...Women in Film Women have made incredible impacts in the film industry with their many talents and skills. Women in movies have become a staple in Hollywood; from having them as the central theme of the movie, to them being the damsel in the distress, or the unneeded love interest, women have always been there. Without women, the rise of the industry would have been nonexistent. Some movies that include women in powerful roles are: The Help (2011), Easy A (2010), Brave (2012), and Wolf Children (2012) The storyline of The Help is that it takes place in Jackson, Mississippi during the civil rights movement. An aspiring writer named Skeeter graduated from college and has found a job writing for the local newspaper. She takes this opportunity to write about her friends’ African-American maids and their mistreatment. The main characters of this film are Skeeter Phelan, Aibileen Clark, Minny Jackson, Celia Foote, and Hilly Holbrook. The movie has more than two women in it, and they mainly talk to each other seeing as there are only one two men in the film. Romance is hardly an issue, the women mostly talk about the rights of PoC and treating others fairly. Women in this film are not only truly represented, they present the issues of their time, and it was important for me as a woman of color to see into the lives of the maids and how they handled it and who decided to jump in and help. The storyline of Easy A tells the story of a high school student named Olive and her best friend...
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...not so. An assessment of women’s employment on the top 250 films in 2012 and 1998 demonstrates that the percentages of women directors and editors have not changed. The proportion of women writers and producers has increased marginally. Women executive producers and cinematographers have declined. In 2012, women included 18% of all, executive producers, producers, directors, cinematographers, writers, and editors working on the top 250 domestic films. From 2011 there is no change and growth of 1 percentage point from 1998 (Martha M. Lauzen, 2013). Women creating film, statistics show that men predominantly run the film industry but recent studies show that women are starting to become a more important part of filmmaking; women are underrepresented but women like Kathryn Bigelow are changing the landscape of movie making. In 2012, according to research by San Diego State University’s Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film, women directed just five percent of the 250 highest-grossing films Only nine percent of Hollywood directors in 2008 were women – that was the same figure recorded in 1998. Kathryn Bigelow was nominated for the best directing Oscar in March 2010, and it was only the fourth time a woman had been nominated, out of more than 400 director nominations (the other three were Lina Wertmüller in 1976, Jane Campion in 1993, and Sofia Coppola in 2003) ("Creating opportunities for," 2012). Her film The Hurt Locker won Best Picture, and Bigelow became the first...
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...modern day portrayal of women on the screen, in T.V. Serials, Telefilms and in sundry other forms has played an important though shameful, role in the diminishing of respect for women as individuals and the mystique attached to them. The over sexual menaces in most forms of the mass media notably films, play a significant role in not only the creation of inappropriate stereotypes of women in the male mind but also the creation of wholly perverse role models for the pliable minds of teenage girls. The debonair hero on the screen nudges and teases the young heroine, harasses her along with his friends that are till they irrevocably fall in love. The conversion of the heroine into the vamp, the women who uses her sexuality for scandalizing the audience is a case in point. In recent years, in India, there has been a fold of movies starting perhaps with Raj Kapoor’s “Ram Teri Ganga Maili” in which female sexuality has been perversely portrayed. Since then a krishma Kapoor or a shilpa Shirodkar or a Puja Bedi has had no inhibition in terms of exposing and catering to the perverse tastes of the male audience. In the West, such portrayal goes back to many decades. A marlyn Monroe or a Brigitte Bardot were the sex symbols of a generation almost three decades back. They played the role of women slaved to their sexual instincts, and whose sense of self-worth arose only from their degree of sexual satisfaction. The myth became the reality in the male mind and women became only and ultimately...
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...the silent [film] era, roughly from the turn of the century until about 1930, Chicanas usually served as passive adjuncts to the main action of [a] film…from about 1930 to the end of World War II, Chicana and other United States Latina characters began to move into center screen, but with limited diversity and little depth of characterization” (Cortés 126). In his essay, Chicanas in Film: History of an Image, Carlos E. Cortés defines four broad eras of Chicana women in American film. The first film in our series, The Girl from Mexico, falls under the category of the second era: “Sensuality and Frivolity” (Cortés 128). Actresses portraying Mexicana or Chicana characters could embody frivolity, like “high-voltage Brazillian actress Carmen Miranda, “ or sensuality, like Dolores Del Rio (Cortés 130). Or, one could go “striding...
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...Is the Story of Mulan an inspirational tale to women or a subtle reminder by Disney about a woman’s place in society? One could say that they Disney princesses are all the same – Cinderella, Ariel, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty- they’re all tall, skinny, undeniably beautiful with their long flowing hair and fabulous gowns. They all play the damsel in distress, completely helpless to fend for themselves in the real world. They all await their happily ever after with the handsome prince charming. Mulan however, is different – or at least upon first glance appears to be. In the film, this young woman plays two opposing roles. On one hand, Mulan is the clumsy young woman, considered such an unfit bride that even the matchmaker considers there to be no hope for her “You are a disgrace, you may look like a bride but you will never bring your family honour...” On the other hand, she also plays Ping, the fearless young soldier who was loved by all, who grew from strength to strength and pretty much singlehandedly saved China from the invasion of the Huns. In order for Mulan to save her father from conscription she must give up her female self to pose as a man and join the army. This however, as far as Mulan is concerned, isn’t such a huge loss as she feels she really doesn’t fit in as a traditional Chinese woman. In the opening song she lists all that she is expected to be as a woman, as the perfect Chinese woman – quiet...
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...In The Hunger Games there is a constant battle between life and death. There are twelve separate districts, in other words states, and a place called the Capital. These places make up their country known as Phanem. Every year there is an event called the Hunger Games that take place in the Capital. For the game, there is a boy and a girl from each district that represent their own district. Each of them trains and represents themselves to the people living in the Capital for a week, and then fight and kill all of the other tributes from every other district. The last person, whether it is a boy or a girl, wins the game. Phanem has the Hunger Games to scare all of the districts into never having another war and to never rebel against the Capital ever again. During the selection process in District Twelve, called the reaping, a little girl named Prim gets called for District Twelve’s tribute. Her older sister, Katniss, did not want her little sister to get killed in the games, so she volunteered as the tribute and got sent in for her. After going through the pre-game activities, Katniss was thrown into the game to fight for her life. Through all of the tough and unbelievable circumstances that she was put through, she battled her way to the end of the games until she was standing with Petea, the other tribute from District Twelve, and threatened the Capital’s power by standing up to them. Katniss and Peeta held poisonous berries and were going to eat them so they can die together...
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...Chal Crawford English 101/820 09 November, 2010 Assignment: Persuasion Paper Medias affect on Body Image Images of female bodies are everywhere. Women and their body parts sell everything from food to cars. Popular film and television actresses are becoming younger, taller and thinner. Women’s magazines are full of articles urging that if they can just lose those last twenty pounds, they’ll have it all the perfect marriage, loving children, great sex, and a rewarding career Why are standards of beauty being imposed on women? The roots are economic, by presenting an ideal difficult to achieve and maintain the cosmetic and diet product industries are assured of growth and profits. Take Kristen of River Edge, New Jersey, just like most girls at the age of 15 “she started to develop curves; she was disappointed that breasts did not follow” (Sweeney). Girls rose in a culture of celebrity obsession and makeover TV shows believe that a “shapely bust line” and a thin body will let them have it all. Women who are insecure about their bodies are more likely to invest in beauty products, new clothes, diet aids, and plastic surgery. It is estimated that the diet industry alone is worth 40 to 100 billion a year selling temporary weight loss, 90 to 95% of dieters regain the lost weight (BBC). American Society for Aesthetic Plastic surgery shows that the number of operations performed on 18 or younger have more than tripled over a 10 year period from 59,890 in 1997 to 205,119 in 2007...
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...Good Hair One of my new favorite documentaries is Good Hair directed by Jeff Stilson and starring comedian Chris Rock. It is a documentary on black women and the hair industry. Rock starts his journey on learning more about black hair after his daughter asked him whether or not she had good hair. Rock dove right into the black hair industry, examining everything from relaxers and weaves to the chemicals in relaxers and where weave comes from. The highlight of this video was that it examines what hair means to black women. A host of celebrities and professionals shared their insight on black women and their hair. I chose this video for my opinion paper because I have always been obsessed with black hair. From the time I was young I knew what a relaxer was and I knew not to talk about a family member’s weave out loud. I have learned so much...
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...play written by Ntozake Shange at the peak of the black feminist movement, in 1975. It is a collection of poems that tell the story of seven women of color and how their lives interconnect. The play deal with deep subject matter such as rape, abortions, domestic abuse, and faith, as is delves into the lives of these women. The play ends as all of the women come together with an empowering scene about the strength in womanhood. How do struggles, specifically ones imposed on women such as rape and domestic abuse, create strength and empowerment that would have never been attained without enduring such life experiences? In For Colored Girls, all of the women find strength in each other and faith in order to overcome their individual struggles and find strength to continue on with life. They become stronger individuals that they once were and that strong power that they now posses is from believe in themselves and their ability to persevere. In the 2009 film, Precious, a young girl lives through torment as she grows up in section 8 housing with an abusive mother and father, but when she decides that she has had enough she breaks free to try to obtain the life she has always dreamed of. Precious can be understood within the context of Ntozake Shange's play For Colored Girls because Precious endures many similar life experiences as the women of For Colored Girls. Precious is a sixteen year old girl who lives with her mother and father in section 8 housing, she goes to high school...
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...superficial like most Cuban bourgeois women at his time; hence, it did not work out between Sergio and Laura (Underdevelopment). Sergio failed in trying to educate both Laura and Elena (Underdevelopment). The film suggest that women in Cuba are underdeveloped intellectually and culturally, unlike the “mature” Hanna who is of European descent, since Laura and Elena are both Cubans of two different classes (Underdevelopment). Notably, Hanna the ideal European woman was portrayed to be very fair with fine, pale blonde hair while Sergio’s Cuban bourgeois class wife Laura had coarse hair streaked with blonde and the Cuban working class Elena is even darker than Sergio, comments on how class differences often match color...
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...what failing. As men the power we should be aware of is feminine power over us. Any man who loves a woman is under her power; in most cases he is not aware of it. In this art work which was done by Picasso, I see the power of women over men. As men we think we stronger than women. We can do lot things that women cannot do. In fact, they have the power to make us do what they want us to do. Demoiselle is oil on canvas painting done by Picasso. In this art work, I see Picasso painting five ladies. The painting is for young ladies. Picasso painted the ladies in cubic form which was the modern way to pain at that time. By looking at the painting, you see that all the figures inside have almost the same face but different size of the body. In my opinion, the women body is what put pressure on the man. Most of strippers in clubs have a nice, beautiful body; men are attracted to the body more that the soul. If the woman has a nice body, she more likely to have the man does what she wants in order for him to have a piece of the cake. In the painting, Picasso had drawn the women body parts in different ways. This indicates the different parts of the body that man likes in general. Some man likes the legs, others like the boobs. At the end, the women body is what allowing her to control man. One element that attracted me the most is why Picasso painted all the figures with eyes looking straight at the person who’s looking at the painting. These shows how confident the woman...
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...Women will always find themselves chasing an elusive identity and dream unless they embrace who God made them to be according to the Bible. Women must come to accept their femininity. God has made them different purposefully. Physically, they are different, being generally weaker and crafted to bear and nurse children, and they have different emotional needs as well. Peter exhorts husbands to treat their wives in an understanding way because they are different, being women, and men need to understand this (1 Peter 3:7). Women must come to define womanhood based not on the culture or even what well-meaning Christians might assert but on the Word of God. The Bible says that a woman does well if she bears children (Psalm 128), and it doesn’t condemn a woman as inferior if she remains unmarried, does not have children, or cannot have children (Matthew 19:12). The Bible says that women should be workers at home (Titus 2:5), but it also allows for them to do profitable business ventures (Proverbs 31:16). The Biblical ideal is for men to provide for their families and for women to stay at home to raise the children. Unfortunately, this will not always work out perfectly, and both men and women need to be willing to adapt and be flexible and understanding. If it is possible for a mother to be with her children and raise them, then there is no Biblical reason to excuse her from not doing so. Though a stay at home mother might feel at times like she is...
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...example, women of the 19th century were primarily expected to marry and serve their husbands’ wishes, not receive an education, go out with friends, or find new forms of amusement. Instead, women were required to be at home and loyally obey their husbands. But how long can one go without exploring the inner intricacies of oneself? In her critical essay “Laugh of the Medusa”, Hélène Cixous looks upon the woman who “allows herself to be threatened by the big dick” (347) with contempt and scorn. Still, this intimidation that men have instilled in women is not easily overcome. Colette (1873-1954) and Jean Stubbs (1926- ) expose the risks that come with the discovery of a woman’s true desires in their short stories, “The Secret Woman” and “Cousin Lewis”. When the false woman is revealed, she suffers and is tormented by ridicule or shame even more than when she was in hiding. Cixous wants women to stand out and be who they are by embracing their bodies and being proud of their femininity. Women need to stop being reduced to “the servant of the militant male, his shadow” (338). “Laugh of the Medusa”, is a proclamation to women writers to “write about women and bring women to writing” (334) and to stop hating themselves and hating other women for being women- celebrate each other’s femininity and set free the body! Cixous wants women to make the world fear them though their identity and femininity; not fear the world because they are insignificant servants of the male. Women should not...
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...PROFESSIONS FOR WOMEN by Virginia Woolf “Professions for Women” is an abbreviated version of the speech Virginia Woolf delivered before a branch of the National Society for Women’s Service on January 21, 1931; it was published posthumously in The Death of the Moth and Other Essays. On the day before the speech, she wrote in her diary: “I have this moment, while having my bath, conceived an entire new book—a sequel to a Room of One’s Own—about the sexual life of women: to be called Professions for Women perhaps—Lord how exciting!” More than a year and a half later, on October 11, 1932, Virginia Woolf began to write her new book: “THE PARGITERS: An Essay based upon a paper read to the London/National Society for women’s service.” “The Pargiters” evolved into The Years and was published in 1937. The book that eventually did become the sequel to A Room of One’s Own was Three Guineas (1938), and its first working title was “Professions for Women.” The essay printed here concentrates on that Victorian phantom known as the Angel in the House (borrowed from Coventry Patmore’s poem celebrating domestic bliss)—that selfless, sacrificial woman in the nineteenth century whose sole purpose in life was to soothe, to flatter, and to comfort the male half of the world’s population. “Killing the Angel in the House,” wrote Virginia Woolf, “was part of the occupation of a woman writer.” That has proved to be a prophetic statement, for today, not only in the domain of letters, but in the entire...
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...further from what it seems. Henrik Ibsen, the writer of Hedda Gabler, seems to not be telling us the personal story of the woman Hedda Tesman, but showing us the faults of society for that time period in terms of the roles of women. “The Trapped Woman”, is a term I will use to describe the role of “The Woman” in the late 19th Century. Henrik Ibsen appears to be showing us through Hedda’s life that no matter the apparent strength or background of a woman during the 19th century, they are still trapped in a way which forbids them to be who they truly are. Hedda Tesman, as described early on in the play, due to her background and personality, should in no way be anything but in complete control over her life. As stated by Aunt Julle, “General Gabler’s daughter. What a life she had in the general’s day!” (Ibsen). This statement in the beginning of the play almost immediately foreshadows her unhappy life in her current state. Due to the roles of women for that time period, she is just the representation of all women in her situation at the time. Women in the 19th century had very minimal rights. When a woman becomes married, the rights of woman are immediately given to their spouse, which in Hedda’s case is Jürgen Tesman. One can make the assumption that for women in the 19th century, marriage is actually closely related so slavery, in that the woman is owned by the man, in every way possibly (Buckner). Hedda’s character shows us of a woman seemingly aware of these truths, and...
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