Our Girl: how does it show stereotypes in Gender??

Our girl is a BBC TV drama Staring Michelle Keegan as Lance Corporal Georgie Lane, an Army medic who is sent on a humanitarian tour of Kenya. Throughout the Drama there are many examples of stereotyping that are either counter the stereotype of gender and women by Lane; or used to support the stereotype of women and gender. We're going to focus on Gender and how it shows these stereotypes .

Gender:

Gender is a big stereotype in Our Girl. Firstly, its in the Title of the drama. which the suggestion of "Our" being that she belongs to someone or a group of people meaning she is under ownership of them. This is a stereotype because it means that Lane is under ownership of someone constantly whether is be her fiancée; army battalion or hostages, its also a way of her being looked down upon as in "you're our girl so you have to be with us". Which can be seen as sexist in a way.


Furthermore, Lane's role in Our Girl is to be a medic. Which could be seen as a suggestion that she is not strong enough to be a part of the actual army and instead needs to catered for the injured, similar to how a nurse is responsible for helping people in a hospital whilst doctors do the proper procedures and surgeries. This suggests that women are unable to fight and should be protected from danger. Along with this is the fact that Lane is the only woman in her group of soldiers. This counters the argument of only men being in the army as there are some women but their roles are usually reduced to a field medic like Keegan's character is. Even if they have training with weapons and can use them effectively which then supports the stereotype of woman being unable to defend themselves in war and that men have to.

Picture of the army squad. lane is the only woman present in the squad.

 Finally, Our Girl shows Stereotypes in the fact that after the first episode, Georgie is kidnapped by extremist forces and becomes a damsel in distress for the men to rescue. The is a huge stereotype in that women are defenseless when they are attacked and can't fight back leaving them easy to be kidnapped and used as ransom for the men to either attempt an rescue operation or pay the ransom. Another point of note is that when Lane is kidnapped and the men come to where she was kidnapped from, they are all focusing on finding here, believing her to be a high priority, the counters stereotypes as it shows that women are important then men however this also supports the stereotype of women being unable to fight and have to rely on men to come and save them from any peril they are thrown in to. 

Focus on when Lane is kidnapped:

When Lane is captured and the End of episode 1. The director uses a variety of Camera shots; editing and Sounds to create a tense atmosphere as well as show Lane to become more stereotypical because of her capture. Firstly there is an abundant amount of fast-paced editing to show how hectic the scene has become with multiple uses of median shots and tracking shots used to show the audience just how grim the situation has become, especially when cutting from Lane ducking for cover in the back of the ambulance and where the people in the front of the ambulance get shot at by terrorists. Furthermore sound bridges are used to show how fast-paced the action is and that as one character says something the other characters are quickly reacting to it.  This shows the vulnerability of Lane as she is now just a British girl who is all alone in a place where she is not wanted and that the men approaching her cold; calculated and aggressive to anyone they don't like. lane is stereotyped here because of the fact that she is no longer a counter-stereotype, instead she has become more of a stereotype of women in that they cannot fight back and need someone to rescue them. Also at the end of the episode, a crane shot is used to show how far away lane is from rescue and that she is disconnected from her friends back in the armed forces.

At the Start of episode 2, Lane is shown to be carried off the truck and almost executed by A man in black. The man in black is represented as the leader of the other terrorists since he is dressed differently to all of them, he is also shown to be someone who doesn't mess around and just gets the job done. he is also a white British man which shows that he is the dominant one in the situation and that he has converted to whatever religion the other terrorists support to give his character a sense of reality since some British people have gone over to places like Syria and joined extreme militants groups such as ISIS. Moreover, Lane is shown to be completely helpless against the terrorists as she is all alone and surrounded by enemies, She pulls off her dog tags to signify that she doesn't want the terrorists to find out that she is a member of the British armed forces because otherwise she would be killed. This implies that she is trying to be secretive and don't want something men to find out. Furthering supporting her stereotype of women. The use of synchronous sound indicates that the situation lane is in very tense. With the sound of a gun being loaded and her pleading for mercy show that she is trying to use the fact she is a woman to escape death. This supports her stereotype because she is spared and kept as a prisoner meaning she is being used as a damsel in distress for the rest of the men to rescue her, meaning she is helpless until rescued, similar to fairy tales in which her hero rescues the princess, a stereotype which is replicated here.