In Se7en, female characters are hardly displayed or played in a clearly constructed role that ideological society planned for them: supporting the man. In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, Laura Mulvey states “Psychoanalytic theory is this appropriate here as a political weapon, demonstrating the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structure film form” (837). By looking at the three looks associated with cinema: the camera, the audience, and the characters at each other she discuss the constructed gender roles within society’s ideology. “Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his phantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing …show more content…
This scene is set, as Mulvey puts, to reinforce the idea: “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female figure which is styled accordingly. 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” (841). The second time she is making dinner, again for her husband and his friend, and the third time was at the diner discussing whether or not to keep her baby because she cannot be a burden to her husband. “An active/passive heterosexual division of labor has similarly controlled narrative structure” (Mulvey, 842). The role of males and females in society is dictated by the patriarchal structure Mulvey …show more content…
Her entire function within this movie is dictated by her husband. She stays at home, cooks, and prepares to bear children. “The particularly severe repression of female sexuality and creativity, the attribution to the female of passivity, and her preparation for her subordinate, dependent role in our culture” (Wood, 198). Detective Mills needs Tracy’s submissive role to support his dominant role because in ideology “men represent their real conditions of existence to themselves in an imaginary form” (Althusser, 16). Simply put, by objectifying her, he becomes the imaginary representation of the man: dominant and masculine. This embodiment of the typical subservient woman who must be placed on a pedestal and protected supports the films theme of the dominant male influence within social structure. Without her, he would not be able to represent his dominant role in society. Living in a patriarchal, capitalistic society, John Doe and his proletariat status give him little opportunity to communicate his message. Wood states, “basic repression makes us
You notice this to be so because Mrs. Peters is struggling against what she is hearing the men say versus what she feels herself. When Mrs. Hale tells Mrs. Peters that she would hate for the men to be in her kitchen snooping around and criticizing, Mrs. Peters responds by saying "Of course it’s no more than their duty". This reflects to me a lady who has been so brain washed by the manly view of her time that she can’t even see the simple feelings that women feel for and between each other.
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.
In conclusion, todays cinematic evolvement through being more accepting of sexual themes as well as representation of different sexual orientations, in both characters and audience alike, contributes to further objectifying people in an erotic sense to please different kind of spectators. Furthermore, it enables male characters to be subjected to erotic objectification and is therefore not a portrayal exclusive in portraying females. However, this remodels the way male and female characters are depicted as it in a sense equalizes them through the same kind of degrading portrayal as sexual objects.
Smith, Jeff, and Chloe Beighley. "Normalizing Male Dominance: Gender Representation in 2012 Films." Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy. N.p., 12 Feb. 2013. Web. 1 Apr. 2014.
The 1970s was an era of great innovation in the television industry in regards to broadcasting politically and socially relevant fictional programs; however, despite its progress in representing social and political movements and more complex minority characters, television’s representation of women remained stagnant, if not regressive. In an era of highly visible second wave feminism, how can that be? One possible reason is evident in the case of The Mod Squad, in which the emerging contemporary crime drama genre renegotiates women’s role in television programs masking their immobility and rendering its regressive feminine politics of inferiority and adherence to traditional gender norms more overt through narrative and plot adjacency, thus
In the 19th Century, women had different roles and treated differently compared to today’s women in American society. In the past, men expected women to carry out the duties of a homemaker, which consisted of cleaning and cooking. In earlier years, men did not allow women to have opinions or carry on a job outside of the household. As today’s societies, women leave the house to carry on jobs that allow them to speak their minds and carry on roles that men carried out in earlier years. In the 19th Century, men stereotyped women to be insignificant, not think with their minds about issues outside of the kitchen or home. In the play Trifles, written by Susan Glaspell, the writer portrays how women in earlier years have no rights and men treat women like dirt. Trifles is based on real life events of a murder that Susan Glaspell covered during her work as a newspaper reporter in Des Moines and the play is based off of Susan Glaspell’s earlier writing, “A Jury of Her Peers”. The play is about a wife of a farmer that appears to be cold and filled with silence. After many years of the husband treating the wife terrible, the farmer’s wife snaps and murders her husband. In addition, the play portrays how men and women may stick together in same sex roles in certain situations. The men in the play are busy looking for evidence of proof to show Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. As for the women in the play, they stick together by hiding evidence to prove Mrs. Wright murdered her husband. Although men felt they were smarter than women in the earlier days, the play describes how women are expected of too much in their roles, which could cause a woman to emotionally snap, but leads to women banding together to prove that women can be...
Throughout this essay it will be discussed how female representations affects society, what has changed, if has changed during the years. Representations of women were a crucial subject of discussion especially in the concepts of the gaze that often refers to women as objects of the active gaze. The gaze establishes relationships of power, representing different codes such as dominance and subjugation, difference and otherness (Sturken and Cartwright 2009: 111).
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.
Constitutional patriarchy instilled by the government in Central Europe greatly affected women during the time period following World War I. Communism attempted to give women more rights and promote their equality among men, but it failed to do so often. As a regime, patriarchy favored masculine gender roles throughout numerous aspects of society. Loves of a Blonde, Man is Not a Bird, Daisies, and A Woman Alone display the effect of patriarchy on women and how women could be successful or unsuccessful on attempting to go against it. The women in the films showed how women were pressured by society to accept relationships and a role in family, which were repressive. However, not all women conformed to the pressure and attempted to change their lives by taking different attitudes and actions toward the situation. By observing these films, a viewer can receive a viewpoint on how patriarchal society affected women and how women acted on their positions.
A number of popular television shows and films filling mainstream media today have taken a spin to promote women to main character roles of power and command. The traits of these female characters, however, become illusionary as plots thicken to reveal their status to be subordinate to leading male character roles; of which are typically controlling or manipulative over gender stereotypic female traits within the script. While media is being blindly applauded for their newfound glorification of women in power, there remains an underlying message of male supremacy in more than many broadcasted portrayals. Today’s mainstream television media delivers a notion that only a man can pave way for the merit of a woman.
Also, the film revealed women empowerment and how superior they can be compared to men. While demonstrating sexual objectification, empowerment, there was also sexual exploitation of the women, shown through the film. Throughout this essay, gender based issues that were associated with the film character will be demonstrated while connecting to the real world and popular culture.
The films message to viewers about gender and power is that women are meant to take care of the home and play the supportive role, while men go out to their jobs and provide. Men are strong and burly and women are naïve and domesticated. Women need men and men always come to the rescue to save women and give them a happy ending. Power is portrayed in the film both visually and through the film’s script and dialogue. The common idea that women are inferior to men is placed subtly in this movie throughout the plot and how these charac...
Feminism is a movement that supports women equality within society. In relation to film, feminism is what pushes the equal representation of females in mainstream films. Laura Mulvey is a feminist theorist that is famous for touching on this particular issue of how men and women are represented in movies. Through her studies, she discovered that many films were portraying men and women very differently from reality. She came up with a theory that best described why there is such as huge misrepresentation of the social status quos of male and female characters. She believed that mainstream film is used to maintain the status quo and prevent the realization of gender equality. This is why films are continuously following the old tradition that males are dominant and females are submissive. This is the ideology that is always present when we watch a movie. This is evident in the films from the past but also currently. It is as if the film industry is still catering to the male viewers of each generation in the same way. Laura Mulvey points out that women are constantly being seen as sexual objects, whether it is the outfits they wear or do not wear or the way they behave, or secondary characters with no symbolic cause. She states that, “in 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 it-be-looked-at-ness.”(Mulvey pg. 715). Thus, women are nevertheless displayed as nothing more than passive objects for the viewing pleasure of the audience. Mulvey also points out through her research that in every mainstream movie, there is ...
The representation of violence exacted upon women in cinema is inextricable from being projected upon all women. To provide a scene that objectifies the female is to reduce the feminine form to its non-dual state, e.g., a sexual object providing a vessel for male gratification (hubris and sexual) rather then being defined by its duality of sentient and physical forms. Those who construct scenes of violence against women are bound to a moral responsibility to subjectify the woman’s perspective, thus reestablishing the female as a victim rather then an object and rendering the act of violence intelligible (deplorable, open to interpretation).