Q2 With detailed reference to your specific area of study, analyse and discuss the relationship between women and film. eg Charlies Angels
Q2 With detailed reference to your specific area of study, analyse and discuss the relationship between women and film.
Gilligan (2003) explains that 1970s feminist film theory described "woman" in three forms:
* The constructed image or cinematic representation of woman on the screen
* Real life women who watch films
* The feminist film theorist who speaks "as a woman"
In 1975 Laura Mulvey, a feminist film theorist, wrote an article for Screen magazine called "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema". Laura Mulvey did not carry out any studies on actual filmgoers, but instead used psychoanalytical theory in a study of cinema spectatorship. She suggested that cinema is filmed from a "male camera" position. She suggests that film is a voyeuristic experience (the spectator acts like a peeping Tom) and that females are portrayed as sex objects in close up in popular films of the time. Women in films at the time were there for the benefit of a male protagonist and a male audience, reflecting their position in a patriarchal society.
The fact that women went to the cinema and enjoyed these films was explained by Antonio Gramsci through the concept of hegemony where, in sophisticated 20th C society, the dominant groups retain power not through physical force, but through maintaining the attitudes and values of the dominant group until it appears "natural". So in a patriarchal society, where the vast majority of the individuals controlling the film making process are male, females will be portrayed as passive individuals, sex objects for the male protagonists and spectators, and women in the audience will accept this as natural. Mulvey argues that in a dark cinema, the spectator may look without being seen which allows the spectator to watch in a voyeuristic way. Conventional Hollywood films typically have a male protagonist who is active and controlling. Females tend to be passive objects of desire for the men in the story and the audience. Mulvey argues that the male spectator identifies with the male protagonist and also views the female as an object. Mulvey coined the term the "controlling male gaze" in relation to cinema in a patriarchal society. Men do the looking and females are there to be looked at.
Mulvey states that the cinematic codes of popular films are based around the "needs of the male ego". Males are active, females passive.
Many film theorists did not agree because Mulvey does not take into account female spectatorship. Jill Nelmes (1999) states that: Reception analysis in film differentiates between audience and spectator. An audience is a collective of people, the spectator is an individual. Film spectatorship theory assumes that the spectator is reading the film narrative in a traditional cinema auditorium, which is a very different experience from watching a film at home on a DVD player or television. The technology of cinema exerts a more powerful control over the spectator: the size, shape and clarity of the screen demand more attention, the film cannot be put on "pause" and talking can only be a whisper. The individual enters the cinema as part of an audience, but when the lights go down and the credits start, we are alone with the sound and images - a spectator rather than a member of the audience.
Early theories saw the spectator as "passive" - being controlled by the overwhelming cinema experience. Now spectators are seen as more "active" individuals who are able to read the narrative and images, make sense of the film in their own way.
In the 1980s, a new way of looking at spectatorship developed. This was called Post Structuralism. This introduced the idea of a more active audience, where the spectator constructs a meaning from the film text, which is based on a huge number of variable experiences in their own past. However, hegemony still causes the audience as ...
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Early theories saw the spectator as "passive" - being controlled by the overwhelming cinema experience. Now spectators are seen as more "active" individuals who are able to read the narrative and images, make sense of the film in their own way.
In the 1980s, a new way of looking at spectatorship developed. This was called Post Structuralism. This introduced the idea of a more active audience, where the spectator constructs a meaning from the film text, which is based on a huge number of variable experiences in their own past. However, hegemony still causes the audience as a whole to react quite similarly to the film text.
Mulvey's ideas of the "controlling male gaze" are partly supported by statistical analysis of the gender divisions in film making. Martha Lauzen (2003) analysed the % of women employed on making the top 250 American films each year between 1998 and 2002. The figures show that women are greatly under-represented in the film making business. In 2002, only 7% of the directors in the top 250 films were women. This is significant because the director is seen as the main controller of how the film appears. The term director is now so gendered, that it is converted to "female director" to describe a woman who directs. The % of women in other important film-making tasks are: executive producers (15%), Producers (26%), writers (11%), Editors (20%) and cinematographers (1%).
This trend is also seen in the British film industry. Freshminds Ltd (2003) found that women make up 15% of those employed in the British film industry, but mainly in a supporting role to the more controlling male roles. 93% of all hair and make-up artists and 83% of all costume and wardrobe jobs are carried out by women but under 10% of the technical jobs (lighting, sound, camera work) are done by women.
Women therefore have little control over the representation of their sex in films but help to portray them in the way that the male director choses.
The action genre film was traditionally male dominated. The main protagonist was male (e.g. James Bond) and the female characters were either glamorous sex objects in need of rescuing ("Bond Girls") or female adversaries who would have to be overcome. Predictably, these films were more popular with male audiences. A few action films now have stronger female protagonists in the lead role e.g. the Alien Films, Terminator 2, Tomb Raider and Charlie's Angels.
In the 1970s the representation of women as sex objects in the media was seen by feminists as central to women's oppression. These feminists saw make-up, high heels and glamorisation as wrong because women were constructed as sex objects for men.
After collecting in the results from the questionnaire I designed, I was able to analyse the answers and apply them to my research. I found that there was a clear difference between the answers from Males (9) and Females (12); they each had very different perceptions of the Angels in each clip.
The first question asked the audience how they felt the Angels were portrayed in the first clip.
The female responses were all quite similar; the Angels were described as empowered or in control. The male responses are quite different to the female responses. The majority of the males thought the Angels were portrayed as sexy or seductive.
The second question differed for the male and female members of the audience. The question for the females asked which of the Angels they could identify most with and the question for the males asked which of the three Angels they enjoyed watching the most.
The male responses stated that Cameron Diaz was the favourite Angel because she was 'not wearing many clothes' and 'looked sexy'. Conversely, the girl's favourite Angel to identify with was in fact Drew Barrymore because of 'good sense of humour', 'independent', 'carefree' etc. However one response that stood out for me was: "I could identify most with Lucy Liu because she can't cook". I thought this was a very interesting response. It highlighted the way in which the Angels are portrayed differently from other action genre films where the female leads are either in need of rescuing or a support/reward for the male protagonist. I would have liked to explore this further in another questionnaire but ran out of time.
Question three involved filling out a table and scoring each of the angels out of ten for 'Sexiness', 'Glamour' and 'Power'. The boys rated Cameron Diaz as top for sexiness, Lucy Liu for glamour and Lucy Liu also for power. The girls rated Lucy Liu top for sexiness, Lucy Liu for glamour and Drew Barrymore for power. This clearly showed differences in the male and female reading of the film text. I would have liked to explore this in more detail with some follow up questions.
Clip 2 showed the Angels in action. The first question asks how the audience feels about the different way the Angels are portrayed.
In almost all of the female responses they stated that this clip shows a very different side of the girls, however they still think they are sexy but that the Angels were very much 'powerful' and 'in control'. They think that the Angels have power over the men.
The male responses were all very similar. There were 5 responses that strongly stated that the Angels were sexier in this clip because of their 'leather suits'. 3 responses stated that the Angles were 'powerful' and 'dangerous'. However, the boy's answers were very brief.
The second question was different for males and females again. The question for the male audience asked who they enjoyed watching the most and the question for the female's asked which of the Angels they would most like to be.
The results for the boys and girls were almost identical in this question even though the question differs slightly between the sexes.
The girls deemed Cameron Diaz to be the Angel who they would most like to be. Reasons for Cameron being the favourite ranged from, looking the 'toughest' and having the most 'power'. The boys also chose Cameron Diaz as the Angel they most enjoyed watching because she looked 'sexy' in her leather.
Question three asked the audience how they felt about the three Angels in action mode.
Every single response from the male perspective noted something about this scene being 'comical', a 'mockery' or 'just a big joke'. They did not feel that the action was realistic as the Angels were fighting in 'high-heels' and it did not look authentic. They were all negative towards this question.
5 of the female audience wrote that the Angels were more 'powerful' and still very 'sexy'.
Question four involved filling out a table and scoring each of the angels out of ten for 'Sexiness', 'Glamour' and 'Power'. The boys rated Cameron Diaz as top for sexiness, Lucy Liu for glamour and Cameron also for power. The girls rated Lucy Liu top for sexiness, Lucy Liu for glamour and Cameron Diaz for power. This question did not reveal very much information because I did not ask the audience to explain their views.
The questionnaire results showed that women enjoy watching other women portrayed as tough, especially if they are beautiful and sexy. This reflects modern attitudes where women do not want to be seen as objects or bimbos, but also don't want to be masculinised. These real women still enjoyed make-up, fashion, romantic films and this enjoyment is sometimes called "guilty pleasure" because it shows women enjoying the roles that feminists say they should dislike.
Sarah Gilligan states that "Charlie's Angels films can be seen to epitomise the notion of guilty pleasure. They attempt to be nothing more than escapist entertainment, adventures starring beautiful and glamorous women who can also high kick and perform the role of the action hero. What is interesting about the Charlie's Angels films is not whether they are feminist texts, but what pleasures they attempt to offer and the ways in which the audience engages with the films."
The analysis of threads on the IMDb discussion board for Charlie's Angels showed that the contributers felt that although the Angels were portrayed as "sexy" they were also powerful because they could physically overpower male enemies. Analysis of my questionnaire also showed that the male audience enjoyed the portrayal of the angels as sex objects - there were several comments about the leather garments and lack of clothes being worn. The reasons for Cameron being the favourite for the males in my survey was predominantly because she was 'not wearing many clothes' and 'looked sexy'.
This would confirm Laura Mulvey's ideas about the male gaze. However, on the IMBd 28526 site users rated the film out of 10 and this page provides a demographic breakdown of the voting. It shows that 16000 male viewers gave an average rating of 5.6 and 3460 female viewers gave a rating of 6.0. Clearly there were more male viewers using this rating site but interestingly, the female viewers gave a higher average score. Further analysis shows that the highest rating came from females aged under 18. These spectators were clearly not alienated by any male gaze. The females in my survey commented positively on many aspects of the film, particularly the way in which the Angels were portrayed as both glamorous and powerful. However, a small number pointed out that although the film appears to go against the conventions of action genre films by portraying the female protagonists as powerful, ultimately the Angels are controlled by men: first Charlie and then the male dominated US Government.
In conclusion, the relationship between women and film are changing. The industry is still very much controlled by men. The vast majority of producers, directors and others involved in making mainstream Hollywood films are male. Most of their films therefore reflect the patriarchal ideology of the industry and wider society. Since the start of film, screen women have been constructed in a way that maintains the patriarchal society through hegemony. Women in action genre films are usually portrayed as passive; rewards for the male protagonist or someone who needs to be rescued. Feminists have rejected this type of representation and applauded the stronger image of female characters such as Ripley in the Aliens trilogy. Ripley is however portrayed in a very masculine way -very short hair, boiler suit, muscles and this is not what many young women today aspire to.
The values and attitudes in our post modern society are changing. Female audiences are bombarded with media images full of sexual stereotyping. However, the modern female audience is able to enjoy the portrayal of women in Charlie's Angels as beautiful and also to celebrate their power over the male protagonists, particularly when they work together. There is much irony in the sexual stereotyping in the film and this is used to great effect as comedy.
Scopophilia is the joy of watching on screen. The final proof that Charlie's Angels offers visual pleasure for its female audience comes from the IMDb ratings. The group giving the highest rating to the film was the females under 18. Young women/girls enjoyed it more than young men. Maybe it was aimed at young women and therefore not filmed from the male gaze after all.