Raising Awareness Through Mockery in Thelma and Louise In Brenda Cooper’s article “Chick Flicks,” she argues, the film, Thelma and Louise employs mockery as a narrative tool, and functions to produce a defiant narrative which fiercely confronts and denounces patriarchy. Societal norms are able to create a kind unconscious compliance, resulting in self-imposed coercion and oppression. A film like Thelma and Louise brings consciousness to women’s own complicity in social norms like patriarchy, so they can no longer blindly follow these norms. This leaves women in either a state of denial and resistance or a state of evolution and change. Through mockery this film sheds light on accepted norms, and in some, causes a defensive response, as it …show more content…
Thelma and Louise turn these ideas upside down throughout the film by both reversing these social constructs and violently rejecting them. For example, when Thelma asks the police officer to get into his trunk, she takes on the, dominate, gun wielding outlaw, and traditional male role. Police officers are usually characterized as the epitome of macho, but in this scene the police officer adopts the traits of a usually feminine character. He cries and begs, using his wife and kids as a way to gain sympathy. Perhaps the scene with the most blatant mockery of female objectification is the truck driver scene. After waving his tongue at them and shouting obscenities throughout the film, the women lure him into a trap. They call him out on his behavior and ask him to apologize, he responds by calling them crazy and yells, “Fuck You!” In response they blow up his truck. Cooper claims, the behavior of the truck driver, both mocks the male gaze and demonstrates its latent sexism. Furthermore, had the truck driver narrative been more subdued, with perhaps a smaller truck, or less obnoxious language, the point may have been lost. Without exaggeration of things like male dominance and sexism, the exaggerated responses of the women do not seem justified (Cooper 44). In other words, critics who call out the film for being overly feminist or too violent are simply missing the
" Hollywood producers influenced by the backlash trend in the media, created a series of movies that pitted the angry career woman against the domestic maternal "Good woman"."
American commercial cinema currently fuels many aspects of society. In the twenty-first century it has become available, active force in the perception of gender relations in the United States. In the earlier part of this century filmmakers, as well as the public, did not necessarily view the female“media image” as an infrastructure of sex inequality. Today, contemporary audiences and critics have become preoccupied with the role the cinema plays in shaping social values, institutions, and attitudes. American cinema has become narrowly focused on images of violent women, female sexuality, the portrayal of the “weaker sex” and subversively portraying women negatively in film. “Double Indemnity can be read in two ways. It is either a misogynist film about a terrifying, destroying woman, or it is a film that liberates the female character from the restrictive and oppressed melodramatic situation that render her helpless” (Kolker 124). There are arguably two extreme portrayals of the character of Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity; neither one is an accurate or fare portrayal.
Many are too quick to write off Thelma and Louise as a typical “chick-flick,” or “man-hating” movie. “Complete opposites who will by the end of the film have switched gender, grown closer, and develop to be opposites again. But always flying through life with the same end or common means to end the oppressive male tendencies of their lives,” (Kirkomatic). The men in the movie present themselves as suave, charming or abusive, domineering men. Yes, the director chose typical macho men to play the male characters. Yet, I believe Thelma and Louise treated them as “scum of the earth” because of there ...
Wesley, Marilyn C. "Reverence, Rape, Resistance: Joyce Carol Oates and Feminist Film Theory." Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 32.3 (1999): 75-85. Literature Online. 13 July 2002 .
In Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It stereotypical gender roles are systematically broken down through the obvious reversal of the classical Hollywood narration technique concerning the delineation between the man’s function and the woman’s usually less meaningful function within a film. Throughout this inverted spectacle, the point that Nola Darling is an independent woman is continually made. This point serves to propel the plot forward because Nola’s sexual independence goes against all conventions of typical womanhood much to the ire of three men. The film arranges for a battle between Nola and women in film aspiring to be independent on the one side, with men supported by classical Hollywood narration on the other seeking to undermine their
Most of the current social work clients and workers are women. This gender is also over-represented among women, which implies that women continue to face considerable issues in the modern society despite the changes in the traditional role of men and women in the society. Social welfare policy are usually developed and implemented to confront various issues in the society including the plight of women. However, recent statistics demonstrate that social welfare policy does not always meet women’s needs effectively. This is regardless of the fact that sexism and heterosexism play a crucial role is shaping social welfare policy. Therefore, it is important to develop effective social welfare policy
Thelma and Louise and Shirley are two films, which change that. They portray woman in a positive role, showing them in a positive light against male oppression. Although Shirley Valentine is a
These movies allowed female characters to embody all the contradictions that could make them a woman. They were portrayed as the “femme fatale” and also “mother,” the “seductress” and at the same time the “saint,” (Newsom, 2011). Female characters were multi-faceted during this time and had much more complexity and interesting qualities than in the movies we watch today. Today, only 16% of protagonists in movies are female, and the portrayal of these women is one of sexualization and dependence rather than complexity (Newsom, 2011).
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.
In the thirty years since its release, Alien has become a film of various debates amongst film theorists. Academic analyses of the film draw attention to many differing themes, most popularly with feminism. Most critiques, academic and otherwise, ultimately conclude that Alien is a feminist film because of its representation of the workplace as a home to equality and a place where traditional gender roles have been obliterated. What is ultimately revealed by Alien is the anxiety of men during the era of second-wave feminism in which the film was produced. This film provides a step forward for feminists, but imagines men taking two steps back in equality.
The film, "Thelma and Louise," challenged gender stereotyping by not portraying Thelma or Louise to be weak. In the film, Thelma and Louise committed a murder by shooting a man and leaving him dead in the parking of a night club. At first, Thelma and Louise were pretty devastated that they had committed a murder. After a few days of rest, and thinking, Thelma and Louise were able to pull themselves back together. Thelma and Louise were strong enough to come up with a plan to move to Mexico, change their name, and start a new life. Thelma and Louise were so strong that they both were able to keep their composure around new individuals that they
By dissecting the film, the director, Jennie Livingston's methodology and the audience's perceived response I believe we can easily ignore a different and more positive way of understanding the film despite the many flaws easy for feminist minds to criticize. This is in no way saying that these critiques are not valid, or that it is not beneficial to look at works of any form through the many and various feminist lenses.
Picture yourself as a woman in the 1940s. Life is rather mundane, you’re nothing but a housewife. You cook, clean, raise children, and dote upon your manly husband, your behavior is reinforced through film – an industry dominated by the patriarchy which stresses what a woman should do, and how a woman should act. Now, imagine you’re about to change all that. Picture yourself as the Femme Fatale. The Femme Fatale’s role in film, especially that of film noir became the ultimate reflection of the everyday defiant woman seeking equality. Therefore, in film noir, the femme fatale was able to significantly transgress the status quo of the societal norms of femininity and gave a voice to women which can be seen through her emergence post-WWII, the prewar norms of femininity and how she changed them, and her influence on women of the time.
The following outline reveals how the power of inequality is created through stereotypical female characters, overlooked traditional beliefs, different job occupations, and sexual objectification. With this in mind, I assembled a collage with images, words, and colours that convey these themes. The overall atmosphere of my analysis is established through a fiery red background colour. The colour red depicts the feelings of tension, fear, love, and frustration that are recurrently circulating among the female characters in the film.
Outline and assess the view that patriarchy is the main cause of gender inequality (40 marks)