EVALUATION REPRESENTATION: VAN ZOONEN

Van Zoonen’s suggests that media representations, influenced by patriarchal values, tend to reproduce traditional gender roles, typically representing women as passive, emotional, or sexualised, and men as strong, rational, and active. This makes her theory useful for analysing LFTVDs, which both reflect and respond to the cultural and historical contexts in which they are produced, offering insights into how gender norms are maintained or challenged across different settings.

In Stranger Things, Van Zoonen’s theory helps explain how the series negotiates between the gender expectations of 1980s America and the values of contemporary audiences. Characters like Mrs Wheeler and Florence are positioned in stereotypical roles, the housewife and the secretary, both aligned with patriarchal constructions of femininity. Joyce, too, is portrayed through a traditionally feminine lens: emotional, overwhelmed, and defined by her maternal instincts. These characterisations support Van Zoonen’s view that media often reinforce dominant gender ideologies. However, other characters push against these norms. Nancy is intelligent, determined, and active in the investigation, while Eleven resists male control, defends herself, and exhibits autonomy. This mixture of traditional and progressive portrayals demonstrates how gender roles are not fixed, but shaped by intersecting influences: historical setting, genre conventions, and changing audience expectations. In D83, gender roles are similarly shown to be culturally constructed, particularly in a divided Germany marked by different ideological systems. Lenora emerges as a powerful figure in a male-dominated institution. Her assertiveness, strategic thinking, and emotional detachment mark a clear departure from traditional feminine stereotypes, yet she is treated seriously within the narrative rather than ridiculed or reduced to a romantic subplot. The series also reflects how political context influences gender representation: East German ideals of gender equality are visible in Lenora’s position of authority. These examples show how Van Zoonen’s theory is highly effective at identifying the cultural construction of gender and the ways LFTVDs both challenge and reproduce dominant ideologies.

However, Van Zoonen’s theory has limitations when applied to fictional television. While she recognises that gender is shaped by discourse and that meaning changes across historical and cultural contexts, her theory does not fully address how other intersecting factors like race, class, age, or sexuality also shape representation. For example, Joyce’s portrayal as anxious and unstable is shaped not only by gender but also by her working-class status and marginalisation within her community. Similarly, Eleven’s resistance to gender norms is mediated by her status as a child and a scientific subject. Van Zoonen’s focus on patriarchy can also overlook the influence of genre and narrative structure on representation. Furthermore, her theory gives limited attention to audience reception. Some viewers may see characters like Lenora as empowering, while others may read her as cold or unfeminine, demonstrating that meaning is not fixed and that viewer interpretation plays a crucial role in how gender representations are understood.

Therefore, while Van Zoonen’s theory is extremely useful for highlighting how gender roles are constructed and reinforced in LFTVDs, it is most effective when used alongside other theoretical frameworks that consider intersectionality, genre, industry context, and audience interpretation. Her theory offers a powerful starting point for analysing how patriarchal values shape media, but a fuller understanding of LFTVDs requires a more multidimensional approach that accounts for the complex ways identity is represented, produced, and received.