Essay ideas.

I am currently undecided between 2 vague ideas:

1) The Gaze - Feminism and Psychoanalysis
- 'The power of looking'
- The role of women in media.
Books:

• Visual and other pleasures - Laura Mulvey - looking at 'the male gaze' and the fact that women are only in film to be looked at.
  
• Femmes fatales: feminism, film theory, psychoanalysis. - Mary Ann Doana - analyses the 'femme fatales' character in films.
  
• The monstrous-feminine: film, feminism, psychoanalysis. - Barbara Creed - Looks at the 'mostrous-feminine' in horror films such as 'Carrie'.

Although this is largely related to film, I think the theories can be applied to graphic design.

2) Subcultures and Pseudo-indivdualisation.
- Taken from Adorno's essay on popular culture.
- Look at different aspects of subcultures defined by music taste i.e. album covers, t-shirt graphics etc.
Books:

• Subculture: the meaning of style - Dick Hebdige (1979)
• Cultural theory and popular culture: an introduction. - John Storey (ed. 2009) - discusses Marxism and looks at and analyses Adorno's essay on popular music.
  
• Capitalizing on culture: critical theory for cultural studies. - Shane Gunster (2005) - Discusses pseudo-individualisation