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Depiction of women in movies
Feminism in the movies industry
Feminism in the movies industry
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Bridesmaids: Finding Desire in Humor
For as long as there have been jokes, there have been people saying that women can’t tell them. For over a century figures in popular culture have publicly peddled this claim of misconception. In 1884 Richard Grant White, one of the most powerful cultural critics of the 19th century, wrote, “a sense of humor is the rarest qualities in a women”, to Jerry Lewis in 1998 stating he “cannot sit and watch a lady diminish her qualities to the lowest common denominator”, and more recently in 2012 Adam Carolla, arguing, “The Reason why you know more funny dudes than funny chicks is that dudes are funnier than chicks” (Moss). If there is anything that can put these men in their place it is the cinematic success of Paul Feig’s 2011 film Bridesmaids. Since its release, the film has been nominated for 24 different awards, won 6, and has generated over $288 million in sales worldwide, making it the highest-grossing-R-rated female comedy of all time (Buckley 5). Bridesmaids, thus, represents how the symbol of women in the space of cinema is being challenged and changed.
This essay argues that the film Bridesmaids transcends traditional representations of feminine desire that exhibits women as spectacles of erotic pleasure, through the symbolic reversal of gender identity in cinematic spaces. By discussing feminist perspectives on cinema, along with psychoanalytic theory and ideological narratives of female image, this essay will prove Bridesmaids embodies a new form of feminine desire coded in the space of the comedic film industry.
The film is lead by Kristen Wiig, who plays Annie, a broke and lovelorn, soon-to-be maid of honor, who attempts to mend her low self-esteem through sex with a hot, rich conce...
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...o the men at the beginning of this essay who would say Bridesmaids doesn’t deliver this, Tina Fey has some words for them, “We don’t fucking care if you like it” (Moss).
Works Cited
Buckley, Blair. "Bridesmaids: A Modern Response to Patriarchy." MA thesis. California
Polytechnic State University , 2013. Web.
Kaplan, Ann. "Is the Gaze Male?" Women in Film: Both Sides of the Camera. London and
New York: Methuen, 1983. 23-35.
Moss, Gabrielle. "A Brief History of "Women Aren't Funny"." Feminist Response to Pop
Culture (2013): n.pag. bitchmedia. Web. 2 Apr 2014.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Feminist film theory (ed.) Susan
Thornham. New York: New York University Press, 1995. 58-69.
Smalls. "Bridesmaids: A Ladybrain Review ." Ladybrain Feminist Reviews. blogspot, 31 05
2011. Web. 2 Apr. 2014.
Bridesmaid is a movie about the competition between the maid of honor Annie and Helen another bridesmaid, over who is the bride Lillian’s best friend. The film reflects how class, gender and sexuality intersect in the real life. As the Rolling stone critics the film “ dudes always fear movies that might shrivel their sexual standing when women prioritize. Man up and see Bridesmaid. You just might learn something.”
The scene where Robby went on a double date. The social structure of class was express through the social construction of posing bonds. Glenn says Robby should look into the bond market business because that is where the money is. Robby shows his income by having a saving bonds worth $25.00 in 1993. The social structure of Masculinity is express through body, when talking Robby and Glenn are talking about the women’s butt as a piece of meat.
The genre of melodrama has been fuelling debate for decades as it is being constantly redefined at a critical level. Rick Altman claims that melodrama has "a syntax but lacks a clear semantic dimension,” while Linda Williams sees it as a "mode" or a "tendency," its formal and stylistic motifs varying according to both its era of production and its medium.” (Griggs, April 1, 2007, p. 101). Melodramas are written for the enjoyment of women and aim to appeal to their sensitive nature and emotions. Bearing that in mind, the way by which women are represented in certain melodramatic films is interesting. From a feminist’s perspective, melodramas sit closely beside romantic comedies and chick flicks and it could be argued that they are in fact a combination of the two. It does seem though that these films are destroying everything feminists have been fighting for decades for. They tend to stereotype women, portraying them as desperate and incredibly reliant on men. An obvious example of this is Jane Wyman’s character, Cary Scott in Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows. Cary is a widow living in ...
Gender and the portrayal of gender roles in a film is an intriguing topic. It is interesting to uncover the way women have been idealized in our films, which mirrors the sentiments of the society of that period in time. Consequently, the thesis of this essay is a feminist approach that seeks to compare and contrast the gender roles of two films. The selected films are A few Good Men and Some Like it Hot.
“A Restoration comedy is like an eighteenth-century sitcom; it’s entertaining” (MacKenzie, “Behn”). However, the similarities between the two genres are more far-reaching than their equal entertainment value. For example, the cast of William Wycherley’s Restoration comedy, “The Country Wife,” consists of some central characters that are strikingly similar to those in the cast of the modern situation comedy, Seinfeld. Harry Horner from “The Country Wife” and George Costanza from Seinfeld both fit the male “wit” character type. Likewise, Lady Fidget, one of Horner’s lovers, and another woman, who’s one of Costanza’s fleeting lovers, both fit the female “wit” character type. Through the interplay of these characters, the Restoration comedy and the situation comedy both assert the superior power of the female wit, when compared to that of the male wit. Wits of both genders are characterized by their skill at lying, hiding their lies from the public, and seeking and obtaining selfish, short-lived pleasures; they are also characterized by their discerning nature and their gambling nature of risking losses to get gains (MacKenzie, “Wycherley”). However, female wits are more powerful than male wits when they take risks to secure pleasures because: female wits are not required to hold down a job or earn money; they gain greater returns from the risks they take, than men do, and they never risk losing their honor.
Williams, Linda. "Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess." Braudy and Cohen (1991 / 2004): 727-41. Print.
My Big Fat Greek Wedding is a film made in 2004 directed by Joel Zwick that evidently portrays several sociological concepts throughout the film. This film highly demonstrates the sociological topics of gender and culture all through the movie. The roles of gender, gender stratification as well as gender stereotyping are exemplified during the film. As for culture, the film displays subculture, counterculture, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism and cultural diffusion. My Big Fat Greek Wedding focuses on a single 30-year-old Greek woman, Toula Portokalos, who works at her family’s restaurant. Toula’s life takes a turn when she unexpectedly falls in love with a man who is not Greek. The film revolves around Toula’s family as well as her boyfriend,
movies are about men’s lives, and the few movies about women’s lives, at their core, still
Comedy often allows for a subversion of the status quo that is not tolerated in more serious genres. Beginning in the 1930s, the subgenre of screwball comedy presented female characters who were active and desiring, without evoking negative characterizations as "unfeminine" or "trampish." Screwball comedies represent a specific form of romantic comedy that features a complicated situation--or more often a series of complications--centered around a strong-willed, unpredictable female. The comedy is generally physical as well as verbal. Screwball and other forms of romantic comedy do not just reverse the masculine/active, feminine/passive paradigm--which as E. Ann Kaplan notes accomplishes little in terms of change--but instead strengthens the female and weakens the male just enough to put them on more equal footing.
The idea of male gaze in cinema is best addressed by Laura Mulvey in her article “Visual Pleasures and the Narrative Cinema”. One idea she looks at is the notion that women are related to the image, and men assume the role as bearer of the look. She quotes “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness.” The traditional exhibition role is what Sarah Polley must overcome in order to express female and national identity in a position of strength. In order to do this she must alter some the traditional constructions associated with the gaze in cinema to bring in order to critique the gaze that is male.
The movie Bridesmaids has been my favorite movie since the first time I viewed it, with just the perfect amount of humor and real-life difficulties to satisfy. After I started learning about interpersonal communication I realized how many of my personal relationships use the concepts we have discussed as well as how I have used the concepts while becoming who I am now.
In Laura Mulvey’s article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” she uses the concept of scopophilia, or pleasure obtained through looking at things, to discuss the portrayal of women in film as passive sexual objects, while inferring that it is the active male “gaze” that objectifies them. Mulvey’s ideas are extremely relevant to Stanley Kubrick’s final film Eyes Wide Shut, in which the themes of sexuality and voyeurism are abundant. The gender roles are very clearly defined in Eyes Wide Shut. The men control the “gaze” and obtain scopophilic pleasure by looking at women. The women, on the other hand, are all presented as highly sexualized objects, or things that exist simply to be looked at. Furthermore, when they do have
Women’s roles in movies have changed dramatically throughout the years. As a result of the changing societal norms, women have experienced more transition in their roles than any other class. During the period of classical Hollywood cinema, both society and the film industry preached that women should be dependent on men and remain in home in order to guarantee stability in the community and the family. Women did not have predominated roles in movies such as being the heroin. The 1940’s film Gilda wasn’t an exception. In Gilda, the female character mainly had two different stereotypes. The female character was first stereotyped as a sex object and the second stereotyped as a scorned woman who has to be punished.
For my second media critique, I chose to focus on the 2011 film Bridesmaids. Bridesmaids is a comedy written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, directed by Paul Feig. With grossing almost $300 million worldwide, 44 nominations, and 11 awards won, Bridesmaids has been a relevant film in popular culture over the last three years (“Bridesmaids”).
Ferrell’s films and his comic fame certainly raise stimulating thoughts within a grander discussion of contemporary masculinity, sexuality, and social politics. The majority of his films, present idiotically archaic varieties of “normative” masculine conduct and in nearly every case, Ferrell’s humor develops completely on devaluing and growing these gender norms. He instills both earlier and existing representations of manliness with both a juvenile approach and comedic tendency to go over the top, thus discrediting these stereotypes and opening them up for ridicule.