Do chick flicks give woman unrealistic expectations? The solemn purpose of these movies are to sooth a woman’s soul mainly dealing with love and romance that usually target a female audience. They are typically heavy in emotion and are relationship-based; for example, A Walk to Remember. However, there’s more to it. Woman use romantic movies as a form of catharsis, to give innocent men a break from their emotional girlfriends, and to satisfy a women’s mind by giving them higher, often unrealistic expectations. Catharsis is the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from strong or repressed emotions. All women experience this, even if they don’t want to admit it. This is just a way for women to vent out all the tension built up inside so they are not beating out anger and stress towards friends and family. What better way can a women use catharsis than to watch a chick-flick? There is no better way. Even if the women is lacking in love, friendship, and doesn’t want to be reminded she has no “prince-charming”, a chick-flick is still the best solution to release those emotions. What comes along with catharsis most importantly is, venting. Let it out ladies; do not hold that anger in to the point where it kills the heart. Go to the gym, scream in a pillow, assault a punching bag, go shoot some people in a video game, run a mile, jam out to load music, or anything that will help you release those emotions. Feel better? Venting is the best thing for not only women, but for everyone. Sigmund Freud influenced everything from politics and advertising to business and art. Freud developed the catharsis theory and psychotherapy as a part of psychology. He reasoned that mental wellness could be filtered by putting away impurities... ... middle of paper ... ...my girlfriends, we must not depend on them! Living with four brothers, take this advice. Men don’t just sit home and think about you like you’d expect them to. Sorry to burst any bubbles here but the only things they are worried about (at a young age at least) is whose coming over for the Halo party Friday night. Men are nothing like these well-painted male characters in these movies, no matter how much we want them to be. When we do find our “prince charming” we should receive the utmost respect, but not expect all these fairytale endings. If they come to us, so may it be. Women just use romantic movies as a form of catharsis, to give innocent men a break from their emotional girlfriends, and to satisfy a women’s mind by giving them higher expectations. Once he comes into your life, you will definitely have a better, more positive foundation than just chick-flicks.
A female in film noir is typically portrayed in one of two ways; she’s either a dependable, trustworthy, devoted, and loving woman, or she’s a manipulative, predatory, double crossing, and unloving temptress. Noir labels the cold hearted and ruthless woman archetype as a Femme Fatale. A femme fatale is walking trouble, and she’s aware of it. This woman is gorgeous, refined, eloquent, and commands the attention of any room she’s in. When the femme fatale desires something, she pursues it. If there’s an obstacle in her way, she overcomes it. If she can’t handle it herself, all she needs to do it bat her eyelashes and the nearest man is all too willing to take care of it for her. In essence, the most dangerous thing about the femme fatale is her
My Mise-en-scene analysis is on American Beauty on page 217: number 1(The dinner scene). The frame itself is a very closed, tight shot; there is no way for the characters to escape and they're left with only confronting each other in this very little space. The shot of the camera isn't necessarily far away or close either. It's neutral, and we can see the full action of the family's dinner conversation happening right in front of us. My eyes were immediately attracted to the bright, white table and then my eyes focused on the faces of the family. The scene's texture is slightly fuzzy, and is not very detailed. But the character's faces are still recognizable. The foreground of this scene is the table with the man and woman sitting at each end; the middle is the girl-who is
Within the novel, When Everything Feels Like the Movies written by Raziel Reid, there is strong graphic language and depictions of sexuality. Throughout the novel each character including Jude and Angela explores their sexuality and experience the repercussions that follow. The graphic language and depictions of sexuality help to develop the quality of the novel and the characters involved. The novel also brings awareness to bullying involving the LGBTQ community, which is a major social issue. "Adolescent Sexuality and the Media: A Review of Current Knowledge and Implications," written by Gruber, Enid, and Joel Grube states that “there is growing concern about young people 's
The Representation of Women in Some Like It Hot and Alien 3 This essay will be about how women are and have been represented in films in the past and how they are represented nowadays. I will be looking at the roles and representations of women in 'Some Like It Hot and Alien 3. Some Like It Hot was made in 1958. Marilyn Monroe starts in the comedy as Sugar Cane, a very feminine musician.
The American black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street directed by Martin Scorsese was released December 25, 2013 and stars the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and Margot Robbie. While on face value The Wolf of Wall Street looks like a film about excessive cocaine binges, long evenings filled with men with cigarettes, large portions of alcoholic consumption, having many sexual escapades with various women and even dwarf tossing from time to time, the film is deeply rooted in perception gender within the genre of The Wolf of Wall Street. The word ‘genre’ is rooted into a similar category as
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.
Led by Laura Mulvey, feminist film critics have discussed the difficulty presented to female spectators by the controlling male gaze and narrative generally found in mainstream film, creating for female spectators a position that forces them into limited choices: "bisexual" identification with active male characters; identification with the passive, often victimized, female characters; or on occasion, identification with a "masculinized" active female character, who is generally punished for her unhealthy behavior. Before discussing recent improvements, it is important to note that a group of Classic Hollywood films regularly offered female spectators positive, female characters who were active in controlling narrative, gazing and desiring: the screwball comedy.
‘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).
...characters are not depicted as strong as the male leads. Hermione Granger becomes emotional during high stress battle scenes. Elizabeth Swann shifts to mainly a love interest for the male lead. Queen Amidala becomes emotional and a love interest for Anakin Skywalker. To some, the illusion of strong women signals how far we have come as a society in the last half-century. In reality, however, the film industry has only progressed enough to be able to give off an illusion of strong women. The lack of female directors in Hollywood gives way to a male-centric ideology that eroticizes and demeans women in films – often just subconsciously because the director is male. It is time to welcome more Kathryn Bigelows. More Julie Taymors. More Sofia Coppolas. Only when a balance among film directors is reached can many films finally break out of traditional gender stereotypes.
Modern America, in accordance to course materials and personal experiences, overtly sexualizes people, specifically among the youth, engendering new versions of gender expectations, roles, relationships, and how society views people based on appearance, sexual promiscuity or supposed promiscuity, and so on. Easy A (2011) represents an example clarifying how gender socialization impacts today’s youth via several concepts such as slut shaming, slut glorification, challenging masculinity, dating/hooking up, gender expectations and social acceptance. This film primarily focuses on a female’s promiscuity. Olive, the main character, is automatically labeled slut, after a rumor she unintentionally sparked by a bathroom conversation. Soon, the rumor spread and Olive became “school slut” in minutes.
Riskind, Arlyn G. "Romantic Comedies Affect Beliefs About Relationships Less Strongly Than Expected." National Communication Association (2013): 1-3. Print.
Women have made progress in the film industry in terms of the type of role they play in action films, although they are still portrayed as sex objects. The beginning of “a new type of female character” (Hirschman, 1993, pg. 41-47) in the world of action films began in 1976 with Sigourney Weaver, who played the leading role in the blockbuster film ‘Aliens’ as Lt. Ellen Ripley. She was the captain of her own spaceship, plus she was the one who gave out all the orders. Until then, men had always been the ones giving the orders; to see a woman in that type of role was outlandish. This was an astonishing change for the American industry of film. Sometime later, in 1984, Linda Hamilton starred in ‘The Terminator’, a film where she was not the leading character, but a strong female character as Sarah Connor. She had a combination of masculine and feminine qualities as “an androgynous superwoman, resourceful, competent and courageous, while at the same time caring, sensitive and intuitive” (Hirschman, 1993, pg. 41-47). These changes made in action films for female’s roles stirred up a lot of excitement in the “Western society” (Starlet, 2007). The demand for strong female characters in action films grew to a new high when Angelina Jolie starred in ‘Tomb Raider’ in 2001 and then in the sequel, ‘Tomb Raider II: The Cradle of Life’ in 2003 as Lara Croft. Her strong female character was not only masculine, but was also portrayed as a sex object. Most often, strong women in these types of films tend to fight without even gaining a mark. At the end of each fight, her hair and makeup would always be perfect. The female characters in these action films, whether their role was as the lead character or a supporting character, had similar aspects. I...
...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.
Feminist theory was derived from the social movement of feminism where political women fight for the right of females in general and argue in depth about the unequality we face today. In the aspect of cinema, feminists notice the fictitious representations of females and also, machismo. In 1974, a book written by Molly Haskell "From Reverence to Rape: The treatment of Women in Movies" argues about how women almost always play only passive roles while men are always awarded with active, heroic roles. Moreover, how women are portrayed in movies are very important as it plays a big role to the audience on how to look at a woman and how to treat her in real life due to the illusionism that cinema offers. These images of women created in the cinema shapes what an ideal woman is. This can be further explained through an article 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' written by a feminist named Laura Mulvey in 1975. She uses psychoanalysis theories by Sigmund Freud to analyze 'Scopophilia' which is the desire to see. This explains how the audience is hooked to the screen when a sexy woman is present. In a bigger picture, where Scopophilia derives from, 'Voyeurism' is also known as feeling visual pleasure when looking at another. Narcissism on the other hand means identifying one's self with the role played. It is not hard to notice that in classical cinema, men often play the active role while the women are always the object of desire for the male leads, displayed as a sexual object and frequently the damsels in distress. Therefore, the obvious imbalance of power in classical cinema shows how men are accountable to moving the narratives along. Subconsciously, narcissism occurs in the audience as they ...
Eben Harrell, a writer for Time Magazine, explains in the article entitled “Are Romantic Movies Bad For You?” that many couples being treated in therapy have problems as a result of the “misconceptions about love and romance depicted in Hollywood films” (Harrell 1). “Phillip Hodson, a fellow at the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy, says that while romantic comedies can cause problems for couples once they exit the euphoric first few years of a relationship, they also provide a much needed source of hope and inspiration for the unattached” (Harrell 1). While I do agree that romantic films can provide people with encouragement that there is somewhere in the world for them, I believe Hollywood’s portrayal of love is only acceptable to an extent. People must be careful not to project circumstances or expectations shown in films on their loved