Gender Essay

In most TV dramas women are portrayed as being less powerful and men are the ones who are in control. However in this Doctor Who clip it is shown differently. At the start of this clip there is a close up of the character called "The Master" we are given a close up of his face to show his facial expressions. In the background we see an out of focus shot of Martha being taken to The Master by two of his guards, she is smaller than the two guards which shows their power over her.

Next we are given a low angle shot, with The Master and his assistants at the top of the stairs and Martha at the bottom. One of the assistants is wearing a red dress and this could represent the male gaze in the clip, because she has no purpose in the clip and is there just so people look at her. The Master is wearing a black suit and with his hands in his pocket, which could show that he feels in charge of everyone in the scene. The Master and his assistants are on higher ground than Martha which could show the power that he has over her, also some of his guards are holding female hostages which could suggest that the males in the room have the most power. The Master tells Martha to kneel, which she does and this shows that the Master has the control over Martha and may feel like she will do anything that he says.

In the scenes Martha is seen to be wearing very masculine clothes, she also has her hair tied back. Stereotypically we don’t think of women wearing masculine clothes because we find it un-lady like. Also we get close ups of Martha’s face which show her emotions and how she is feeling. We often think that women are more emotional than men, however in this clip Martha is worried but not crying this shows that she is not like other women we see on TV because although she is worried she is keeping her emotions in check to show the Master that she is not afraid of him. When the Master turns the countdown on the sound of the clock ticking adds tension to the scene.

In the scenes where Martha is in a flashback, she is seen to be doing very hard work, whereas in most shows the man is seen doing the work and the woman is usually a house wife or not doing as much work as the man. But this clip proves this stereotype to be wrong. In most TV shows the male is shown to be rescuing the female, however in this clip the person who is being saved is the Doctor and the person saving him is Martha. This shows that women are capable of doing the same things as males do. While Martha is telling the Master about her flashback her voice seems to be getting louder whereas before at the start of the clip she was quite and did what the Master told her to, this is showing that Martha is gaining control of the situation and the Master is losing his power to Martha. The music in the background is getting louder because the clock is getting closer to zero this adds lots of tension and excitement to the scene.


Over all in this clip of Doctor Who we see that women can be independent and don’t need a man to help them. We also see that the powers in a scene can switch sides showing that women can be more powerful than a man.