This week our topics cover gender and sexuality. The two films "Bliss", directed by Abdullah Oguz and "Ma Vie en Rose," (My life in Pink), directed by Alain Berliner addresses certain issues about gender and sexuality and give the viewer insight into how other cultures and customs can react to such things.
In the first film Bliss, the director takes the viewer on a journey in the life of a young Turkish girl. Meryem was condemned to death for a crime she did not do. It is her village 's customs to have those killed that commit to shameful acts. Unable to commit suicide the leader of the village Ali, Meryem uncle, orders his son, Cemal to take her away to Istanbul to kill her. Unable to kill his cousin, Cemal decides to save Meryem and take
…show more content…
Ludovic is the young boy who believes he should be a girl. When his parents throw a party for all of the neighbors, Ludovic comes to the party dressed as a girl. His parents tried to shake it off as a joke, but the neighbors started to become concerned. Ludovic develops a crush on the neighbor and talks about marrying him even when his mother told him it is not right for a boy to marry another kid. Ludovic still believes he is a girl and puts on a pretend wedding at the neighbor 's house when the mother walks in on Ludovic about to kiss her son. Ludovic actions make the neighbors furious, and they tell their child not to hang around with Ludovic. Not understanding what is wrong Ludovic is sent to see a counselor, which his parents think will cure him. Through a series of events where Ludovic is starting to reveal his true nature, the neighbors grow more and more neglectful toward him. They even go as far as to get him kicked out of school for the way he has been acting, leading up to his father being fired from his job and forcing the family to move to the poorer neighborhood. At this point, the family is furious with Ludovic and wants it all to stop and blame him for ruining their lives. In their new neighborhood, Ludovic meets a transgender girl. At first glance, she looks like a boy, but is a girl. The girl invited Ludovic and his …show more content…
In Judith Butlers article she states that "Gender is a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo." (520) From this statement, we can assume that Butlers relates the actions of the body to a person 's gender. How you act and body language are some examples of relating the body to sex. In Susan Williams article she follows the gendering process of twenty-six girls and their regular regime of becoming a woman. Through the progression, she learns that the course of becoming a woman is more short-term than she, thought.(2002) After reading these two article, I came up with two themes that tied into both the items and the films. The two issues are discovering who you are, and that happiness depends on
Riseman, Barbara. “Gender as a Social Structure: Theory Wrestling with Activism.” Multicultural Film: An Anthology. Spring/Summer 2014. Eds. Kathryn Karrh Cashin and Lauren Martilli. Boston, MA: Pearson, 2013.
While female solidarity and partnership is at the center of Bande de filles, throughout the film, male opposition stands as its dividing factor. The benefits of women helping and building up other women become instrumental to the progressions within Bande de filles on multiple occasions. Sciamma (the film’s director) understanding that “[s]ame-sex friendships [provided] a dedicated space for women to give each other mutual support on gender issues…[and that] these friendships provide support during the process of breaking with gender conventions… [diminishing] women’s feelings of isolation or marginality (Bachmann 177)” became pivotal to individual and the collective female growth in Bande de filles. Furthermore, female solidarity allows for individual growth and exploration in a safe and understanding space, lead and directed by women for women. Throughout
Judith Butler’s concept of gender being performative focuses on how it creates a sequence of effect or impression. Human have a consistent way of talking about their gender as if it were something that is simply a fact. People go about their lives following patterns that are interconnected with their male or female appearance. They get very settled in the expected behaviors and common attributes of male or female, without recognizing that gender is a social construction. It is difficult to wrap your head around the idea that gender is always changing and being reproduced because it is conversation that often goes unnoticed. Butler realizes that it will be a struggle to get people to grasp the idea that nobody actually is their gender and that
In their publication, “Doing Gender, ” Candance West and Don H. Zimmerman put forward their theory of gender as an accomplishment; through, the daily social interactions of a man or woman which categorize them as either masculine or feminine. From a sociological perspective the hetero-normative categories of just sex as biological and gender as socially constructed, are blurred as a middle ground is embedded into these fundamental roots of nature or nurture.To further their ideology West and Zimmerman also draw upon an ethnomethodological case study of a transsexual person to show the embodiment of sex category and gender as learned behaviours which are socially constructed.Therefore, the focus of this essay will analyze three ideas: sex, sex
Gender, in society today, is clarified as either being male which embodies traits of masculinity or on the other hand being female embodying traits of femininity. However the embodiment of these traits are just actions, decisions, or expressions rather than sexual anatomical features we are born and constrained by. Gender depictions are less a consequence of our "essential sexual natures" than interactional portrayals of what we would like to convey about sexual natures, using conventionalized gestures. (West, Zimmerman p.130) This excerpt reinforces the idea that society should view gender not as a absolute but rather a work in progress during your day to day routine. This capability to accept that gender is something you do rather than something that is leads opens up the tolerance to realize the implications that traditional gender views have impacted
Using the movie Love Jones I will talk about the characteristics of male/male and female/female relationship as they are portrayed in the film. Then I will talk about how different the female/male relationship is and focus primarily on their communication styles. There is some harsh vocabulary included in my essay but only in quotations that I have taken from the movie itself to communicate what was going on in the scenes I have chose to talk about.
In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Mulvey states that, “Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen.” (Mulvey 40). A woman’s role in the narrative is bound to her sexuality or the way she
This article was written to bring attention to the way men and women act because of how they were thought to think of themselves. Shaw and Lee explain how biology determines what sex a person is but a persons cultures determines how that person should act according to their gender(Shaw, Lee 124). The article brings up the point that, “a persons gender is something that a person performs daily, it is what we do rather than what we have” (Shaw, Lee 126). They ...
The terms sex, gender and sexuality relate with one another, however, sociologists had to distinguish these terms because it has it’s own individual meaning. Sex is the biological identity of a person when they are first born, like being a male or female. Gender is the socially learned behaviors and expectations associated with men and women like being masculine or feminine. Gender can differentiate like being a man, woman, transgender, intersex, etcetera. Sexuality refers to desire, sexual preference, and sexual identity and behavior (1). Sexuality can differentiate as well like being homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, etcetera. Like all social identities, gender is socially constructed. In the Social Construction of Gender, this theory shows
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.
Therefore, gender brings is the action through which what it names is brought into being; masculinity or feminism. It is the language that constitutes and construct gender identities meaning gender comes after language. The extent to which a person performs the gender determine how much real a gender is. An outside gendered self or a self-preceding isn’t there; gender identity is not necessarily constructed by “I “or “we”. Social conventions enactments which is due to our retrospective reality results in subjectivity characterised by self-willingness and independence as contended by Butler. From this we learn the prerogative nature of gender identity, is determined by the situation in which one is in like society, contact etc. therefore certain social positions can potentially produce a privileged
Gender is such a ubiquitous notion that humans assume gender is biological. However, gender is a notion that is made up in order to organize human life. It is created and recreated giving power to the dominant gender, creating an inferior gender and producing gender roles. There are many questionable perspectives such as how two genders are learned, how humans learn their own gender and others genders, how they learn to appropriately perform their gender and how gender roles are produced. In order to understand these perspectives, we must view gender as a social institution. Society bases gender on sex and applies a sex category to people in daily life by recognizing gender markers. Sex is the foundation to which gender is created. We must understand the difference between anatomical sex and gender in order to grasp the development of gender. First, I will be assessing existing perspectives on the social construction of gender. Next, I will analyze three case studies and explain how gender construction is applied in order to provide a clearer understanding of gender construction. Lastly, I will develop my own case study by analyzing the movie Mrs. Doubtfire and apply gender construction.
Identities are an important part of the human experience. One of the many identities that creates a person is gender. Society, being the entity establishing social norms and social roles, plays a part in effecting the individual’s gender, and how they choose to express themself. The underlying or overlying identities also have the same effect. Gender is not only an identity, it is a lifestyle inside and out. Gender, like race, class, and sexuality; is not limited to the binary scale, and that is normal, natural, and human. The concept of gender is man-made, but it forces one’s hand to analyze the thought processes behind an individual's perception on gender through self, through society, or through the dichotomy and/or correspondence of the
The relationship between sex and gender can be argued in many different lights. All of which complicated lights. Each individual beholds a sexual identity and a gender identity, with the argument of perceiving these identities however way they wish to perceive them. However, the impact of gender on our identities and on our bodies and how they play out is often taken for granted in various ways. Gender issues continue to be a hugely important topic within contemporary modern society. I intend to help the reader understand that femininities and masculinities is a social constructed concept and whether the binary categories of “male” and “female” are adequate concepts for understanding and organising contemporary social life with discussing the experiences of individuals and groups who have resisted these labels and forged new identities.
Sex and gender are terms that are mixed up from day to day and seen as similarities rather than differences. Sex is what distinguishes people from being either male or female. It is the natural or biological variations between males and females (Browne, 1998). Some of these variations are genitals, body hair and internal and external organs. It is the make-up of chromosomes, men have one X and one Y chromosome and women have two X chromosomes, these are responsible for primary characteristics (Fulcher and Scott, 2003). Gender on the other hand refers to the sociological differences between male and female. This is teaching males and females to behave in various ways due to socialisation (Browne, 1998). Example: masculinity and femininity. Girls are supposed to show their femininity by being non-competitive, sensitive, dependent, attractive and placid. If and when some girls don’t succeed in keeping this image they will be referred to as a tomboy. On the other hand, boys show their masculinity through aggression, physical strength...