“No part of the film experience has been more consistently cited as a barrier to serious critical interest than the existence of forms and conventions, whether in such details as the stereotyped character, the familiar setting and the happy ending” (Braudy 435). The genre film has long history of being regarded as classless or unintelligent cinema as clearly seen in Braudy’s previous comment. A genre films draws on different tropes and similar plots and subplots which results in the categorization of them into a wide term known as the ‘genre’. Romantic comedy or “rom-coms”, as they are more informally called, are films which are borrow concepts from two different genres – comedies and romance. When combined, they create light-hearted, humorous, …show more content…
During the movie, we see Jamie mouthing along to the characters in the romantic comedy they are watching, indicating that she has watched the movie enough times to memorize the lines. This scene is a reflection of reality where watching a romantic comedy brings out the desire within the female to emulate what occurs in the film – “I wish my life was a movie sometimes”, “And then when I’m at my lowest point, some guy would chase me down the street, pour out his heart and we’d kiss, happily ever after” (Jamie, Friends with Benefits). The scene therefore shows us how a female would typically react to a romcom, but also in a deeper sense, plays into the narrative of the female who cannot help but wish for love, her prince charming, her happily ever after, all of which are tied up in a larger social …show more content…
Films within this genre like “Friends with Benefits” are meant to be an escape for its audience: it offers little in way of critical thinking and instead provides an avenue for “easy, uncomplicated pleasures” (McDonald 7). However, the problem with genre films like this is that is plays into typically stereotyped narratives of females that are perpetuated through media which women then internalize. As such, romantic comedies frequently create unrealistic expectations of romance for women when they buy into the exaggerated love stories that are presented to them. This is one of the main reasons why romcoms like “Friends with Benefits” are successful, why their presence in the film world has remained persist for decades past- they target women by playing into their innate desire for love creating a demand for which those who own the media are only happy to provide, thinking only of the profit and little of the social ramifications of such
Barry, , Keith, and Grant, ed. Film Genre Reader III. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press,
The film Boogie Nights provides an interesting case study of the unique nature of human relationships, specifically love and friendship. It presents a crisscrossing mash-up of various combinations of traditional love categories: friendly (plutonic or nonsexual) love, family love, lust, master/servant or apprentice/teacher love, etc. Besides being entertaining, Boogie Nights presents these combinations to provoke an insight on our part into the nature of love. This insight is exemplified in Jack’s notion of the ideal pornographic film. His ideal film also serves to echo the same flaws found in Plato’s ideal forms. Boogie Nights attempts to demonstrate the false nature of a definite, meaningful love by disrupting its categorization and presenting the absurdity of its definition. Jack’s movie cannot exist by definition, and as a product of natural language neither can the common conception of love.
In this musical, it uses several types of narratives, for example, after the fight between the Jets and Puerto Ricans, after the police leave, they enter the ally and the girl is begging to join the gang saying how much she wants to fight is a part of narrative sexuality (B 34). The girl is more of a tom boy who wants to be like one of the guys.
The 2011 film Bridesmaids is a female-dominated romantic comedy that exemplifies all of the themes of Margaret W. Matlin’s textbook titled The Psychology of Women. The movie has commonly been referred to as the female version of The Hangover, which is only the first of many gender stereotypes that this movie represents (Savage, 2011). While it might be considered a stereotypical “chick flick,” this movie is a realistic portrayal of the difficulties that many women face in their adult lives. For instance, these women experience the struggles of romantic relationships, the stress of wedding planning, and the challenges of friendship. It revolves around six women: Lillian, the bride, and her five bridesmaids--two of which spend most of the film
Shumway, David, R. “Cinema Journal.” Screwball Comedies: Constructing Romance, Mystifying Marriage. Texas: University of Texas Press, 1999. 7 – 23. Print.
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.
During the course of this essay it is my intention to discuss the differences between Classical Hollywood and post-Classical Hollywood. Although these terms refer to theoretical movements of which they are not definitive it is my goal to show that they are applicable in a broad way to a cinema tradition that dominated Hollywood production between 1916 and 1960 and which also pervaded Western Mainstream Cinema (Classical Hollywood or Classic Narrative Cinema) and to the movement and changes that came about following this time period (Post-Classical or New Hollywood). I intend to do this by first analysing and defining aspects of Classical Hollywood and having done that, examining post classical at which time the relationship between them will become evident. It is my intention to reference films from both movements and also published texts relative to the subject matter. In order to illustrate the structures involved I will be writing about the subjects of genre and genre transformation, the representation of gender, postmodernism and the relationship between style, form and content.
Thomas Schatz in his article Film Genre and the Genre Film puts the formula for a genre quite
Film scholar and gender theorist Linda Williams begins her article “Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess,” with an anecdote about a dispute between herself and her son, regarding what is considered “gross,” (727) in films. It is this anecdote that invites her readers to understand the motivations and implications of films that fall under the category of “body” genre, namely, horror films, melodramas, (henceforth referred to as “weepies”) and pornography. Williams explains that, in regards to excess, the constant attempts at “determining where to draw the line,” (727) has inspired her and other theorists alike to question the inspirations, motivations, and implications of these “body genre” films. After her own research and consideration, Williams explains that she believes there is “value in thinking about the form, function, and system of seemingly gratuitous excesses in these three genres,” (728) and she will attempt to prove that these films are excessive on purpose, in order to inspire a collective physical effect on the audience that cannot be experienced when watching other genres.
The ways in which Bridesmaids rejects patriarchal structures while simultaneously supporting them establishes a unique ideology: in order to meet the cultural comedic conception, these female characters reject particular standards of patriarchy, but the ways in which they do so successfully are due to their adherence to masculine norms and symbolic reversal (Buckley 19). Thus, Bridesmaids resists the male gaze and gives women empowerment to take the an active role in comedy, liberating them in the sense that it equates their humor to that of men’s, to embody new forms of feminine desire for women in cinema. In response to 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).
Mainstream movies are about men’s lives, and the few movies about women’s lives, at their core, still also revolve around men (Newsom, 2011). These female leads often have male love interests, looking to get married or get pregnant. Strong independent female leads are still exist for the male view, as they are hypersexualized, or the “fighting fuck toy,” (Newsom, 2011). This depiction has created a culture where women are insecure and waiting for a knight on a horse to come rescue and provide for her as well as the acceptance of women
Genres are ways of providing films with the intended associations. It is a convention in which people can refer to initially grasp the notion of a film, “for the vast publicity system that exists around filmmaking, genres are a simple way to characterize film. In fact, reviewers are often central in gathering and crystallizing notions about genres.” (Bordwell & Thompson, 2004: 110).
‘Lad flicks’ or ‘lad movies’ is a type of film genre that emerged in the late 1990s. They are defined as a “‘hybrid of “buddy movies”, romantic comedies and “chick flicks”, which centre on the trials and tribulations of a young man as he grows up to become a ‘real man’. ‘Lad flicks’ respond in part to the much-debated ‘crisis in masculinity’” (Benjamin A. Brabon 116). This genre of film explored what it meant to be a ‘real man’ in the twentieth century and in order to do so, they would have to grow up and leave their juvenile ways behind to enter the heterosexual world. Gender relations in ‘lad flicks’ portray masculinity as a troubled, anxious cultural category hiding behind a humorous façade and also rely greatly on a knowing gaze and irony. The two ‘lad flicks’ that will be analyzed are The 40-Year-Old Virgin (Judd Apatow 2005) and Role Models (David Wain 2008).
Johnson R. Kimberly, and Holmes M. Bjarne. "Contradictory Messages: A Content Analysis of Hollywood-Produced Romantic Comedy Feature Films." Communication Quarterly 57 (2009): 1-22. Print.
...on how they have overcome this demeaning concept, it is still present in many of the films created today. Laura Mulvey, a feminist of the Second Wave, observed the evolution of female representations in films. She concludes that films still display dominant ideologies that prevent social equality between men and women. Mulvey came up with three common themes that mainstream films continuously promote within their films. These three common themes reinforce that women are always going to be seen as nothing more but objects. They do not serve any symbolic purposes except to help advance the story by motivating the objectives of the male characters. As evident, Happy Endings is one particular film that embodies all of these traits and as a result, the female characters are perceived as sexual objects in both the perspectives of the male character(s) and the spectators.