http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/824016/index.html
“The typical complaint is that women in films are either 'virgins, mothers or whores”
This quotation will help me as it mentions that, women always have a negative role in film, which then portrays a bad representation for the females.
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/824016/index.html
“The number of female protagonists has increased, and female characters play a larger part in propelling the narrative forward”
This quotation is beneficial to me as it mentions that, female characters are the main individuals that make a film more exciting and thrilling to watch. This can be due to the roles that thye have been given.
http://www.britmovie.co.uk/forums/media-studies/24159-changing-representation-women-film.html
“Female roles have changed, i.e.- Bond girls have also become less feminine and more masculine”
This quote states that, females are now becoming more masculine than feminine and this can help me in my investigation as I can mention that not all females play the typical role of sexual objects.
http://dominantroles.blogspot.com/
“Laura Mulvey argued that Hollywood cinema objectified women in an image for the pleasure of men”
This quote helps me because, Mulvey argues that women are used in cinema in order to pleasures the male desire. This can help me in my critical investigation as I can talk about, how women are used in films to make more men aware of the movie.
http://dominantroles.blogspot.com/
“Men have played the active role whereas the woman plays a more passive role”
This can be beneficial for me in my critical investigation because, this quote is stating that men are given the roles that they are capable of doing and women are given the sexual and easier roles which are to act like sexual objects and wear provocative clothing.
http://dominantroles.blogspot.com/
“Most films presented images of women that were produced simply for the ‘gratification’ of male viewers”
Again, this quote suggests that women are used in cinema just to please the male viewers and for them to get excited over the female body.
http://dominantroles.blogspot.com/
“Women have gradually become more independent and powerful in Hollywood cinema”
http://dominantroles.blogspot.com/
“Changes in female representation media images still portray women as sex objects as independent career women; as loving mothers obsessed with food and clean clothes.”
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Task 3 - Historical Text Anaylsis & Research
Breakfast at Tiffany’s 1961, the film was directed by Blake Edwards and was written by Truman Capote and George Axelrod. The film consists of a hybrid genre of comedy, romance and drama. The film was awarded with 2 win Oscars, 7 Wins and 7 Nominations. The reason why I have chosen this text in contrast to mean girls is because, it is a well recognized mainstream hit whereas, mean girls is a modernized version of a teen movie in today’s generation. The film is about a man who moves into a New York apartment building and becomes interested in his pretty, quirky neighbor Holly Golightly. Her lifestyle is somewhat different as it is confusing and fascinates Paul. It is said that in public she flirts around, being sexy and sophisticated but when the two are alone she plays a sweet and vulnerable act. Even though, Audrey Hepburn plays a daring and sexy part in this film. She does not expose her body in an appealing way and to satisfy the male audience and their desire. Although, she is sexy, stunning and sophisticated she does not show it in a seductive or provocative way. For instance; she does not show off flesh and is only a one man’s women. Never the less, in mean girls this is represented in the opposite way as young teenage girls are seen as sexual objects and dumb blonde bimbos. By this, we can see how much society has changed over years gone by because, films in the 60’s were seen to be more about housewives and even though they were sexy they didn’t make it seductive in order to please the audience. Therefore; this goes against the typical values for women as their roles are changing as years go by. Whilst watching the trailer to this movie, I noticed that the main protagonist Audrey Hepburn mostly wore dresses knee length and only showed half her legs and full arms. A vast majority of the time, the props that were worn throughout the movie was a long black dress which could signify that she’s powerful, has strong emotions and is sophisticated. Also, the fact that she wears a dark color dress can be because, she’s feeling inconspicuous and maybe empty.
Task 2 - Additional Reading
Thompson, Denise, 2001, Radical Feminism Today, Denise Thompson. Page 36"Pleasure and desire 'enable' the continuation of the social conditions of male supremacy"
This quote illustrates that pleasure and desire is an asset for a women as it attracts the male supremacy. This links to my critical investigation as it clearly states that women are shown in the media to look pleasurable and desirable for the male audience
Jill, Nelmes, 1996, An Introduction To Film Studies, London, Jill Nelmes. Page 230 & 231"Mulvey argues that identifcation is always with male, who is the pivot of the film,its hero, while the female is often seen as threat"
This quotation states that men in films are the back bone of the film, where as the representation of women are the distraction. This will inncorparate in my investigation as it describes the women representation of being a threat, and then I can gather texts where they have been threats and find out how they were a threat;sexual objects.
Jill, Nelmes, 1996, An Introduction To Film Studies, London, Jill Nelmes. Page 230 & 231
"Voyeurism and the desire to see the erotic and the forbidden, yet the desire is male - centred"
This quotation signifies that the desire for voyeurism and the erotic are male centred; a dominant male audience. This will link to my investigation as it is quoting that a male centred audience is again, being drawn in by the erotic representation of females.
Jill, Nelmes, 1996, An Introduction To Film Studies, London, Jill Nelmes. Page 230 & 231
"Mulvey argues that women has two roles in films: erotic object for the characters in the story and erotic object for the spectalor"
This quotation is a quote which Mulvey argued, stating that the representations of females are sexual objects either in the character of the film or for the audience.
Lehman and Luhr, Peter and Willam, 2003, Thinking About Media, Peter Lehman and Willam Luhr. Page 265
"Men and women are not represented equally in films"
This quotation is useful to me, as it mentions that men and women are not represented equally. This can help me throughout my investigation as it can be evident that women are represented in a negative way.
Graham and Probert, Andrew and David, 2008, Advanced Media Studies Oxfordshire: Phillip Allan
"Women account for a sizable proportion of cinema audiences"
This is beneficial to me as it is stated that the audience watch films due to women and females satisfying the male pleasure.
This quote illustrates that pleasure and desire is an asset for a women as it attracts the male supremacy. This links to my critical investigation as it clearly states that women are shown in the media to look pleasurable and desirable for the male audience
Jill, Nelmes, 1996, An Introduction To Film Studies, London, Jill Nelmes. Page 230 & 231"Mulvey argues that identifcation is always with male, who is the pivot of the film,its hero, while the female is often seen as threat"
This quotation states that men in films are the back bone of the film, where as the representation of women are the distraction. This will inncorparate in my investigation as it describes the women representation of being a threat, and then I can gather texts where they have been threats and find out how they were a threat;sexual objects.
Jill, Nelmes, 1996, An Introduction To Film Studies, London, Jill Nelmes. Page 230 & 231
"Voyeurism and the desire to see the erotic and the forbidden, yet the desire is male - centred"
This quotation signifies that the desire for voyeurism and the erotic are male centred; a dominant male audience. This will link to my investigation as it is quoting that a male centred audience is again, being drawn in by the erotic representation of females.
Jill, Nelmes, 1996, An Introduction To Film Studies, London, Jill Nelmes. Page 230 & 231
"Mulvey argues that women has two roles in films: erotic object for the characters in the story and erotic object for the spectalor"
This quotation is a quote which Mulvey argued, stating that the representations of females are sexual objects either in the character of the film or for the audience.
Lehman and Luhr, Peter and Willam, 2003, Thinking About Media, Peter Lehman and Willam Luhr. Page 265
"Men and women are not represented equally in films"
This quotation is useful to me, as it mentions that men and women are not represented equally. This can help me throughout my investigation as it can be evident that women are represented in a negative way.
Graham and Probert, Andrew and David, 2008, Advanced Media Studies Oxfordshire: Phillip Allan
"Women account for a sizable proportion of cinema audiences"
This is beneficial to me as it is stated that the audience watch films due to women and females satisfying the male pleasure.
Task 1 - Textual Analysis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKmkXNIZBJg
For part of my critical investigation I will be looking in depth at a film related to my case study which is called Mean Girls. I specifically chose this film as I thought it linked perfectly with my title which is: “Are females in teen movies always seen as bimbos and objects? Why might this be?”
Whilst analysing this trailer we can see that the main protagonist is in a new to the school environment and therefore tries to make friends by going around tables at lunch time and fit it. However,0: 46 seconds into the clip we see a high key lighting and medium shot of a young teenage blonde girl walking with her hands on her hips, which suggests that she is confused and dopey about what’s going on around her. This can be evident when she walks to hit the ball with her ‘chest’ instead of using her hands. The female voice over says “That’s Karen Smith, she’s one of the dumbest girls you’ll ever meet”. The fact that this is said about a girl who is blonde backs up the action of what she did with the ball and the way she acts. Further, the close up shots of the group of friends sitting on the grass laugh and talk about ‘Karen Smith’ and start mocking her and what she did in the English class. Which was clearly stated ‘How do you spell orange’, this can again be seen as a ‘blonde’ question as it is a simple word to spell. On the other hand, 0:58 seconds into the clip, the group again start to talk about another member in the ‘Plastics Crew’. The medium shot of the brunette teenager in the pitch on her mobile phone signifies that she’s starting to act like blonde women as she hangs out with blonde girls. Thinking logically, to the audience it does not make sense because, you wouldn’t pick up your mobile phone whilst playing sports. Yet, at 1:13 during the clip the main ‘plastic crew’ member comes in the pitch carried by 4 men either side. This shows that she is in control and has power over others as she starts to look down at them. What’s more, she also starts to blow kisses at the males and sticks her chest out. This can be seen as a sexual connotation. Later, the medium shots of different people start to say positive things about Regina George. This shows that people look up to her as a role model. This film can be used for audience theory as this may be watched for escapism purposes. Also, individuals may watch this and relate the text to their own personal issues. The representation through the film is conveyed as a typical bitchiness movie however, the young teenage girls do put themselves across as sexual objects that play the distinctive role of blonde bimbos. This can be obvious through the props that are worn by the characters. For instance; whilst playing sports they were provocative clothing such as; short shorts and crop tops. What’s more, whilst the girls took part in a Christmas play they sang and danced to ‘Jingle Bells’ and even in that specific scene the outfits were seductive and sexual. This can be seen by the tight silky red skirts that were worn and tight leather red crops and by the use of the colour red connotes love and romance etc.
For part of my critical investigation I will be looking in depth at a film related to my case study which is called Mean Girls. I specifically chose this film as I thought it linked perfectly with my title which is: “Are females in teen movies always seen as bimbos and objects? Why might this be?”
Whilst analysing this trailer we can see that the main protagonist is in a new to the school environment and therefore tries to make friends by going around tables at lunch time and fit it. However,0: 46 seconds into the clip we see a high key lighting and medium shot of a young teenage blonde girl walking with her hands on her hips, which suggests that she is confused and dopey about what’s going on around her. This can be evident when she walks to hit the ball with her ‘chest’ instead of using her hands. The female voice over says “That’s Karen Smith, she’s one of the dumbest girls you’ll ever meet”. The fact that this is said about a girl who is blonde backs up the action of what she did with the ball and the way she acts. Further, the close up shots of the group of friends sitting on the grass laugh and talk about ‘Karen Smith’ and start mocking her and what she did in the English class. Which was clearly stated ‘How do you spell orange’, this can again be seen as a ‘blonde’ question as it is a simple word to spell. On the other hand, 0:58 seconds into the clip, the group again start to talk about another member in the ‘Plastics Crew’. The medium shot of the brunette teenager in the pitch on her mobile phone signifies that she’s starting to act like blonde women as she hangs out with blonde girls. Thinking logically, to the audience it does not make sense because, you wouldn’t pick up your mobile phone whilst playing sports. Yet, at 1:13 during the clip the main ‘plastic crew’ member comes in the pitch carried by 4 men either side. This shows that she is in control and has power over others as she starts to look down at them. What’s more, she also starts to blow kisses at the males and sticks her chest out. This can be seen as a sexual connotation. Later, the medium shots of different people start to say positive things about Regina George. This shows that people look up to her as a role model. This film can be used for audience theory as this may be watched for escapism purposes. Also, individuals may watch this and relate the text to their own personal issues. The representation through the film is conveyed as a typical bitchiness movie however, the young teenage girls do put themselves across as sexual objects that play the distinctive role of blonde bimbos. This can be obvious through the props that are worn by the characters. For instance; whilst playing sports they were provocative clothing such as; short shorts and crop tops. What’s more, whilst the girls took part in a Christmas play they sang and danced to ‘Jingle Bells’ and even in that specific scene the outfits were seductive and sexual. This can be seen by the tight silky red skirts that were worn and tight leather red crops and by the use of the colour red connotes love and romance etc.
Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Bibliography - Books
Critical Investigation = Are females in teen movies always seen as bimbos and objects? Why might this be?
Thompson, Denise, 2001, Radical Feminism Today, Denise Thompson. Page 36
"Pleasure and desire 'enable' the continuation of the social conditions of male supremacy"
This quote illustrates that pleasure and desire is an asset for a women as it attracts the male supremacy. This links to my critical investigation as it clearly states that women are shown in the media to look pesaurable and desirable for the male audience.
Jill, Nelmes, 1996, An Introduction To Film Studies, London, Jill Nelmes. Page 230 & 231
"Mulvey argues that identifcation is always with male, who is the pivot of the film,its hero, while the female is often seen as threat"
This quotation states that men in films are the back bone of the film, where as the representation of women are the distraction. This will inncorparate in my investigation as it describes the women representation of being a threat, and then I can gather texts where they have been threats and find out how they were a threat;sexual objects.
"Voyeurism and the desire to see the erotic and the forbidden, yet the desire is male - centred"
This quotation signifies that the desire for voyeurism and the erotic are male centred; a dominant male audience. This will link to my investigation as it is quoting that a male centred audience is again, being drawn in by the erotic representation of females.
"Mulvey argues that women has two roles in films: erotic object for the characters in the story and erotic object for the spectalor"
This quotation is a quote which Mulvey argued, stating that the representation of females are sexual objects either in the character of the film or for the audience. This will embody with my investigation as
"The exuasion of women as object, as provider of voyeuristic plesure will then free her from the narrow limits she has been allocated in cinema"
"Audience gains voyeuristic pleasure from watching a film"
Lehman and Luhr, Peter and Willam, 2003, Thinking About Media, Peter Lehman and Willam Luhr. Page 265
"Men and women are not represented equally in films"
"The sexual women is usually represented as dangerous to herself and /or men"
"Women are frequently represented is movies as being good, dutiful mothers, and wives or independant sexual beings"
"Polarization of women is often referred to as the mother/whore dichotomy, which implies that if women are not traditional mother figures, safely under the protection of a man, they are whores in spirit"
Thompson, Denise, 2001, Radical Feminism Today, Denise Thompson. Page 36
"Pleasure and desire 'enable' the continuation of the social conditions of male supremacy"
This quote illustrates that pleasure and desire is an asset for a women as it attracts the male supremacy. This links to my critical investigation as it clearly states that women are shown in the media to look pesaurable and desirable for the male audience.
Jill, Nelmes, 1996, An Introduction To Film Studies, London, Jill Nelmes. Page 230 & 231
"Mulvey argues that identifcation is always with male, who is the pivot of the film,its hero, while the female is often seen as threat"
This quotation states that men in films are the back bone of the film, where as the representation of women are the distraction. This will inncorparate in my investigation as it describes the women representation of being a threat, and then I can gather texts where they have been threats and find out how they were a threat;sexual objects.
"Voyeurism and the desire to see the erotic and the forbidden, yet the desire is male - centred"
This quotation signifies that the desire for voyeurism and the erotic are male centred; a dominant male audience. This will link to my investigation as it is quoting that a male centred audience is again, being drawn in by the erotic representation of females.
"Mulvey argues that women has two roles in films: erotic object for the characters in the story and erotic object for the spectalor"
This quotation is a quote which Mulvey argued, stating that the representation of females are sexual objects either in the character of the film or for the audience. This will embody with my investigation as
"The exuasion of women as object, as provider of voyeuristic plesure will then free her from the narrow limits she has been allocated in cinema"
"Audience gains voyeuristic pleasure from watching a film"
Lehman and Luhr, Peter and Willam, 2003, Thinking About Media, Peter Lehman and Willam Luhr. Page 265
"Men and women are not represented equally in films"
"The sexual women is usually represented as dangerous to herself and /or men"
"Women are frequently represented is movies as being good, dutiful mothers, and wives or independant sexual beings"
"Polarization of women is often referred to as the mother/whore dichotomy, which implies that if women are not traditional mother figures, safely under the protection of a man, they are whores in spirit"
Graham and Probert, Andrew and David, 2008, Advanced Media Studies Oxfordshire: Phillip Allan
"Women account for a sizeble proportion of cinema audiences"
Abrams and Bell and Udris, Nathan and Ian and Jan, 2001, Film Studying, New York: Nathan Abrams, Ian Bell and Jan Udris
"Female stars are constructed to appeal to male desire"
MACDOLNALD, Myra, 1995, Representing women, Myths of femininty in the popular media, London: Edward Arnold.
"Visually stunning women threters to achieve castration anxiety in the male veiwer" Page 27
"Female characters in the screen tend to be filmed in a way that emphasizes their 'to-be-looked-at-ress', and point of veiw shots within the frame are pre dominantly from a male perspective"
Page 27
"Women are the object of a dominant male gaze" Page 27
Thursday, 3 December 2009
3 Article from The Guardian
Lost youth: Turning young girls into sex symbols
Last Halloween, a five-year-old girl showed up at my doorstep wearing a tube top, miniskirt, platform shoes and eye shadow. The outfit projected a rather tawdry sexuality. "I'm a Bratz!" the tot piped up proudly, a look-alike doll clutched in her chubby fist. I had a dizzying flashback to an image of a child prostitute I had seen in Cambodia, in a disturbingly similar outfit.
I was startled, but perhaps I should not have been. In recent years, the sexy little girl has become insistently present in the media – from 15-year-old Miley Cyrus photographed draped in a sheet for Vanity Fair to websites "counting down" to the day that child stars, such as Emma Watson, reach the age of consent. And, of course, there was Britney Spears, aged 16, prancing around in school uniform and pigtails in her first music video. Their allure is that of "Lolita" – very young and very provocative.
Lolita has become shorthand for a prematurely sexual girl – one who, by legal definition, is outlawed from sexual activity. The Lolitas of our time are defined as deliberate sexual provocateurs, luring adults into wickedness and transgressing moral and legal codes. But the original Lolita – the 12-year-old protagonist of Vladimir Nabokov's novel – was rather different; a powerless victim of her predatory stepfather.
Like many pre-adolescent girls, she is sexually curious, but has no control over the abusive relationship. Yet it is as though the very fact of her sexuality has made her into a fantasy, rather than the novel's sexually abused and tragic figure. She is eagerly invoked in the media as a sign of how licentious little girls can be. "Bring back school uniforms for little Lolitas!" demands the Daily Telegraph in an article condemning contemporary sexy schoolgirl fashions, while Tokyo's Daily Yomiuri refers to "the Lolita-like sex appeal" of preteen Japanese anime characters.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/18/lost-youth-young-girls
Observer survey reveals gender barrier stopping women reaching the top
The male stranglehold on power in the upper echelons of British business is laid bare today in new research commissioned by the Observer. Women occupy just 34 of the 970 executive director positions at companies in the FTSE 350 index, according to a survey by the Co-operative Asset Management.
When it comes to non-executive director posts – which do not involve any management power – woman fare slightly better, but still occupy only 204 of the 1,772 jobs available.
In the most senior positions of all, women's representation is stuck in the single digits. Leaders such as Baroness Sarah Hogg, chair of venture capitalist 3i, and Dame Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of media group Pearson, remain in a tiny minority.
Only four chairmanships are held by women, equivalent to 1.3% of the total, and just nine women serve as chief executives, or 3%.
No fewer than 132 of the companies surveyed, including Barclays Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland, are men-only zones, without a single woman at board level.
Overall, female representation stands at just 8.8%, taking both non-executive and executive directorships into account. This feeble showing is despite the fact that more than nine out of 10 companies in the survey claim to have an equal opportunities policy.
Harriet Harman, Leader of the House of Commons and minister for women and equalities, this weekend asked for the full background to the research in order to consider its findings with the Department for Business.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/23/women-business-harriet-harman-equality
Just dont call them chick flicks
John Ford once said that no woman could be a good film director because she couldn't throw a straight left to the jaw. A woman, Ford implied, could never get an unruly crew to stick to a schedule and a budget. It's possible that the film industry still thinks the way he did, for half a century later only 7% of directors are female.
Many of these women must have screened their work at Edinburgh this year. In a burst of what could be called disproportional representation, 12.5% of the features on show here were by women directors. Edinburgh has a history of such hospitality: in 1972, it included a groundbreaking women's section. It must also have helped that the festival's new director is female, though Hannah McGill insists she actively tried "to not know anything biographical about the director" when viewing films. Still, with the odds stacked against them, it seems right to pay attention to women film-makers, and the Edinburgh film festival provided a good opportunity to assess the current state of women's film.
Of the women directors on show this year, Julie Delpy's work as an actress gives her the highest profile. Delpy has not only written and directed the acerbic comedy Two Days in Paris, but also stars in it, as a highly strung photographer named Marion, bringing her American boyfriend home to Paris for the first time. Delpy says she knew that she'd have more chance of getting a solo project funded if she didn't stray too far from the template set by Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, in which she delivered charming performances opposite Ethan Hawke.
If Linklater's lovebirds had stayed together for a couple of years, moved to New York, developed a bewildering range of neuroses and returned for a European vacation, they might resemble the central couple in Two Days in Paris. Delpy gleefully describes her film as a "horror film for macho guys" - referring to Marion's ingenious way of humiliating the male member: she loves to take pictures of naked men with helium balloons tied to their penises. And Marion launches more than one hilarious diatribe against the male ego. Though Delpy shies away from the label, her father told her: "I am so proud of you. You made a true feminist movie."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/aug/31/edinburghfilmfestival2007.festivals
Last Halloween, a five-year-old girl showed up at my doorstep wearing a tube top, miniskirt, platform shoes and eye shadow. The outfit projected a rather tawdry sexuality. "I'm a Bratz!" the tot piped up proudly, a look-alike doll clutched in her chubby fist. I had a dizzying flashback to an image of a child prostitute I had seen in Cambodia, in a disturbingly similar outfit.
I was startled, but perhaps I should not have been. In recent years, the sexy little girl has become insistently present in the media – from 15-year-old Miley Cyrus photographed draped in a sheet for Vanity Fair to websites "counting down" to the day that child stars, such as Emma Watson, reach the age of consent. And, of course, there was Britney Spears, aged 16, prancing around in school uniform and pigtails in her first music video. Their allure is that of "Lolita" – very young and very provocative.
Lolita has become shorthand for a prematurely sexual girl – one who, by legal definition, is outlawed from sexual activity. The Lolitas of our time are defined as deliberate sexual provocateurs, luring adults into wickedness and transgressing moral and legal codes. But the original Lolita – the 12-year-old protagonist of Vladimir Nabokov's novel – was rather different; a powerless victim of her predatory stepfather.
Like many pre-adolescent girls, she is sexually curious, but has no control over the abusive relationship. Yet it is as though the very fact of her sexuality has made her into a fantasy, rather than the novel's sexually abused and tragic figure. She is eagerly invoked in the media as a sign of how licentious little girls can be. "Bring back school uniforms for little Lolitas!" demands the Daily Telegraph in an article condemning contemporary sexy schoolgirl fashions, while Tokyo's Daily Yomiuri refers to "the Lolita-like sex appeal" of preteen Japanese anime characters.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/18/lost-youth-young-girls
Observer survey reveals gender barrier stopping women reaching the top
The male stranglehold on power in the upper echelons of British business is laid bare today in new research commissioned by the Observer. Women occupy just 34 of the 970 executive director positions at companies in the FTSE 350 index, according to a survey by the Co-operative Asset Management.
When it comes to non-executive director posts – which do not involve any management power – woman fare slightly better, but still occupy only 204 of the 1,772 jobs available.
In the most senior positions of all, women's representation is stuck in the single digits. Leaders such as Baroness Sarah Hogg, chair of venture capitalist 3i, and Dame Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of media group Pearson, remain in a tiny minority.
Only four chairmanships are held by women, equivalent to 1.3% of the total, and just nine women serve as chief executives, or 3%.
No fewer than 132 of the companies surveyed, including Barclays Bank and Royal Bank of Scotland, are men-only zones, without a single woman at board level.
Overall, female representation stands at just 8.8%, taking both non-executive and executive directorships into account. This feeble showing is despite the fact that more than nine out of 10 companies in the survey claim to have an equal opportunities policy.
Harriet Harman, Leader of the House of Commons and minister for women and equalities, this weekend asked for the full background to the research in order to consider its findings with the Department for Business.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/23/women-business-harriet-harman-equality
Just dont call them chick flicks
John Ford once said that no woman could be a good film director because she couldn't throw a straight left to the jaw. A woman, Ford implied, could never get an unruly crew to stick to a schedule and a budget. It's possible that the film industry still thinks the way he did, for half a century later only 7% of directors are female.
Many of these women must have screened their work at Edinburgh this year. In a burst of what could be called disproportional representation, 12.5% of the features on show here were by women directors. Edinburgh has a history of such hospitality: in 1972, it included a groundbreaking women's section. It must also have helped that the festival's new director is female, though Hannah McGill insists she actively tried "to not know anything biographical about the director" when viewing films. Still, with the odds stacked against them, it seems right to pay attention to women film-makers, and the Edinburgh film festival provided a good opportunity to assess the current state of women's film.
Of the women directors on show this year, Julie Delpy's work as an actress gives her the highest profile. Delpy has not only written and directed the acerbic comedy Two Days in Paris, but also stars in it, as a highly strung photographer named Marion, bringing her American boyfriend home to Paris for the first time. Delpy says she knew that she'd have more chance of getting a solo project funded if she didn't stray too far from the template set by Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, in which she delivered charming performances opposite Ethan Hawke.
If Linklater's lovebirds had stayed together for a couple of years, moved to New York, developed a bewildering range of neuroses and returned for a European vacation, they might resemble the central couple in Two Days in Paris. Delpy gleefully describes her film as a "horror film for macho guys" - referring to Marion's ingenious way of humiliating the male member: she loves to take pictures of naked men with helium balloons tied to their penises. And Marion launches more than one hilarious diatribe against the male ego. Though Delpy shies away from the label, her father told her: "I am so proud of you. You made a true feminist movie."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/aug/31/edinburghfilmfestival2007.festivals
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
3 Articles from The Independant
Women too sensitive to succeed as film directors, says campion
She is the only woman to have won the prized Palme d'Or in the 62-year history of the Cannes Film Festival and is among a tiny handful of the world's best directors to have been recognised twice there.
Jane Campion yesterday sounded a rallying call for other women to "put on their coats of armour" and take on the male-dominated world of movie-directing.
Campion has declared herself a feminist in previous interviews and has bemoaned the lack of female directors. She is now suggesting it is time for women to toughen themselves up.
Women tend to find criticism hard to bear, said Campion, whose latest film, Bright Star, is in the running for the Palme D'Or at Cannes.
"I think women grow up without a lot of harsh criticism, they are treated more sensitively and it's quite hard when you first enter the world of film-making," she said yesterday. "But women must put on their coats of armour and get going."
"I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population and gave birth to the whole world. Without them, the rest are not getting to know the whole story."
The director, who once said "tragedy makes you grow up", admitted film studios still had a "distrust" of women's abilities. Describing the studio system as sexist, she said one of the reasons for there being a relatively large army of female film-makers in her native New Zealand was that the country did not have a thriving studio tradition.
"I think the studio system is kind of an old boys' system," she said. "It's difficult for them to trust women to be capable. I have been very, very lucky because some of our cinema is state-sponsored so they have to be fair to both men and women," she said.
Campion, 55, is one of three female film-makers in this year's competition, whose jury president is Isabelle Huppert, only the fourth woman in the history of the festival to take this role.
Yet Campion has been the first to speak up about the difference between the sexes at the festival. Only days ago Huppert said "cinema is universal" and with a shrug of the shoulders, added that she was just "happy" to be one of only four female judges since the festival was founded.
While she has seen success at Cannes, no female director has ever won an Oscar and only three have ever been nominated, including Campion with The Piano.
Campion first came to Cannes in 1986, when her Peel won the Palme d'Or for short films. Then, in 1993, Campion jointly won the Golden Palm for The Piano.
Bright Star is her first feature film in six years and it dramatises the intense love affair between the Romantic poet John Keats and his fiery neighbour in north London, Fanny Brawne.
The British actor Ben Whishaw is cast as the poet, who died at the age of 25. Campion told the story through Fanny's eyes, she said, because was drawn to her character after reading Andrew Motion's biography of Keats.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/women-too-sensitive-to-succeed-as-film-directors-says-campion-1685713.html
Is Antichrist anti women?
It has a wild, witchy woman, it has self-inflicted female genital mutilation, it even has an official "misogyny researcher" listed in the closing credits. Yes indeed: that old master-provocateur Lars von Trier has done it again with Antichrist, currently being described as one of the most vicious movies ever made. It was crowned at this year's Cannes Film Festival with an "anti-prize" for being "the most misogynist movie from the self-proclaimed biggest director in the world". British audiences can now make up their own minds, with the film released here this weekend. The Cannes jury, which bestowed the award, accused Von Trier of suggesting that "woman should be burnt at the stake so that man can finally stand up."
The director certainly has well-known form when it comes to treating females harshly, both in his fictional creations and the actresses who have played them. Björk and Nicole Kidman – who worked with him on Dancer in the Dark and Dogville respectively – described their collaboration as a gruelling experience. But Von Trier is fully capable of grinding his male characters and actors through the mill with equal relish (remember the indignities visited on Jorgen Leth in the The Five Obstructions, for instance?) And, whatever his mysterious private psychosexual motives, it can't be denied that he creates compelling parts for women.
Nobody who has seen Antichrist could argue that Charlotte Gainsbourg's character – a woman who goes violently mad out of grief and guilt after her small son dies in an accident – is not immeasurably more interesting than her husband, a smug, misguided psychotherapist, played by Willem Dafoe. As Von Trier says in the film's production notes, "My male protagonists are basically idiots who don't understand shit."
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/is-antichrist-antiwomen-1755616.html
Our sexual obsession damages boys as well as girls
It's official: sexualisation harms girls. Of course it does. It harms all of us. It doesn't just make girls ill, it harms boys too, teaching them to be sexually violent.
The American Psychological Association's findings - that the portrayal of girls and young women as sex objects harms girls' mental and physical health - should be addressed at the root cause: the media. Powerful and profit driven, they are left to self-regulate with their own voluntary codes. Not only is this not working, it's harming society. The Government needs to introduce responsible media regulation, in which social responsibility and harm are not compromised for free speech. Only then will we see diverse representations of females in positive roles.
As a society, we should be extremely worried. The saturation of sexualised images of females is leading to body hatred, eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression, high rates of teen pregnancy and unhealthy sexual development in our girl children. It also leads to impaired cognitive performance. In short, if we tell girls that looking "hot" is the only way to be validated, rather than encouraging them to be active players in the world, they underperform at everything else.
But the consequences of sexualising girls are far more devastating than this. Rape is at crisis levels, and one in three women will be a victim of stalking, sexual harassment or sexual violence in their lifetime.
But who are the mysterious perpetrators of these crimes? Much of the media, the justice system and one-third of the public seem to think alcohol is raping girls. That by getting drunk, dressing sexy and flirting, girls and women are responsible for the horrific violence committed against them.
Only 8 per cent of rapes are stranger rapes. It is ordinary boys and men who are committing these sexually violent crimes against girls and women. It is appalling that when another rape or sexually violent crime is reported on the news - so ubiquitous it is unremarkable - it is never followed by a report asking: "Why are boys and men sexually abusing and raping girls and women? Where do they learn to film this abuse on their mobiles? Where do boys and men learn that having power over women and being violent is an acceptable way to be a man?" Instead, the onus is on girls and women to curb their behaviour and lives.
The sexualisation of girls and the normalisation of the sex and porn industries have made it increasingly acceptable and "fun" for women to be viewed as sex objects, and for men to view women as sexual commodities. To speak out against this trend is framed as "anti-fun" and "anti-sex". The pressure group Object has documented how men's "lifestyle" magazines and lad mags do not merely objectify women, they trivialise trafficking, sex tourism and prostitution. The number of young British men using prostitutes has doubled in a decade to one in 10 in 2000.
The charity the Lilith project has found that the increasingly mainstream pole- and lap-dancing and porn industries are careful to hide their links with prostitution, trafficking and sexual violence. A five-year-old boy can buy a lad mag and learn that women are only sex objects and he has entitlements to their bodies. If he logs on to Zoo magazine's website, he can watch videos of girls stripping and lap-dancing, one set up as if the woman is being stalked and secretly filmed in her bedroom while she strips, another of a "ridiculously hot" girl being so frightened, she is screaming and crying uncontrollably in a ball. This is not just about sexualisation. Sexual harassment is being eroticised.
The sexualisation of girls exploits girls and boys. All children and young people are under immense pressure to accept it. Boys who are not enthusiastic about it, or speak out against it, run the risk of being ignored or ridiculed, of being labelled "gay", "unmanly", or not liking sex. Boys and young men are under pressure to act out masculinity in which power and control over women, and men, is normal. In which violence is normal.
The absence of positive role models in boys' immediate lives is showing. If the adult men around them do not challenge sexism and traditional masculine behaviours, boys won't either. And with absent fathers, boys are left with celebrities and sports heroes to look up to. Music videos largely follow a template of an individual man possessing a group of sexualised women, gangsta rappers promote sexist and violent notions of masculinity, many young footballers and other sportsmen behave like playboys, enjoy group sex, get away with rape and keep their "hero" status.
Damian Carnell who works to prevent anti-gender violence, says: "From boyhood, men read into the messages that we see around us, from men's institutionalised superiority over women, and privileges of being male, to negative stereotypes of girls and women. It's no wonder that 35 per cent of boys aged 11-16 believe it is justified to abuse women."
The sexualisation of girls is not just shattering the lives of girls and women, it is preventing boys and young men from relating to girls and women as complex human beings with so much to offer them. It is preventing boys from forming healthy friendships and working relationships with girls and women. Instead, it is nurturing potentially violent abusers, rapists and johns. Ultimately, it means boys are not free to be themselves, to know their own humanity.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rachel-bell-our-sexual-obsession-damages-boys-as-well-as-girls-437307.html
She is the only woman to have won the prized Palme d'Or in the 62-year history of the Cannes Film Festival and is among a tiny handful of the world's best directors to have been recognised twice there.
Jane Campion yesterday sounded a rallying call for other women to "put on their coats of armour" and take on the male-dominated world of movie-directing.
Campion has declared herself a feminist in previous interviews and has bemoaned the lack of female directors. She is now suggesting it is time for women to toughen themselves up.
Women tend to find criticism hard to bear, said Campion, whose latest film, Bright Star, is in the running for the Palme D'Or at Cannes.
"I think women grow up without a lot of harsh criticism, they are treated more sensitively and it's quite hard when you first enter the world of film-making," she said yesterday. "But women must put on their coats of armour and get going."
"I would love to see more women directors because they represent half of the population and gave birth to the whole world. Without them, the rest are not getting to know the whole story."
The director, who once said "tragedy makes you grow up", admitted film studios still had a "distrust" of women's abilities. Describing the studio system as sexist, she said one of the reasons for there being a relatively large army of female film-makers in her native New Zealand was that the country did not have a thriving studio tradition.
"I think the studio system is kind of an old boys' system," she said. "It's difficult for them to trust women to be capable. I have been very, very lucky because some of our cinema is state-sponsored so they have to be fair to both men and women," she said.
Campion, 55, is one of three female film-makers in this year's competition, whose jury president is Isabelle Huppert, only the fourth woman in the history of the festival to take this role.
Yet Campion has been the first to speak up about the difference between the sexes at the festival. Only days ago Huppert said "cinema is universal" and with a shrug of the shoulders, added that she was just "happy" to be one of only four female judges since the festival was founded.
While she has seen success at Cannes, no female director has ever won an Oscar and only three have ever been nominated, including Campion with The Piano.
Campion first came to Cannes in 1986, when her Peel won the Palme d'Or for short films. Then, in 1993, Campion jointly won the Golden Palm for The Piano.
Bright Star is her first feature film in six years and it dramatises the intense love affair between the Romantic poet John Keats and his fiery neighbour in north London, Fanny Brawne.
The British actor Ben Whishaw is cast as the poet, who died at the age of 25. Campion told the story through Fanny's eyes, she said, because was drawn to her character after reading Andrew Motion's biography of Keats.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/women-too-sensitive-to-succeed-as-film-directors-says-campion-1685713.html
Is Antichrist anti women?
It has a wild, witchy woman, it has self-inflicted female genital mutilation, it even has an official "misogyny researcher" listed in the closing credits. Yes indeed: that old master-provocateur Lars von Trier has done it again with Antichrist, currently being described as one of the most vicious movies ever made. It was crowned at this year's Cannes Film Festival with an "anti-prize" for being "the most misogynist movie from the self-proclaimed biggest director in the world". British audiences can now make up their own minds, with the film released here this weekend. The Cannes jury, which bestowed the award, accused Von Trier of suggesting that "woman should be burnt at the stake so that man can finally stand up."
The director certainly has well-known form when it comes to treating females harshly, both in his fictional creations and the actresses who have played them. Björk and Nicole Kidman – who worked with him on Dancer in the Dark and Dogville respectively – described their collaboration as a gruelling experience. But Von Trier is fully capable of grinding his male characters and actors through the mill with equal relish (remember the indignities visited on Jorgen Leth in the The Five Obstructions, for instance?) And, whatever his mysterious private psychosexual motives, it can't be denied that he creates compelling parts for women.
Nobody who has seen Antichrist could argue that Charlotte Gainsbourg's character – a woman who goes violently mad out of grief and guilt after her small son dies in an accident – is not immeasurably more interesting than her husband, a smug, misguided psychotherapist, played by Willem Dafoe. As Von Trier says in the film's production notes, "My male protagonists are basically idiots who don't understand shit."
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/is-antichrist-antiwomen-1755616.html
Our sexual obsession damages boys as well as girls
It's official: sexualisation harms girls. Of course it does. It harms all of us. It doesn't just make girls ill, it harms boys too, teaching them to be sexually violent.
The American Psychological Association's findings - that the portrayal of girls and young women as sex objects harms girls' mental and physical health - should be addressed at the root cause: the media. Powerful and profit driven, they are left to self-regulate with their own voluntary codes. Not only is this not working, it's harming society. The Government needs to introduce responsible media regulation, in which social responsibility and harm are not compromised for free speech. Only then will we see diverse representations of females in positive roles.
As a society, we should be extremely worried. The saturation of sexualised images of females is leading to body hatred, eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression, high rates of teen pregnancy and unhealthy sexual development in our girl children. It also leads to impaired cognitive performance. In short, if we tell girls that looking "hot" is the only way to be validated, rather than encouraging them to be active players in the world, they underperform at everything else.
But the consequences of sexualising girls are far more devastating than this. Rape is at crisis levels, and one in three women will be a victim of stalking, sexual harassment or sexual violence in their lifetime.
But who are the mysterious perpetrators of these crimes? Much of the media, the justice system and one-third of the public seem to think alcohol is raping girls. That by getting drunk, dressing sexy and flirting, girls and women are responsible for the horrific violence committed against them.
Only 8 per cent of rapes are stranger rapes. It is ordinary boys and men who are committing these sexually violent crimes against girls and women. It is appalling that when another rape or sexually violent crime is reported on the news - so ubiquitous it is unremarkable - it is never followed by a report asking: "Why are boys and men sexually abusing and raping girls and women? Where do they learn to film this abuse on their mobiles? Where do boys and men learn that having power over women and being violent is an acceptable way to be a man?" Instead, the onus is on girls and women to curb their behaviour and lives.
The sexualisation of girls and the normalisation of the sex and porn industries have made it increasingly acceptable and "fun" for women to be viewed as sex objects, and for men to view women as sexual commodities. To speak out against this trend is framed as "anti-fun" and "anti-sex". The pressure group Object has documented how men's "lifestyle" magazines and lad mags do not merely objectify women, they trivialise trafficking, sex tourism and prostitution. The number of young British men using prostitutes has doubled in a decade to one in 10 in 2000.
The charity the Lilith project has found that the increasingly mainstream pole- and lap-dancing and porn industries are careful to hide their links with prostitution, trafficking and sexual violence. A five-year-old boy can buy a lad mag and learn that women are only sex objects and he has entitlements to their bodies. If he logs on to Zoo magazine's website, he can watch videos of girls stripping and lap-dancing, one set up as if the woman is being stalked and secretly filmed in her bedroom while she strips, another of a "ridiculously hot" girl being so frightened, she is screaming and crying uncontrollably in a ball. This is not just about sexualisation. Sexual harassment is being eroticised.
The sexualisation of girls exploits girls and boys. All children and young people are under immense pressure to accept it. Boys who are not enthusiastic about it, or speak out against it, run the risk of being ignored or ridiculed, of being labelled "gay", "unmanly", or not liking sex. Boys and young men are under pressure to act out masculinity in which power and control over women, and men, is normal. In which violence is normal.
The absence of positive role models in boys' immediate lives is showing. If the adult men around them do not challenge sexism and traditional masculine behaviours, boys won't either. And with absent fathers, boys are left with celebrities and sports heroes to look up to. Music videos largely follow a template of an individual man possessing a group of sexualised women, gangsta rappers promote sexist and violent notions of masculinity, many young footballers and other sportsmen behave like playboys, enjoy group sex, get away with rape and keep their "hero" status.
Damian Carnell who works to prevent anti-gender violence, says: "From boyhood, men read into the messages that we see around us, from men's institutionalised superiority over women, and privileges of being male, to negative stereotypes of girls and women. It's no wonder that 35 per cent of boys aged 11-16 believe it is justified to abuse women."
The sexualisation of girls is not just shattering the lives of girls and women, it is preventing boys and young men from relating to girls and women as complex human beings with so much to offer them. It is preventing boys from forming healthy friendships and working relationships with girls and women. Instead, it is nurturing potentially violent abusers, rapists and johns. Ultimately, it means boys are not free to be themselves, to know their own humanity.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rachel-bell-our-sexual-obsession-damages-boys-as-well-as-girls-437307.html
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