Stop trying to make fetch happen

Hooks presents a new way of looking for me, a new way of viewing cinema. She describes a look as being “confrontational, as gestures of resistance, challenges to authority (Hooks,247).” When viewing with an oppositional gaze, it’s obvious that mainstream cinema continues to be very problematic due to its unequal representation of minority groups, as well as its overrepresentation of wealthy white people.A cult classic, Mean Girls(2004) is a great example of this.

The dominant representation of this movie is a lighthearted comedy of a girl just trying to find her place in the hierarchy that is high school after being homeschooled her whole life. The protagonist, Cady has just moved from Africa to Illinois to attend public high school for the first time. She finds herself with the popular clique, the “plastics”, who are all white, wealthy and stereotypically pretty. Everyoneat school wants to be like or with Regina George, the leader of the Plastics. The problem with this dominant representation is that it portrays the white woman as more desirable than other races. This film also focuses a lot on race and separates groups based on their race and general personality. For example, the cafeteria is divided into groups like “cool Asians”, “nerdy Asians”, “unfriendly black hotties”, etc. They most often associate being popular with being wealthy and white.

This all becomes apparent when you view the film with an oppositional gaze with lens of race, gender and class. As previously discussed, all of the main characters that are viewed as appealing happen to be white.“…black female spectators have had to develop looking relations within a cinematic context that constructs our presence as absence, that denies the “body” of the black female so as to perpetuate white supremacy and with it a phallocentric spectatorship where the woman to be looked at and desired is “white” (Hooks, 250).” This is true for Mean Girls, with no people of color playing a significant role, and when there is a person of color they’re being stereotyped. Along with this, the females are shown are extremely sexualized. Regina and her clique are constantly obsessing about their image and weight, and in addition to this they put others down for not conforming to their definition of pretty.

Mulvey’s theory of male gaze is another dominant theme. She comes to the conclusion that “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 (Mulvey, 33).” The plastics are constantly dressed to impress, with rules dedicated to not wearing sweatpants and wearing pink on Wednesdays. Apart from this, they are constantly being looked at by men and women, for pleasure and always under scrutiny. This act of being looked at is evident during the Halloween party and the talent show especially. They describe Halloween as being the one time of the year that you can dress like a “total slut” and no one judges. All the girls dress in lingerie and animal ears in an attempt to look sexy and appeal to the men at the party, at one point we can see two females kissing and two men cheering them on while they watch. This is an obvious example of Mulvey’s male gaze, using the women as an object for the male sexual pleasure. They also serve as an erotic object for the audience watching the film. During the talent show, the Plastics are dressed in sexy Santa outfits and dance in a way that can be observed as provocative. In this scene, a male character approaches a different girl and says, “damn, rather see you out there shaking your thang” outright objectifying and reducing her value as a person, a very common theme.

When viewing with a lens of economic class this film continues to show how problematic it really is. The fact that the plastics as all wealthy is made apparent to the audience from the very beginning and is meant to add to their appeal. It is pointed out that Gretchen’s father invented the toaster strudel and is extremely wealthy. We also quickly find out that Regina lives in a mansion and is not modest about it. Even Cady, although her house is more modest, lives very comfortable with two successful, educated parents. This is a concern when analyzing the movie because similar to the lack of women of color, the lack of lower class portrays the superiority of the wealthy. This wealth also aligns closely with the hierarchy of the high school, the more money you have the more popular you are despite your personality.

One might argue that this is just a comedy and harmless satire. However, this film is still relevant to this day and has had an influence on the youth. All films are very purposeful and thought out. “The filmmaker and the editor watch the collected footage over and over, deciding which portions of which takes they will assemble into the final cut of a movie. They do so with the same scrutiny that was applied to the actual filming. Even if something occurred on film without their planning for it, they make a conscious choice whether to include that chance occurrence. What was chance in the filming becomes choice in editing (Smith, 128).” Every detail of mean girls was scrutinized by multiple people who were all very aware of the messages that it was sending to its audience. All aspects from using the “R” word multiple time to the lack of colored cast members, along with all the other problematic factors the film portrays.

References:

Hooks, bell. (2002). “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators,” in Black Looks: Race and Representation.

Mulvey, Laura. (1975). “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16(3), 30.

Smith, Greg. (2001). “’It’s Just a Movie”: A Teaching Essay for Introductory Media Classes.” Cinema Journal 41(1), 127-134.

Indiana Jones, and the Examples of things not to do

Media Example

 

 

The Indiana Jones movie series directed by Steven Spielberg has been one of the most successful in Hollywood, and well loved by many including myself. However, looking back at the famous series I have noticed  lot of things that are unacceptable, but still exist today in the cinema. A prevalent example of this in the Media is “The White Savior Complex”  – in a nutshell, it refers to a white person who rescues people of color from oppression. Author Julien Gignac mentions this his piece “The Revenant’s White-Savior Complex”. Indiana Jones and the temple of doom takes place in India, where the locals are portrayed as uneducated, backwards, and untrustworthy compared to the westerners, not to mention that the whole town is considered a haven for thieves which has been seen in the west as  accurate  portrayal of India, and its constituents.

 

The town in question is target of a cult that kidnaps its victims and have had their hearts removed to please the Hindu goddess Kali. Prior to Jones’s arrival the victims are unable to stand up to the cult, and fail recognize their freedom to exist, however that all changes when Jones presence. He is the Savior who can overcome the antagonist freeing the village of oppression, and let’s not forget that with Jones’s arrival the idea of western civility is brought to the under privileged village and all his gifts are celebrated by the locals. (e.g. archaeological practices, eating etiquettes, and religion). As Julien Gignac puts (in context of Revenant) – “ indigeneity seems ultimately subservient to the white protagonist”

 

Source: “The Revenant’s White-Savior Complex” The Globe and Mail. January 21, 2016

Media Example: Feminist Filmmaking Practice in Morvern Callar

Early in Lynne Ramsey’s film Morvern Callar (2002), after the titular character, Morvern, has decided to ignore her boyfriend’s suicide and go out  to a house party with her friend, she escapes the party and goes out to the water. Standing there alone in the dark she is caught in the lights of a passing boat. The lights flick on to her and then off, then back as though surprised to see a person on the cold shore and once the light settles on her, once she commands its attention, she slowly lifts her skirt, and stands unmoving, staring out at us.

Ramsey frames this as a long shot which leaves the detail of Morvern’s body unclear. She appears less a body then a blur of black and white. As Mulvey notes in her analysis of Sternberg’s films, “The beauty of the woman as object and the screen space coalesce; she is…a perfect product whose body, stylized and fragmented through close up is the content of the film and the direct recipient of the spectator’s gaze”(Mulvey 65) and so the long shot disrupts the fetishistic idolizing of the female refusing to assuage the castration anxiety of the male spectator and establishes a relationship other than object to Morvern.

In Lorraine Leu’s analysis of Madame Sata she notes that “The film oscillates between the racialized gaze to which João is subjected and the defiant “oppositional gaze” (hooks 2003) he directs back as he generates his own representations” (Leu 81). As in Madame Sata, Morvern looks back and resists the gaze and then moves beyond mere resistance to directly confront the erotic scopophilia of the gaze by lifting her skirts, as though to say, “Is this what you came for?”. And it is this kind of resistance that is evident throughout the film and exemplifies the “feminist filmmaking practice” (hooks 262) that hooks via Doane describes.

Mulvey, Laura Mulvey, Laura; Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (1975). Screen Volume, Issue 16, 6-18.

Leu, Lorraine; Performing Race and Gender in Brazil: Karim Ainouz’s Madame Satã (2002). Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts, Volume 4, Number 1, Autumn 2010,  83

hooks, Bell.  “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.” Movies and Mass Culture:, 1996, pp. 247-269.

The Princess Bride Providing Poor Female Representation? Inconceivable!

When watching The Princess Bride as a child, my main take-aways were that I loved Princess Buttercup’s orange dress, I wanted for long, flowy hair like hers, you can survive drinking poison if you train yourself, and that while rolling down any type of hill, you must yell “as you wish”. Watching it as I get older, I have become much more critical of the film, mostly of Princess Buttercup’s helplessness throughout the movie, her many opportunities to be empowered that she refuses to take advantage of, and the obvious sexualization present in the film.

According to bell hooks, it is important to develop an oppositional gaze when analyzing films. Developing this ability to critique the film by being aware of the absence of correct representation is important in giving the option “not to identify with the film’s imaginary subject because such identification [is] disenabling” (hooks, 254). In this analysis of The Princess Bride, I am going to use an oppositional gaze to analyze the female role that is represented by Princess Buttercup’s character. Buttercup is depicted as completely powerless, tossed between two men, and sexualized throughout the movie.

This movie was intended to be a fairy tale love story. It is not a surprise that many people love this film, because it has striking similarities to Disney princess movies, or any fairy tale story you’ve ever read. But there are still many flaws in this film regarding how Princess Buttercup’s role as a woman is represented. This type of movie follows a specific plot. In Greg Smith’s article, “It’s Just a Movie”, he challenges the readers to think about how many aspects in a movie are just automatically known by the audience, because we “read into” the movie with past experience (Smith, 131). Our past experiences of romantic films allow these negative stereotypes of how women are represented to be presented because they follow our expectations of how these fantasy movies should be.

It is no surprise that a film intended to be a princess, fairy tale movie depicts the main character as helpless and just a pawn in a man’s romantic journey, but this film also fails to create any type of character development for the main character, Buttercup. Buttercup’s character stays pretty static throughout the movie.

In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey writes about Budd Boetticher’s critique of female representation in film. Budd writes that “what counts is what the heroine provokes, or rather what she represents. She is the one, or rather the love or fear she inspires in the hero, or else the concern he feels for her, who makes him act the way he does. In herself, the woman has not the slightest importance” (Mulvey, 33). This is evident throughout The Princess Bride.

Princess Buttercup character appears to be important solely in order to provide a reason for the two men who are fighting over her, Westley and Prince Humperdinck, to show off their manliness through sword fights, scaling cliffs, and drinking poison. Buttercup’s character seems to provide nothing by itself, but its purpose in the film is to create an interesting plot for the male characters to be able to develop. She is shown as an object, being moved between men with little regard for her feelings.

Buttercup is seen as a helpless woman throughout the film. One of the obvious examples is after when Westley is attacked by a Rodent of Unusual Size and Buttercup refuses to do anything but play the victim, providing another opportunity for Westley to become the hero. Through this scene, it gives more value on Westley’s character, making him appear selfless, strong, and heroic, while just reiterating the fact that Buttercup’s character would not be able to fend for herself and needs a man to save her. This is also an example of an opportunity where she could have presented herself as a strong and independent woman. She had just figured out that the love of her life is still alive, and when he is attacked, she does absolutely nothing to try to kill or fight the creature.

Another way this movie was flawed was in its inability to pass the Bechdel test. The Bechdel test is a measure of a women’s representation in a film. This is measured by three criteria:

1. Two women are in the film
2. The two women need to talk to each other
3. The two women need to talk to each other about something other than a man (“Bechdel Test”, 2018)

These criteria are pretty wide, and it seems like it should be very easy to find movies which fit all three criteria. But, unfortunately, this is not the case, or else there would have been no need to create the Bechdel test to analyze women’s representation in film. The Princess Bride fails to meet these criteria. Buttercup is one of three women in the movie who have any type of dialogue, and the other two women play insignificant roles. One of these women is the woman who boos Buttercup in her nightmare, so it isn’t even a true part of the plot. After hearing the woman boo, Buttercup says “Why do you do this?”, but then the subject quickly switches to talking about why the woman was booing in the first place: Westley, a man, therefore not allowing The Princess Bride to pass the Bechdel test.

Sexualization of Buttercup is evident throughout the movie. This again brings us back to Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, where Mulvey introduces the idea of “looked-at-ness”. Women are often portrayed in films as to be the source of the male gaze. They are objectified through men being the “bearer of the look” (Mulvey, 33). This creates the idea that women are not to have importance in a film, but just to be an object of the male gaze

Buttercup’s main sources of attention come from the fact that she is beautiful. Even towards the end of the film, when she is planning to take her own life, she kisses Humperdinck’s father, but then tells him that she is planning on killing herself “once [she] reaches the honeymoon suite”. Although this information is quite morbid, the only thing the King apparently got out of the interaction was the fact that Buttercup had kissed him.

Then, as Westley finds Buttercup in the honeymoon suite, with a knife pressed to her chest, he says “There’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world, it would be a pity to damage yours”. This comment completely ignores the fact that she was incredibly unhappy to the point of actually attempting to take her own life and places her life value as less important than her boobs through objectifying her.

Although this movie is a favorite for many hopeless romantics, it’s important to understand the flaws in female representation in the film. Women are constantly being portrayed as helpless, unable to live on their own, and sexualized and objectified in mainstream media. It’s important to be critical of these films because through critiquing these films, we are developing an oppositional gaze and choose to not identify with the misrepresentation of our identities in mainstream films.

 

Sources:

“Bechdel Test.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 Oct. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel_test.

Hooks, Bell. “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators.” Movies and Mass Culture, 1996, pp. 254.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, 1990, pp. 33.

Smith, Greg M. “‘It’s Just a Movie’: A Teaching Essay for Introductory Media Classes.” Cinema Journal, vol. 41, no. 1, 2001, pp. 131

Sucker Punch: Could it be any more obvious that it was produced by a man?

The movie, Sucker Punch, starts with the main character, 20-year-old “Babydoll”, sitting in her room with her hair in perfect blonde curled pigtails, makeup looks professionally done, false lashes, plump lips, porcelain skin; a fantasy woman for most straight men. This is only the beginning of the sexualization of all the female characters in this movie. Sucker Punch masks itself as a “feminist film” as it includes a group of strong female characters who support one another, while in reality it is a sexy action film produced by a man, for men.

Sucker Punch begins the story of Babydoll’s institutionalization with some background of how she got there. Her mother dies, leaving Babydoll and her younger sister in the care of their abusive stepfather. On the night of her mother’s death, her stepfather comes after her and her sister and Babydoll decides to fight back. She grabs her stepfathers gun, shoots, and misses him. This prompts him to contact the authorities and check Babydoll into a mental institution.

During the fight scene between Babydoll and her stepfather, he locks her in her room and corners her sister in a closet. In order for Babydoll to help her sister, she has to climb out of her second story window and scale the brick house to the ground level in the rain to get to where her sister is. This scene smudges her makeup. Cut to the scene where her stepfather is driving her to the mental institution and her hair and makeup are damn near perfect again, while her pajamas are covered in dirt.

All the women in the mental institution with babydoll are literal sex objects. The man in charge uses his patients in another one of his businesses: adult entertainment. He makes the female patients dance for men in his club and if the men like one of the women in particular, they are free to “rent” her for sex. Not only are the women in the movie sexualized by the other characters, but they are also being sexualized as the actual human beings playing these parts. “Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned in two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium—” (Mulvey 33). While the perfect makeup, hair, and tantalizing outfits the women in the movie have may tie into the plot of the movie fairly well, as they are erotic dancers and have to look the part, it also serves a purpose for the viewers of the movie. Like I said before, this movie was made by a man for men. What do men want to see? Beautiful women in sexy outfits, even when it doesn’t necessarily make sense.

For example, the first time Babydoll dances, she is transported to a fantasy world. It is obviously very cold there because we see snow on the ground and it appears to be quite windy but she is wearing a tiny sailor girl outfit (short sleeved crop top and a mini skirt) and heels. In that same outfit, she has to battle 3 giant samurais with just a katana and a handgun. Again, some people may view this as a powerful female character who can fight three monsters to the death while also looking cute. I, on the other hand, think that the fantasy scenes could have been produced in a much different way. Babydoll could have had full-body armor on, she could have not looked like a Barbie doll, her hair and makeup could have gotten messed up during the fight scenes, she could’ve been wearing much more practical shoes than high heels.

Another example of the female characters in revealing outfits in a setting that doesn’t make sense is the second time babydoll dances. This time she is joined in her fantasy world by several of the other women in the mental institution. In this scene, they are in a battlefield, fighting in a war against undead soldiers wearing absolutely no body armor, not even so much as bullet-proof vests. But they look sexy and that’s what matters, right? It keeps the male gaze interested in the movie two fold. One, because violence, guns, explosions, death, and destruction. Two, because the women who are holding the guns and causing explosions, death, and destruction are wearing what is basically lingerie.

Once Babydoll stops dancing, she comes back to reality and realizes that her dancing has a lot of power. When she dances, she basically hypnotizes men. “The presence of woman is an indispensable element of spectacle in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of the story line, to freeze the flow of action in moments of erotic contemplation” (Mulvey 33). Babydoll stops the flow of action of reality as she dances and escapes to her fantasy world.

“As the spectator identified with the main male protagonist, he projects his look into that of his like, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the erotic look, both giving a satisfying sense of omnipotence” (Mulvey 34). This quote by Mulvey brings us back to the aforementioned man in charge and what role he plays in keeping the male viewer’s attention. The man in charge controls the female characters’ every move. He calls the women he makes dance “my girls”, signaling possession of them as if they are property. Although the man in charge is supposed to be the villain in this movie, I can see where the male viewers of Sucker Punch could identify, or want to identify, with him. He’s a powerful, handsome, rich, businessman who has access to a group of beautiful women. The problem with his character is that he is evil. He uses his power to exploit his female mental patients, threatens, and even kills them when they disobey him.

In summary, at first glance Sucker Punch may appear to be a feminist film because of it’s numerous strong female leads and plot that is focused around sisterhood and teamwork in order to free themselves from the hellish mental institution, but it is really only a hyper-sexualized action movie targeted toward men. All of the female leads are drop-dead gorgeous with their permanently perfect hair and makeup and their sexy outfits, which doesn’t change even in the action scenes. The action scenes do nothing for the actual plot of the movie, they’re only there to draw the male viewer in even more. Sucker Punch, while it has an interesting story and was produced well, could have been executed in a different way that would actually make it a feminist film.

Dystopian Disaster: Analyzing Gaze In Divergent Series

Since I can’t focus on the series as there is WAY too much to discuss, I will concentrate on Divergent- the first book.

The Divergent series was written in 2011 by Veronica Roth. She wrote four books for the collection, and turned three into a 4-part series. When the film first came out, I was extremely excited and fell in love right away. Whilst in the middle of this class, however, I’ve noticed that this young girl is quite fond of following a negative female stereotype outside of her strong woman portrayal. Beatrice Prior is presented as whiny, indecisive, and dependent.

Divergent is about a young girl who lives in a divided world. Everyone is divided into factions based on their characteristics; whether you are kind, brave, honest, smart, or selfless. The main character, Beatrice, was born into Abnegation (selfless), but has felt that she doesn’t quite fit in. When children become of age, they are able to make their own choices and a test can help them decide which faction to choose. Her results are inconclusive, stating that she fit into more than one faction which makes her a Divergent. Apparently, this is not a good thing as they are people to be feared and could end up killed or factionless. In the end, she pulls through… with help from a man.

Throughout the story, she proves herself to be strong. Unfortunately, it all seems to be in the hands of Four, one of the leaders and trainers for Dauntless (brave). He navigates her around being a Divergent and how to go about their training and tests undetected because he is Divergent as well. This plays to be a huge factor in her survival because it is played out through the entire series. The other male characters work hard to belittle Tris (new name for Beatrice) as much as possible and make her the focus of their gaze. In one scene, Tris gets jumped by three guys who are said to be intimidated by her. They attempt to throw her into a chasm when Four comes along and saves the day. He lets her spend the night in his room to be safe. He teaches her how to fight because, coming from a “weak” faction, she really doesn’t know how. Although, you never see Four attempting to correct anyone else’s fighting stances and practices. Before initiation, she takes off a jacket while Peter yells “yeah stiff, take it off…  [mumbled] put it back on…” May I also mention, “stiff” is a taunting slur for the people of her faction basically stating that they don’t have fun.  Tris’ faction is known for being selfless- women wear gray long-sleeved dresses to the ankle, they forbid mirrors, and eat very bland food that they also share with the factionless. Basically, they are just a step above the factionless (homeless) because they don’t use a lot.

Tris does indeed grow as a character; from choosing her faction to saving her family. She controls her fate from beginning to end along with the fate of those around her. She has moments that make me proud that she is portraying a strong woman from her shooting an egocentric trainer in the leg, to her standing up for her friends and biting the bullet for him. Unfortunately, she is mostly portrayed as a whiny child who is upset that she was put in the faction she is in, but when she chooses another faction, she doesn’t want to leave her family. Over time, she seems to grow into a young adult who can take care of herself, but is still dependent on the reassurance of her male counterpart. I believe that this is a great example of male gaze which, while they try to create equality between genders, it still kind of lacks in a sense that men are still displayed as physically stronger than all women featured. Women are mostly displayed as meek or subservient to male counterparts.

Beside the male gaze presentation, there is also a show of the well-off factions versus Abnegation. I related to Abnegation because there was a point in my life that my family didn’t make a lot of money. My mother started delivering meals on wheels and, since we couldn’t afford daycare, my sister and I would go with her. We bought our clothes from the thrift store (and believe me, 1998-2003 were rough for me). Children at my school took my gaze away and were bestowing it on me with nasty looks and judgements.

Moving forward and how this film “appeals” to women, “…it allows them [the spectator] to oscillate between passivity (watching the suffering woman) and activity (empathetically suffering along with her)” (Hollinger 43). Tris goes through a lot of suffering throughout the film. She has to move away from her family with the potential of never seeing them again, is threatened multiple times to be killed/factionless, she has to shoot one of her best friends in self-defense, both of her parents die, and she winds up factionless and being hunted down at the end with the unknown ahead.

BUT OH, LOOK…

at least she has her man.