General Representation

Representation is the way in which something is presented or portrayed to the audience.

"Representations are discourses of imagined and rendered connections that may influence opinion or action, or effect change".

Cultures are often one of the things that can be represented in many different ways in films. One film may for example show a specific group of people as stupid, hateful, vandals. Another film how ever could show that same sort of group of people as hero's.
Representation also plays a huge part in everyones lives in how we perceive the world. Many countries we may never have been to are shown in the media through things like films and we can be lead to believe we understand that country and its culture based purely on what we have seen and how it has been represented. This can be a good and a bad thing as it allows us more of an insight in to the world but it will generally also have a lot of biased views and wrong portrayals based on things such as the views of the writers or directors of that form of media.

In film representation plays a huge part in connecting with an audience and making a story seem believable or inoffensive. Depending on things such as characters and mise-en-scene the audience can often generate opinions on a matter based purely on how something is portrayed. A good example of this would be how gender is represented in a lot of films. Men will often be perceived as a hero who will often have to save a woman who is represented as helpless and needy. Representation often also reflects the general cultures and beliefs of the people from the times the film was made. As well as some times trying to manipulate the ideas and views of an audience to coincide with those of the director. Examples of this would be in a lot of films that are set in poorer countries the director will usually have an opinion on the cultures he is trying to portray. This will generally influence the way this culture is represented.

Representation is not just limited to films how ever. in current popular culture many different media outlets such as television, radio, advertising, poetry, books and websites are prone to presenting things in a specific and sometimes close-minded way.