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narrative and gender roles
representations of sexuality in films
african american portrayal in media
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The Last King of Scotland, directed by Kevin MacDonald and based on the novel of the same name by Giles Foden, shapes events from the reign of notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (Forest Whitaker) into a dramatic and attention-grabbing narrative. However, the film, which was praised by critics and garnered a Best Actor win for Whitaker at the Academy Awards, focuses far too much on “sexual conquests of a young white doctor who heads to Uganda in search of adventure” (Leader). By blending together real people in order to create artificial romantic subplots, it not only skates over fascinating historical detail, but also fails to portray any women as nuanced or developed characters. Rather than developing their personalities or exploring their motivations, it portrays female characters as either mindless sex objects whose only purpose is to provide male characters and viewers with pleasure, or as beings whose only purpose and motivation is their maternal instinct and who are shaped only by their reproductive choices. By crushing women into two-dimensional caricatures, the film robs itself of credibility and sacrifices historical legitimacy in favour of cheap entertainment. From the opening moments of the film, the implausible sexual hijinks begin. The very first English-speaker that Garrigan encounters (The Last King of Scotland 3:59) is eager to leap into bed with the unprepossessing Scot, initiating the first of the film’s gratuitous sex scenes (05:20). The camera focuses on Garrigan’s exultant face as he cries “I’m a medical officer overseas!”, only the nameless woman’s bouncing breasts visible at the edge of the screen. In fact, there are only three named female characters in the film, two of whom are the objects of Garrigan’s... ... middle of paper ... ...ic film Deep Throat (92:57), which Amin and his advisers are watching when Garrigan interrupts him. Sex and death are juxtaposed and used for shock and entertainment value throughout the film. Women are relegated to the role of seductress, mother or both, with no room to develop and no motivations other than copulation and reproduction. Both of the major female characters – those who are granted more than a single, topless appearance - are defined solely by who they sleep with. Rather than creating a nuanced and detailed portrayal of this important era in Ugandan history, The Last King of Scotland descends to the level of cheap thrills and gratuitous content. The film shocks rather than informs, running roughshod over its female characters and squandering the opportunity to tell these important stories with the respect and good taste that they so amply deserve.
The film Scotland, PA is an excellent adaptation of Shakespeare’s masterpiece Macbeth because it makes the play more relatable to more modern times. The director took the plot of the play, but put it into the 1970s, being a much more relatable t...
No society remains immobile, even if some human beings resist changes. The advances in technology and the emergence of new beliefs allow people to have a broader imagination. Thus, numerous new interpretations of ancient works, whether they are plays, folktales, or poems, permeate around the world. These renditions re-tell the original stories in contexts that adjust to modern world. What was regarded serious in the past becomes mockery nowadays. William Shakespeare, one of the greatest English play writers, has a profound influence upon different societies globally since the fifteenth century, for his plays inspire many contemporary artists to present new scopes reflecting their societies. Considered as one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, Macbeth has a completely disparate interpretation in the movie Scotland, PA, which translates the original play into a black comedy. A Scottish royal and general, Macbeth the protagonist undergoes a demonic transformation in personality, in which he unethically takes the crown by murdering numerous characters. The director of the movie alters the plot while maintaining the basic semblance of power, ambition, and masculinity from Shakespeare’s work. In the movie, the alteration of the process Macbeth usurps the power of Duncan, including his internal and external incentives, gives the audience a fresh perspective on one of the English classical plays.
In Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, she presents a number of very interesting facts regarding the ways that the sexual imagery of men and women respectively are used in the world of film. One such fact is that of the man as the looker and the female as the looked upon, she argues that the woman is always the object of reifying gaze, not the bearer if it. And “[t]he determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto 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 be connote to-be-looked-at-ness” (487). Mulvey makes the claim that women are presented and primped into this role of “to-be-looked-at-ness”. They are put into films for this purpose and for very little other purposes. However, this argument cannot be incorporated with The Treasure of the Sierra Madre; the existence of women in the film is extremely insignificant to an extent that could be considered absent. “In a world ordered by sexual imbalance,” male serves as the dominant figures with which the viewer can identify, women only appear in the film for a very short moment of time. For instance, the appearance of women is only shown when Howard rescues the ill child in the village and his return to the village for hospitality reception...
Macbeth and An Inspector calls were plays written in different time periods. The central female character in An Inspector Calls is Sheila and the central female character in Macbeth is Lady Macbeth. Sheila Birling comes from a well-known, wealthy factory owner and Lady Macbeth is wife of a thane, named Macbeth. Both of the plays show a certainty of evil, but the central female characters in Macbeth and An Inspector Calls differ but are rarely shown as similar.
Although I do not intend here to resolve the question of gender in Macbeth (actually, I hope to provoke further thoughts on interpretation), I do wish to note that Shakespeare has forcefully bound the cultural problem of violence to the promulgation and validation of the roles a community assigns by sex. Read the play; attend a performance; consider the moral and ethical implications bound up in the plot of a would-be king who sheds true manhood even as he fulfills the masculine ideal.
Shakespeare’s Macbeth documents a man’s desire for power, and the murderous acts that he commits in order to gain it. Nevertheless, it equally focuses on his power-crazed wife and her amplified drive for control. Macbeth and his wife are joined by more than holy matrimony. Shakespeare creates an intriguing relationship that traces the downfall of not a single person, but an entity comprised of two. The concentration is directed on this oneness through the plot progression within Macbeth, in which the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are reversed.
Throughout history, the role of women in society was infinitesimal. They were considered to have few jobs and often did not play any major part in political and social matters. However in the story of Macbeth, women play a few very influential and negative roles. The only women who appear in the play are the witches, Lady Macbeth, and Lady Macduff. All of these characters can be openly seen as hateful. Numerous times throughout the play women perform menacing acts and it can be argued that women are the cause of Macbeth’s transformation from a revered warrior to an evil tyrant. In the Shakespeare’s Macbeth, women are depicted as manipulative, insane, and distrustful.
Lady Macbeth adopts a different strategy to use her female influence to convince her husband Macbeth to kill for the coveted throne, but each conversation takes her closer to her untimely deat...
William Shakespeare’s, Macbeth, displays what a man is willing to do to obtain the highest level of power. When Macbeth is first introduced, he is viewed as a man with great gallantry and heroism because he is able to prove his loyalties to the King of Scotland, Duncan. However, Macbeth’s masculinity begins to come into question, when he lets the three witches’ prophecies guide his decisions on his journey to become king. Usually, women are thought to be the “weaker sex”, while men are the powerful and dominant. However, Shakespeare approaches manhood and womanhood ambiguously. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are the center of attraction when it comes to gender roles. The Macbeth’s have traits that are not the normal way females and males, are ‘supposed’
she calls on the spirits to "unsex" her in Act 1 scene 5. She does
Lady Macbeth is one of the most compelling characters who challenges the concept of gender roles. Her relationship with Macbeth is atypical, particularly due to the standards of its time. Lady Macbeth becomes the psychologically controlling force over her husband, essentially assuming a masculine role, in order to inspire the aggression needed to fulfil his ambitions. Through her powerful taunts and persuasion, Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to murder the king and to take his throne. She emasculates over her husband repeatedly, knowing that in his desperation to prove his manhood, he will perform the acts she wishes. In Act 1, Scene 5
During the Elizabethan era, a woman did not have any say in the relationship with her husband, but Shakespeare’s Macbeth changes this accepted theory. Lady Macbeth is a woman ahead of her time; she is caught between today’s ambitious, powerful woman and a fragile, powerless creature of the Elizabethan era. At the beginning of this tragedy, she is vicious, overly ambitious, without conscience, and willing to do whatever it takes to get what she wants. As Macbeth becomes less dependent on his wife, Lady Macbeth loses control of her husband, but mostly of herself. She is so wrapped up in the greedy world Shakespeare creates that she fails to consider the consequences of her actions more realistically. Lady Macbeth lives as if she is a woman ahead of her tiime, but she dies like she is from the “golden age of drama”.
The story of Lady Macbeth throughout Macbeth is one unlike those of its time in its unusually forward-thinking portrayal of a woman with thoughts and actions which would have been considered indecent. This is seen through the representation of her relationship with Macbeth and how they interact. It is also illustrated through Lady Macbeth’s morals and their effect on how she acts and reacts in situations which would weigh heavily on most peoples’ conscious. Her power-hungry attitude is one often reserved for men, especially in this era of literature. All of these factors create a character in Lady Macbeth which is dissimilar to the classic portrayal of women in the seventeenth century.
In the play, Macbeth, the power of a woman is a strong force to be reckoned with. Many times in the play, the female characters have proven their equality with any man. From the witches to Lady Macbeth, these characters show their power either in words or in actions. The women, in the play Macbeth, contradict the roles set by society in 1606. Women who over stepped their boundaries were considered a threat to the people and were punished severely. It was shocking to the public to see such masculine female characters in Macbeth.
Traditionally, men have been the superior partner in a relationship. Throughout time men have always been the one who is outspoken and dominant in marriages. Shakespeare tends to move away from these traditional gender roles and write woman who are strong and independent. In his play, Macbeth, Shakespeare has Lady Macbeth take on a more dominant, cruel and “manly” role in the marriage while Macbeth submits to his wife’s demands thus giving him a more “womanly” role. Both of these characters go through many role reversals between the two of them and subsequently their greed for power leads them to their downfall.