In the image we can see Ripley as the active central character in the narrative. She is looking after a young girl, Newt. Unlike a motherly figure, Ripley is seen to be more of a father figure. Unlike stereotypical women from the 50’s, She has short hair. She is wearing masculine work clothes and on her left arm she is wearing a very masculine watch. Her arm is sweaty and her clothes have sweat patches. This shows she is determined and hard working. She is also carrying a rifle, this proves she is more masculine than feminine and is out to save the world. Her hair is messy as well to prove she is hardworking and not your typical woman.
Newt is also wearing boyish clothes and her hair is also scruffy to suggest she doesn’t care about her hair; she just cares about saving herself. This is why Newt is holding onto Ripley for her life.
Ripley and newt are looking upwards to suggest that the alien is bigger than her and is looking down at them. The background looks depressing, as if it is on fire.
Its not just still images but film posters also show varieties of cultural diversity.
Image 4.13 is a film poster advertising ‘creature from the black lagoon’ a sci-fi movie from 1956. Although it is a film poster it looks as if it is from the front page of a comic. At the top is very large saying ‘creature from the black lagoon’ underneath, in the centre sees the main picture of the ‘creature’ and the woman
The woman is being held like a helpless baby. She can be seen as a sex object because of her screaming and also because of her long hair, long legs and being dressed scampily cad. She looks naked but a line on her leg suggests she is wearing something.
Her expressions are seen as scared and she is so helpless that all she can do is scream
The ‘creature’ is looking straight at her breast and is placing his hand there. His other hand is wrapped tightly round her leg so she cannot escape. He has quite a scary, lizard-like, slimy look to him. As this is a film from the 1950’s she seen as a typical woman for its time. She is not seen as heroic as someone like Ripley from alien.
Image 4.13 is a film poster advertising ‘amazing! Forbidden planet’ this is also a sci-fi film and again is probably from the 1950s. Again the woman is seen as a helpless sex object. The ‘robot’ is holding the woman like a baby but is not supporting her head. She has fair skin and long blonde hair and could be seen as a dumb blonde bimbo. She is also wearing little clothing as she is just wearing a swimming costume.
His expressions make him look like the hero as if he is strong and has saved her. He looks big and scary but also shows he has feelings and is an emotional character.
Films are the main sources to show varieties of cultural diversity. ‘Educating Rita’, a film from 1984 will be compared with ‘The Stepford wives’ to show how different woman are represented in different ways.
‘Educating Rita’ Was a British film from 1983. It starred Julie Walters as a young working class woman named Rita. She meets Frank (Michael Caine), a university professor who transforms Rita into a new woman.
‘Educating Rita’ shows the differences between cultures in Great Britain. ‘Educating Rita’ emphasises the differences between classes in Great Britain. It shows the jump from Working class to middle/upper class. At the start of ‘Educating Rita’ Rita is a ‘common’ liverpudlian with native accent. On her visit to Frank she wears white stilettos, a pink mini-skirt, black tights and a white blouse. She also had blonde hair with pink highlights. Her job was a hairdresser, which is a typical working class job. She was married to Denny, an electrician who wanted children. They lived in a small house in a working class part of town. However, Rita, 26, wants no children but wants to discover herself. She joins an open university and this is when she discovers herself. The men’s worlds in the film are quite different.
Frank is well educated while Denny is the type of man who may have left school at 16. Frank is an educator while Denny is an electrician. Frank is well spoken while Denny is ‘common’. The main difference between Denny and Frank is that Denny is working class and Frank is middle class. This shows the big gap between middle class and working class people in the 1980’s.
This film is also about fitting in. A key scene where Rita feels like an outcast is when Rita is invited to Franks house for dinner. Rita feels odd when she gets to the door as if she didn’t fit in. Her excuse for not going was she brought the wrong wine. She felt as if she is being left out.
She leaves Denny eventually but it is for the best as Denny meets a new woman and they have children together. Rita moves in with her new flat mate, Trish. She becomes obsessed with Trish’s life style and becomes more sophisticated, more articulate, more educated. She also drops the name Rita, is better spoken, becomes fascinated with books, and gives up smoking.
She even dyes her hair brown. It is as if the books transformed her into a new woman. Frank is not happy and calls himself Mary Shelley by making a remark that he had crated a monster. Mary Shelley was the writer of Frankenstein and Frankenstein was a monster. Frank becomes used to Rita’s new life and accepts it. She passes her exam with distinction and it just shows that being determined and even reading books can help you make the transformation from different classes. This movie really explores the differences between working class and middle class worlds today. The film also gives a strong message of how people try to fit in, the main source being Rita; she feels she has to fit in when she meets Frank. Again, she felt left out as she went to Franks house but felt she had the wrong wine. Rita tries to fit in by dyeing her hair brown and dressing more smartly. At one point she also changes her accent for a while to try and fit in. This proves how she can change from a working class to a middle class woman but how hard she had to work. This is why the movie gives us a message about cultural diversity in Britain today.
Another film that concentrates on the differences between cultures but mainly the feminine cultures is ‘The Stepford Wives’.
‘The Stepford Wives’ was a sci-fi film from 1975. It is about a modern living woman, Joanne who moves from New York to the town of Stepford with her husband and two children.
Joanne is a modern living woman who is independent, has a job as a photographer and lives life to the full. When they move to Stepford she embarks on the women of Stepford. She finds 2 women to be normal (who become her friends) but she finds the others women to be abnormal. Her husband becomes a member of the men’s association, which is a place where men gather and talk about men’s stuff; well that’s what the women thought. One by one Joanne finds the woman have changed. Eventually she goes crazy and is determined to get out of Stepford but the kids go missing. She goes to her best friends house to find them but they’re not there. She confronts her friend to ask what’s wrong and eventually Joanne accidentally stabs her and she doesn’t bleed. Joanne thinks it was strange so she becomes scared. She goes home and hits her husband and forces him to tell her where they are. He points her to the men’s club. As she arrives at the men’s club she hears the children, but it was a set-up, it was just a tape. The leader of the men’s club had led her on. The leader tells her not to be scared, but she is. She runs down the corridor trying to open every door. But it’s a trap as she walks in on a replica of her own bedroom. In the bedroom is a robot of similarity to her. She realises the women of Stepford were replaced with robots. The robot kills her and the robot replaces her. The ending is quite chilling as all the women (robots) are in a supermarket and as we see Joanne and look into her eyes we see nothing. She seems lifeless and that’s what she is.
The women of Stepford are different to Joanne in Many ways. They would talk about cleaning products such as starch while Joanne and her friends would talk about their job, husbands, what they were going to do etc… The way they walked was different, the way they talked, their body language, hair, make-up, clothes and just their attitudes towards life. This movie shows how women’s culture has changed over the years and how attitudes of women have changed over the years. The Stepford women acted as if they were still living in the 1950’s. Before the women’s liberation in the 1960’s women attitudes towards life were believing things like ‘men rule the world’ and ‘cleaning is fun’ but nowadays beliefs to do with particular jobs they are interested in. Women have become more independent over the years and ‘The Stepford Wives’ displays a message of how women have changed. They compare the lives of women in different decades and prove that the lives of women have changed over the years and that women have it easier than women in the 1950’s. Women now have more privileges.
Both ‘The Stepford Wives’ and ‘Educating Rita’ display varieties of cultural diversity. ‘The Stepford Wives’ mainly displays the change of women throughout the decades but ‘Educating Rita’ concentrates on different classes such as middle and working class. ‘Educating Rita’ also does concentrate on women as Rita is a women but it concentrates on the classes and how they differ from one another in Great Britain. Films portray lives and issues in the world. The issue involved here is cultural diversity. Films describe the different types of cultures and explore how the lives of people are lived. ‘Educating Rita’ and ‘The Stepford Wives’ cleverly construct ideas of women in the 50’s and 80’s and create ideas and messages of how the lives of women have been in the passed.
