scene is predominantly shot reverse shot and match on action. There is little use of editing except for the length of the shots. They are short and snappy which usually symbolises action however there is little action and more heated conversation. There is editing in the enhanced sound of the tooth brush falling down and the light switches but that seems to be it in visual editing. On the other hand the clips are arranged in the correct way, there is nowhere in the scene where the readers don’t understand what is happening. There is no use of transitions but there are only two characters in the scene which means that their screen time will be greater to minor characters.

The scene is very well put together and is acted out very well, it is: comical, interesting and exciting