After watching both documentaries, I believe the two documentaries had very different style. I believe Miss Representation wanted to try and change women’s portrayal in the media, while Panopticon was to make people aware of the lack of privacy we have due to surveillance cameras, the Internet, and more. Additionally, I believe that Miss Representation interviewed not only more people to try and demonstrate Newsom’s point, but also interviewed more experts, people in powerful positions, and first-hand experiencers of the problem Newsom was addressing. In Panopticon, Vlemmix interviewed several experts, as well as everyday people. While both documentaries were effective and made the point they wanted to, I thought Miss Representation was more of an effective documentary. For me, this was due to the fact that Newsom gathered more opinions and perspectives about women’s portrayal in the media, which made it more relatable to me and kept the documentary more interesting. In addition, I believe Newsom’s documentary showed more passion and wanted to spark change, whereas Vlemmix’s documentary tried to make us more aware and sort of scare us instead of spark change.
I also felt MISS REPRESENTATION was more effective as a documentary compared to Panopticon. I felt so because MISS REPRESENTATION seemed more organized and had more facts and figures to present than Panopticon.This also relates to the budget of the documentary and the facts and figures available and also the subject matter the documentaries are based on.While Miss Representation is over $700,000, Panopticon comparatively had very less budget.Because of lack of adequate money, the documentary makers wouldn’t have been able to research on the issue in a detailed way.Also most of the facts related to infringement of privacy are not easily accessible and are hidden by companies and government because of security reasons.Watching the documentaries, I felt these reasons may have made the Miss Representation more effective documentary compared to Panopticon.