Gender Analysis of “The 39 Steps” by Alfred Hitchcock
In 1935, Hitchcock introduced to a numerous amount of characters in his film, “The 39 Steps.” Each character having a different story and reason for being involved in this mess really leaves room for gender and feminism analysis. There are many characters that you can analyze and really see how women and men were portrayed in 1935. There are some aspects challenging the stereotypes of both men and women, but this film also spends a lot of time conforming to gender rules. “The 39 Steps,” is the perfect movie for analyzing the gender conformity for its time. The film begins with show at the music hall. During the performance, a fight breaks out between the drunk men, and people who
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I would define him as a typical man, caught up in an atypical situation. For starters, he dresses in the usual menswear of the time, and treats women how they were supposed to be treated in the time. This is seen in the bar fight seen when he carries Annabella Smith out of the Music Hall. Previously mentioned, one sees Annabella chugging the alcohol that was given to her, and in this moment to show that women were not supposed to behave this way, and to show that men, like Richard, truly believed this, you see a shocked look on his face. Puzzled by Annabella’s behavior, Richard begins to question who she is, and what she …show more content…
Men are expected to be tough, competitive, and masculine. I feel as if men showing a feminine side has become an even larger issue than women being masculine. In an ever-changing world, men have decided that, I would rather play with makeup than power tools and that is OKAY! I cannot stress this enough. Makeup artist and Youtubers, James Charles and MannyMUA, have really paved the path for men to be masculine in makeup. They can wear “men’s clothes,” and makeup and still feel comfortable in their own bodies, and that is what this is all about. Things like makeup and even your child’s toy choices do not define who they
To understand why Hitchcock’s portrayal of female characters is crucial to fully understanding the film, it is important to consider the way society worked for women in the fifties. Women “were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or presidents” (Friedman, 16). It was completely wrong for women to try and get male dominated jobs. They were supposed to be housewives who did not have any power in society. “They had no thought for the unfeminine problems of the world outside the home; they wanted the men to make the major decisions” (Friedman, 18). In her book, Friedman continues to explain how most of the women she had interviewed who were housewives felt dissatisfaction with their lives and were ashamed that they felt this way.
The female characters in Young Frankenstein and One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest are, stereotypically, satiric and parodic renditions of oppressed or emotionally unstable feminine personalities. The theme of the treatment of women is not only played out in the external relationships the women interact within but also in the basic mentality and roles they embody within their personality. The women of Young Frankenstein add a comical element to the film which a direct contrast to the insignificance of the female in Mary Shelley’s novel. The women of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest are either almost terrifying when thinking of the potential evil lurking just beneath the surface or effectual props in the healing of those who need it.
Firstly, Raymond Bellours work, as written in ‘Psychosis, neurosis, perversion’, from Camera Obscura, has taken a physiological understanding of sexual difference in Hollywood cinema claiming a space for female desire. (Stacey,1994, p24) By investigating the dialogue of Hitchcock films, Bellour discovered an analysis of the way the gaze is created. Bellour stated “The mechanisms for eliminating the threat of sexual difference represented by the figure of a woman, are built into the apparatus of the cinema” (Bellour, 1979, p97) Although, his version is a very pessimistic ideology for the female desire, Bell...
Both Deborah Blum’s The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over? and Aaron Devor’s “Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes” challenges the concept of how gender behavior is socially constructed. Blum resides on the idea that gender behavior is developed mainly through adolescence and societal expectations of a gender. Based on reference from personal experiences to back her argument up, Blum explains that each individual develops their expected traits as they grow up, while she also claims that genes and testosterones also play a role into establishing the differentiation of gender behavior. Whereas, Devor focuses mainly on the idea that gender behavior is portrayed mainly among two different categories: masculinity and femininity, the expectation that society has put upon male and female disregarding any biological traits. Furthermore, both could agree with the idea that society has an effect on how an individual should act based on their gender. Yet, additionally Devor would most likely disagree with Blum regarding the assumption that a biological factor is involved in this following case, but I reside on Blum’s case. Although society is indeed one of the major contributions as to how one should act, as Devor states, biology is somewhat like a foundation that leads to how one should behave as they grow and acknowledge their gender difference as well, residing on Blum’s argument.
Gender roles are a major theme in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, in the main ways being what is expected of proper Southern lady, the critcization of women because of their hypocrisy, and the distrust of masculinity as whole. The novel is set in the 1930s during the Depression in the small traditional town of Maycomb, Alabama. Scout is the main female protagonist in the novel and Scout herself faces the gender conformity, as does many others, like Tom Robinson and other men, and the female gender as a whole.
Gender roles can be comprehended through studying human society and the individual relationships among people in that society. Different aspects of society such as politics, economics, and the social aspects of society, are interlinked with gender roles. This paper will look at the gender roles and stereotypes from a modern and a traditional society perspective. The three different areas will be compared by looking at the traditional and modern societies, in order to understand how many changes have occurred and whether or not anything has really changed. Generally speaking, a traditional society is more conservative while a modern society leans toward being more liberal. The conservative nature of a traditional society is mainly a result of assigning certain roles depending on the gender of individuals. These roles have created gendered stereotypes which traditional society and even modern society have abided by. These roles and stereotypes have created a society in which one individual becomes dominant and the other becomes a subordinate. Modern society, however, has started to “level out the playing field” by allowing males AND females to succeed through accepting the identity of individuals’. Even though de facto segregation still exists, equality is emerging in society more and more each day.
Women and men both play crucial roles in our society. Through the years, we like to presume that gender roles aren’t perceived as they once were. Is that the case? Looking through pieces of literature such as “I want a wife” (1971) by Judy Brandy, “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy (1973), and “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1899) and comparing them to modern day depicts how much gender roles changed. Gender roles have not changed a whole lot; they did change, but defiantly not as much as we like to believe. Women have more freedom and independence now than ever before, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are still controlled and objectified.
Myers mentioned in his article that this generation of young discouraged, angry men feels abandoned with the today’s norms. Male movie stars and athletes have further influenced the masculine norms. In males perspective, liking a feminine color, doing feminine actions, listening to specified girl music is considered to be less manly. These have greatly affected the likes and dislikes of many men. The entertainment industry has created a big gap between what is masculine or feminine. This has caused a big separation and it's getting worse. Male are taught to be man of the house, strong, and powerful, but sometimes they’re belittled by society that they can’t do certain things and all the power is
While I was growing up, gender roles were highly defined by my parents and teachers as well as all other societal influences. Boys were taught to do 'boy' things and girls were taught to do 'girly' things. The toys that children play with and the activities that are encouraged by adults demonstrate the influence of gender roles on today's youth.
Section 1: What is your topic, and why is it important to study this topic?
Kristeva’s analysis on Freud’s castration, and theory of abjection is the very vehicle that moves the film’s understanding of feminism through the help of the horror genre. This scene is very important because it not only broadcasts a male gaze to objectify women, but also displays how these women will treat other women. The film suggests that it will not be just men who will lead to the collapse of female empowerment, but women themselves will contribute to the fall of feminism. The mise-en-scene in the film builds up the horror genre, and the film’s understanding of feminism through the use of wardrobe, props, and blood.
The terms sex, gender and sexuality relate with one another, however, sociologists had to distinguish these terms because it has it’s own individual meaning. Sex is the biological identity of a person when they are first born, like being a male or female. Gender is the socially learned behaviors and expectations associated with men and women like being masculine or feminine. Gender can differentiate like being a man, woman, transgender, intersex, etcetera. Sexuality refers to desire, sexual preference, and sexual identity and behavior (1). Sexuality can differentiate as well like being homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, etcetera. Like all social identities, gender is socially constructed. In the Social Construction of Gender, this theory shows
The internet as helpful as it is, is contributing to the backfire of changing the stereotype of men from hyper masculinity to just being human. The significance of this movement is letting men know its okay to enjoy the feminine things in life, you don’t need to be a lumberjack 24/7. The internet isn’t going anywhere and it’s going to make it hard for men and women to bring the awareness to stubborn internet users. Although there is still hope for the movement, maybe people will be open to leave the stereotype of men, and perhaps in the future we’ll see men blogging about facial products or maybe YouTube videos of men explaining how to conceal or contour their face. It won’t be easy though, we still need to let people know that the stereotype of men is outdated, it will take one article, one photo, and one comment at a time.
...are influenced by Although the uneasiness of relationships at the conclusion of Hitchcock’s films is a common theme, it is the deformation of sound and language by Hitchcock that creates the suspense and anxiety that his films are infamous for, allowing the female to become the centre of the discrimination, meaning that its only solution is the pursuit of “human communication”, an ideal that through careful analysis of both films, seems impossible for the female to ascertain.
Gender is such a ubiquitous notion that humans assume gender is biological. However, gender is a notion that is made up in order to organize human life. It is created and recreated giving power to the dominant gender, creating an inferior gender and producing gender roles. There are many questionable perspectives such as how two genders are learned, how humans learn their own gender and others genders, how they learn to appropriately perform their gender and how gender roles are produced. In order to understand these perspectives, we must view gender as a social institution. Society bases gender on sex and applies a sex category to people in daily life by recognizing gender markers. Sex is the foundation to which gender is created. We must understand the difference between anatomical sex and gender in order to grasp the development of gender. First, I will be assessing existing perspectives on the social construction of gender. Next, I will analyze three case studies and explain how gender construction is applied in order to provide a clearer understanding of gender construction. Lastly, I will develop my own case study by analyzing the movie Mrs. Doubtfire and apply gender construction.