...Feminism in a Shell Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale along with Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell both share feminist views. Together Atwood’s novel and Oshii’s film are part of the science fiction genre, which is set into the future. Both the novel and film share feminist views although the second wave of feminism in the novel The Handmaids Tale portrays a world where females with no rights and have been taken over for breeding, in contrast to the third wave of feminism in the film Ghost in a Shell where heteronormativity is separated by the blurring of boundaries between both males and females. Atwood’s award winning novel demonstrates the second wave of feminism through the power structure of Gilead where women had roles. Consequentially,...
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...First Wave Feminism In today’s world, women are still living in a male dominant society where even when we get married, we vow to love, honor, and obey our husband. Even today we are still fighting for many rights for women, including: equal pay, the right for abortion, the end of rape, the right for contraceptives, and many other important rights that men have ( or do not need to worry about). “The movement to end sexism, sexist exploitations, and oppression . . .” (Hooks 37) is known as feminism. Today people would call us feminist, but during the 19th and 20th century that term did not exist. These women and men were known as suffragettes or suffragists. The suffragettes who fought beginning in 1848, with Seneca Falls, all the way to 1920, when women achieved the right to vote, were labeled First Wave Feminist. Two key elements of the First Wave in U.S. Feminism were how different races and class divisions affected the feminist movement (Shaw & Lee). The movement of feminism was brought about by many: men, women, upper class women, African American men, and the divisions just keep going. Yet all these people believe in the same thing, so why cant they all stand together and profess it. If only it was that simple. Race was a key element of the first wave of U.S. feminism. Presented in the Documentary “Not for Ourselves Alone” viewed in class, a famous African American is introduced. He is a great African American male journalist who supported the movement for women’s...
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...Feminism in 1990s Princess Movies In the late 1980s and 1990s, with the third wave of feminism introducing women to take actions to obtain their goals, the Disney Company experienced a renaissance by returning to its most successful genre—fairytales. After the huge success of The Little Mermaid in 1989, the Walt Disney Company released another well known story, Beauty and the Beast, in 1991. With the enormous success of the film, many scholars criticized that these princess films actually promoted an anti-feminist message and were worried that the films would influence the thoughts of young girls and women. However, these films in the late 80s and 90s evolved from previous films. In fact, Linda Woolverton, the first female Disney animation writer, was the script-writer of Beauty and the Beast. The Walt Disney Company always cared about what the fans wanted and thought. By hiring a female script writer, Disney could make audience better understand feminism, especially at the time of third-wave feminism. The 1980s and 1990s movies, especially Beauty and the Beast, convey a feminist message because of the themes of inner beauty, progressive gender roles and freedom of choice. Beauty and the Beast presents the importance of personality and ambition over physical appearance. Some people argued that the message that being pretty is very important in princess movies is anti-feminist. They thought the pretty princesses suggested to young girls that women’s appearances were the most...
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...elegant shaved skull had been an emblem of political courage-a cynosure of resistance to institutions that would smother the free spirit and stifle the right to be different.” (Miller 13) I will be exploring how the present days views are reinforced; the dominant message of how a wedding should be and then how in some movies, the post-feminism is displayed which slightly alters this dominant image. I will be also exploring the mix of cultural traditions within the wedding to see how the structure is similar or drastically different. I will discuss Marx’s Materialism ideology aspect of the domination of the ruling class and explore the aspect of the base and superstructure with the mode of production/the system of economic relations within the institutions surrounding wedding ideology. Through close textual analysis, I will show the dominant ideology of the wedding industry as illustrated through media and the attitudes of various woman; comparing views of two extremes to the leading up to that of the dominant American wedding ideology of the industry and secondly, I will then contrast this structuralism to that of a few other cultural films to explore the obstacles as well as end result of the dominant media ideology. “Capitalism is not only an economic...
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...The Hunger Games: Action-film feminism is catching fire Lisa Schwarzbaum Burning up Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen is both strong and vulnerable – a new kind of action heroine who has powered The Hunger Games: Catching fire to a $158m US debut. (Lionsgate) Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen is a new type of female action film icon, and moviegoers should be very excited about that, writes Lisa Schwarzbaum. As Catching Fire ignites on movie screens around the world, this is what we know about the 21st Century heroine called Katniss Everdeen: she is strong but also soft. She is brave but she has doubts. She is a phenomenal fictional creation, yet is real enough that moviegoers can draw inspiration from her values, her resourcefulness, and her very human inner conflicts. And she is played by Jennifer Lawrence, who appears not only to be handling her current duties as Hollywood’s finest model of well-adjusted millennial female stardom but doing so with charm. Everdeen and Lawrence: golden girls both. Personified in Lawrence’s lithe movements and cool, focused gaze, Katniss is a brave, resourceful and independent-minded fighter; but she is also a troubled and vulnerably guilt-ridden human being. Nina Jacobson, the producer of the Hunger Games film franchise, puts it this way: “She is a singular heroine in that the burden of survival weighs on her. She has a ton of survivor’s guilt. And she keeps surviving.” Girl on fire It is strange that behaving like a well-adjusted...
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...fluffy spectacular starring Reese Witherspoon. Reese plays Elle Woods, who decides to follow her ex-boyfriend to Harvard Law after their breakup. A fashion design major, Elle hits the books pretty hard to get decent scores on her LSATS, even missing parties – and then hires a professional to film her in a soft-core porn admissions video, focusing on Elle floating in a cool blue pool wearing a tiny pink bikini. Lo and behold, it wows the white, middle-aged male admissions board, and Elle goes on to take campus by storm. And there’s good reason Elle makes such a splash: she turns out to be he only beautiful girl at Harvard. All the rest of the girls there spend their time studying and doing nothing else; they are dull, boring, and above all, unpretty. These smart women do anything but have fun. Most of them blur into one bespectacled, intellectual image, but there’s one young woman among them who is even worse than dull – our token Feminist. She has dreadlocks and a defensive attitude, talks about nothing but political rallies and is, of course, a lesbian. Elle hates her. Unrealistic? Sure, but what do we expect from the movies? The real problem begins when the ideas propagated by films that claim to be a “feel good, girl-power movie,” as People magazine called this particular brain-number, seep into our everyday existence. With the tagline “believing in yourself never goes out of style,” the kind of empty platitude that...
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...Consider the way in which two texts seek to question and disrupt the ‘traditional certainties’ of gender. The sixties gave birth to a new gender revolution, which especially affected the women in Britain. ‘Second Wave Feminism’ began to fight for general rights for women, as the ‘first wave’ of feminism was the fight for female suffrage. Second Wave Feminism was the further insistence that women and men are both equal and the same. The concept of ‘traditional certainties’ in relation to gender is very much a pre-1950s concept – and is much to do with gender roles and sexual norms. Throughout the 1960s (and also the 1970s) a number of laws were put in place that created a new step forward for females in Britain which included the Legislation of Abortion Act (1967), the Divorce Act (1969) and the Equal Pay act (1970). Along with the invention of the Pill, these new legal rights for women gave new freedom and equality that was never employed before; for example, women were paid on average two thirds the amount that men were paid for the same job. This new feminist agenda of societal equality began to spread through literature, art, film and television. Feminist views were now spread more widely, whether than be by subliminal means like some literature pieces, or a more profound and upfront approach: such as in the James Bond literature and film franchise which portrayed it’s heroines as powerful and independent women. In this critical essay, I intend to evaluate the popular...
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...22 Carter, C. (2011) “Sex/Gender and the Media: From Sex Roles to Social Construction and Beyond,” in Ross, K. (ed) The Handbook of Gender, Sex and Media, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN-10: 1444338544; 365-82. ISBN-13: 978-1444338546 Sex/Gender and the Media From Sex Roles to Social Construction and Beyond Cynthia Carter Introduction In the early years of second-wave western feminism, many gender researchers and feminist scholars distinguished between the notion of sex, defined as biological differences between male and female, and ‘sex roles,’ referring to certain behaviors and characteristics attributed to each sex that was a social construction. The resulting media research centered on images of women in the media (much less emphasis was placed on men) in order to draw attention to inequities in their portrayal in relation to men (in quantitative terms as well as in terms of the use of stereotypes). Since the 1970s, however, the scope of social constructionism has greatly expanded in feminist theory. Some suggest that the distinction between the biological and the social has, as a result, eroded to such an extent that it is no longer possible to understand the difference, while others question the need for this distinction. For instance, in queer and transgender theory and feminist cultural studies, theorists have sought to make strange the ‘sex/gender’ distinction. The key argument made is that biology is no less a cultural construct than gender socialization into...
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...Gottdiener The SAGE Key Concepts series provide students with accessible and authoritative knowledge of the essential topics in a variety of disciplines. Cross-referenced throughout, the format encourages critical evaluation through understanding. Written by experienced and respected academics, the books are indispensable study aids and guides to comprehension. JANE PILCHER AND IMELDA WHELEHAN Fifty Key Concepts in Gender Studies SAGE Publications London • Thousand Oaks • New Delhi iii © Jane Pilcher and Imelda Whelehan 2004 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission in writing from the Publishers. SAGE Publications Ltd 1 Oliver’s Yard 55 City Road London EC1Y 1SP SAGE Publications Inc 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, California 91320 SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd B-42 Panchsheel Enclave Post Box 4109 New Delhi 100 017 British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 7619 7035 5 ISBN 0 7619 7036 3 Library of Congress control number available Typeset by M Rules Printed in Great Britain by The Cromwell Press Ltd, Trowbridge, Wiltshire contents Acknowledgements Introduction: Everywhere and Somewhere: Gender Studies, Feminist Perspectives and...
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...Topic 2 – Mass Media There appears to be an increase in tolerance and acceptance in regards to censorship within various forms of media in modern society. Throughout the rapid globalization of the previous century, society has become increasingly lenient of what filters through popular culture and into the minds of young generations and future leaders. Simultaneously, the standards of what is considered to be inappropriate for the general public have also changed throughout this period; in previous generations we have seen protests against certain content in music, films and various other forms of media for being considered unsuitable for the general public, however over time the voice of protests have been overshadowed by the popularity of the content, thereby over time creating a social tolerance of media content. The material that floods through the media today is significantly more provocative compared to previous decades; if Kim Kardashian’s naked body was the face of the media anytime during the 20th century, the public response would be chaotic, however in 2014 this was not only tolerated but to some extent, it was glorified. Significantly influencing the morals and values obtained by society, the content that flows through the media appears to have a link with social issues such as gender stereotypes, which has shown to produce gender inequality. Throughout recent globalization, it is clear that the values within western culture has rapidly evolved along with technological...
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...Little Red Riding Hood as Depicted in Matthew Bright’s Freeway (1996) Name: Course: Lecturer: Date: Little Red Riding Hood as depicted in Matthew Bright’s Freeway (1996) [pic]Mathew Bright’s film Freeway is literal work that presents the Little Red Riding Hood with a preface of the verbal and visual texts. The film draws ideas from different books starting from Charles Perrault’s little riding text of 1697 (Catherine, 2002). The film further contains the depiction of the Little Red Riding Hood by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 1982 text. In addition, the film is based on a book review of Little Red Riding Hood as portrayed by Charles Delarue’s works on French oral tales (Zipes, 2010). The books reviews have a historical dimension in their examination of the Little Red Riding Hood. Mathew Bright’s film was produced in 1996. It features the Little Red Riding Hood. The film is referred to as the freeway and it was cast in California. Little Red Riding Hood is depicted as a generation X character discerning from the way the character is clothed. The Little Red Riding Hood is shown in the film wearing saggy trousers, a jacket made of leather and combat boots that are prominent feature in hip-pop artist attires. In examining the attire it is discerned that the attire represent the people from social underclass who are closely associated with the hip-pop culture. The Little Red Riding Hood is further characterized by a voice peculiar...
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...everyday language means contemporary, new, the latest thing. When we talk about “Modernism” term, modernism is a literary and cultural international movement which flourished in the first decades of the 20th century. It was an intellectual movement and a change that defined itself as the latest thing. During Modernism it seemed like religion and culture fell apart. In modernism people tried to reject tradition and tried new things. This period was marked by large technological advances such as invention of new building material, cars, speed and locomotion. Although modernism brought up innovative and experimental changes, this time period witnessed the First World War and the Great Depression. Those events led people to feel a sense of loss and uncertainty. When it comes to literature, experimentation with the form was another defining characteristic of modernism is not a term that can be described in single term. It may be applied both to the content and to the form of a work, or to either in isolation. It reflects a sense of cultural crisis which was both, exciting and scary. Modernism opened up a whole new pallet of human possibilities at the same time as putting into question any previously accepted means of grounding and evaluating new ideas. “Modernism is marked by experimentation, particularly manipulation of form, and by the realization that knowledge is not absolute.” (Ciaffaroni, 2009). While New York City is in the middle of a heat wave, the residents of one building beat...
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...Feminism in Multicultural Societies An analysis of Dutch Multicultural and Postsecular Developments and their Implications for Feminist Debates Eva Midden A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment for the requirements of the degree of PhD at the University of Central Lancashire May 2010 Student Declaration Concurrent registration for two or more academic awards I declare that while registered as a candidate for the research degree, I have not been registered candidate or enrolled student for another award of the University or other academic or professional institution Material submitted for another award I declare that no material contained in the thesis has been used in any other submission for an academic award and is solely my own work Signature of Candidate Type of Award School ___PhD_________________________________ ___Centre for Professional Ethics___________ 1 Abstract It was long assumed that both multiculturalism and feminism are connected to progressive movements and hence have comparable and compatible goals. However, both in academia and in popular media the critique on multiculturalism has grown and is often accompanied with arguments related to gender equality and/or feminism. According to political scientist Susan Moller Okin for example there are fundamental conflicts between our commitment to gender equality and the desire to respect the customs of minority cultures or religions. If we agree that women...
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...1 Proseminar “Born to be wild”: The 1960s in British and American Cinema in their Socio-Cultural Contexts A Cultural Studies Analysis of Alfie Table of Contents Introduction: Michael Caine - the phenomenon of stardom 1. 2. 3. 4. Great Britain in the Swinging Sixties British Cinema in the 60s Production background to Alfie Socio-gender situation of the Characters 2 3 5 6 7 7 9 11 13 14 4.1. Gilda 4.2. Lily 4.3. Ruby Conclusion: Alfie as an indicator for the cultural history of the 60s Secondary Sources: Filmography, Bibliography and Electronic Sources 2 Introduction „What’s it all about?“ is not only the famous last question of the protagonist in Alfie but also the title of Michael Caine’s autobiography. Born 1933 in London’s poor East End as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, he started acting in the late 1940s and soon became Michael Caine. Though he changed his name he never tried to hide his past and his Cockney accent gives away his working class origin. It was a hard and long journey to fame for Caine. His first steps into show business were acting with amateur groups, then playing some parts in provincial theatres and later some appearances on British television. It was only after more than 20 years that he got the audiences’ and critics’ attention for his role in Zulu. But it brought him rather critical notice than the hoped for éclat. In 1967 Caine’s career got a considerable boost when he was representing the main character in Alfie - a role that seemed...
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...Women On Screen In China Film, as a unique art form, has come to China nearly centuries. In 1920s, female images just can be seen as the tools in silent movies, which own not only very vague character, but also lack of adequate connotation of the times, not to mention women’s awareness of self-consciousness. However, after the establishment of People's Republic of China, government vigorously promotes that the "men and women are alike". Also with the influence of western feminist movement, the status of women began to turn upside down. Women are demanding equal status with men, and these demands also reflected in the films. Until now, women as a sign of beauty, some are gentle and virtuous, some are sweetie and pleasant, and some are full of unique personality but still attractive enough. In such a representation, it is hard to notice, even their own aesthetic values are deeply affected by the male views. Not so much a woman as a sign of beauty, as it is a sign to attract male attention. In many generations of Chinese directors, only one of the few is female director. In the Male-dominated film industry, obviously, female characters are created by them, reflecting men’s centralism’s view of women. This paper applies feminist film theory, by analyzing the feminine images in a famous Chinese director—Jiang Wen’s films, to reveal the hidden gender inequality as well as the phenomenon of “male gaze”. Through the criticism and introspection of these hidden and potential...
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