Update 20/09/2014

Since my last update, I planned to have a meeting with my coordinator, Linda, however she has ill and not in college for the past week. Because of this, I emailed the main EPQ coordinator and had a meeting with her instead. She told me to make a timetable plan of what I need to do in between now and when the research stage is over, around the 24th of October. I have filled in the timetable as much as I can for now, I will add to it as the weeks go on.

Timetable:

Week commencing	To do	Achieved?
22nd September 2014	-   Re-read through articles -       Source table -    Choose another episode for final product.	I have started re-reading through articles.
29th September 2014	-       Questions to ask people in media/representation fields -       Email people in media/representation fields -       Make questionnaire based on topic (with extract of Friends)
6th October 2014	-   Get people to take questionnaire  -  Analyse findings from      questionnaires
13th October 2014
20th October 2014

She also said it would be a good to make one big source table, like the ones I have been doing at the ends of weeks, to show which articles I've found will be the most useful. I will make this by the end of the week commencing 22nd of September, as the timetable says.

Research - Week Commencing 4th August - 8th September

I got a lot less done than I'd hoped over these past few weeks because I have been on holiday and too busy to research. So I've not focuses on finding any new articles, instead I've mainly looked into choosing episodes.

I chose three episodes from the beginning of season 1 of Friends to watch and see how they related to gender representations. Below is the table showing the episode title, the notes I made during watching it, disadvantages of the episode and finally key points about gender from it.

Episode	Relations to gender (notes made during viewing)	Disadvantages	Key points from episode
S1E1 Pilot	- (Monica) first sentence said by a woman(or anyone) is about a man - men making fun of her for having a date - (Chandler) talks about penis - (Ross) first storyline is about heartbroken by a woman - "to hell with her, she left me" man against woman - (Chandler) "sometimes I wish I was a lesbian" - (Joey) talks about strip joint - stereotypically male suggestion - spoilt daddy's girl Rachel introduced in a stereotypical dumb blonde way - leaving man at the alter however shows that she plans on subverting this - wedding dress means all attention on woman - "daddy" shows this - uses shopping/clothes metaphor - feminine stereotype (Rachel) - joey hits on Rachel - 3 men do the building furniture. 2 women turn it down - Monica used by man, man manipulates her - difference between how men and women go through break ups (Ross and Rachel) - "I'm going to go and get one of those job things" Rachel classic spoilt girl - joey "of course it was a line" as if he would expect nothing less and do the same - Ross "to get you into bed" - Monica "I hate men" - Rachel buys shoes instead of getting a job - Rachel has a job by the end - subverts stereotype - not good employee - shows it's going to take a while to completely subvert stereotype	- Not all explicitly related to gender.	- Rachel portrays a character that is a spoilt daddy’s girl. - By the end of the episode she is beginning to break out of this stereotype and has got a job. - Monica, although quite independent, is still quite ruled by men as her storyline in this episode is all about her date. - Ross’s current storyline is all about women. Overall main point from episode would be that the women’s storylines are all about men and the men’s are all about women.
S1E4 The One with George Stephanopoulos	- phoebe puts world piece on a par with her wish to have bigger boobs - girls making fun of other girls - girly slumber party - 3 men at football game - the 3 women only start having a good evening when a man is involved - guy across the street - competitive when another woman is involved - "our guys"	- Not as much related to gender as the pilot.	- The women have a girly night whereas the men have a guys night. - The two different settings are used to juxtapose each other and show how different the two groups are. - Each group separately has a bad night overall. - By the end of the episode they are all together again and having a better night. Overall point: the male and female characters have a much better time when they’re all together.
S1E5 The One with East German Laundry Detergent	- episode starts off with the male and female characters arguing about what gender can do things better - "be a man, just stop calling" joey to chandler - "he called me young lady" Rachel. "Oo I hate when my father calls me that" chandler - "you look good", "that's 'cos I'm wearing a dress that accents my boobs" Angela - "you may want to rethink the dirty underwear" chandler to Ross about what Rachel will think of him - "oh and the fabric softener". "What is wrong with my snuggles" reference to not being manly etc. "It says I'm a sensitive warm kind of guy. You know like a little fuzzy bear" - masculine woman argues with Rachel (very feminine girly woman). We are positioned with Rachel and therefore see the other lady as against us, the masculinity she shows is used to emphasise this. - Ross stands up for Rachel as she doesn't feel she can as the woman seems to have more power than her because of her masculinity. Ross can over power this as he is a man, therefore seen as having more power. - "I can't even send back soup!" Rachel, "That's because you're such a sweet gentle er um ah" Ross - "überweiss, it's new it's german it's extra tough" to try and look more masculine in front of Rachel." - by the end Rachel stands up to the woman and breaks the stereotype - "a brand new woman ladies and gentlemen"	- Quite a lot related to gender and how each gender will perceive each other. - Quite casual remarks about gender – shows that it was a big source of comedy and storylines for Friends.	- The more masculine the character is, the more power they have over other characters. - Rachel overcomes this and wins the argument.

Overall, I think I will choose S1E5 because it has the most representations gender stereotypes.