Other Group involves: Yujin Lee Emilija Metlovaite
This is my part of the Presentation:
The case study that I did w
mnsj
Tag: semester2
Case study: Mulan (2020 version):
1000mapa Cw2 Essay - 1000words
Gender within todays society can be split between being an established old societal construct that is a system that is embedded so heavily in everyday life that mainly benefits cis-people more specifically cis-men. Gender is ‘not something we are born with, and not something we have, but something we do’ (Eckert, P & McConnell Ginet, S. (2006)p1) However, gender can also involve identity which helps break down these constructs and shows that gender is scientifically classed as a completely different thing to sex, such as people identifying as transgender, nonbinary, genderfluid or gender non-conforming.
Feminism can come in different forms and people can be feminists in different ways, for example it is said that there are four different types of feminist: ‘radical, Marxist, liberal and what Sylvia Walby (1990) calls dual-systems theory’(Storey, J. (2018)P1) which demonstrates that people take feminism in different ways and face feminism in whatever way that they practice/are taught it. to one another. However, feminism is to form an equality so that everyone can be equal. Feminism is still an on-going movement to get equality between all sexes, this involves equal pay to taking down misogyny. These two can link heavily to one another as feminism is to create equality and that could include between any gender.
Films show off feminism in subtle and interesting ways. A film that shows a unique representation if Mulan, more specifically 2020 live action version of Disney’s Mulan, as it shows a lot of older Asian cultured traditions that involve a lot of specific gender roles that have been placed upon people by their sex an example of this how straight at the start the audience is made aware that women can not be warriors which is a gender role that is clearly going to be broken within the film.
Mulan fights gender roles in subtle ways and one of the ways that they have done this is having a main protagonist and having one of the main antagonists to be powerful and intellectual women, however they still show a hierarchy where a man is leading warriors which could suggest at the start that women cannot be leaders.
Even though this film has high representation of Asian culture and race as well as the traditional parts of their culture, for example women serving their husbands, within this film if they break this tradition its classed as an humiliation which shows that Mulan is aware of this and starts to take the first step to breaking down these gender roles. With Mulan being the protagonist I think there are very good moments where her character is brave for breaking these gender roles set by this cultural society and due to this bravery it shows the audience that there shouldn’t be these gendered issues within society.
Mulan also shows a slight representation of the trans community and a lot of transgender/gender nonconforming people grew up with Mulan being one of the only slight representation that they have. As it shows a woman that is born at birth can pass as male and this giving hope and representation to young trans people who fighting for their rights. But it also shows the some of the fear of getting caught and how people could treat you very different to what your gender identity is. Sex is biological; it is physiologically what prompts us to be assigned as male or female. As transgender people are trying to break these stereotypes and be themselves, ‘Gender is socially constructed; it consists of the ideas we have about masculinity and femininity’ (Trier-Bieniek, A & Leavy.(2014) p2) which shows that society has constructed this idea that one gender has to more masculine than others. This is highly demonstrated through toxic masculinity and men needing to be stronger than another gender as a lot of the men within the film are very traditional and controlling which hold a lot of what in our society still has. ‘The concern with differences includes the socially constructed categories sex and gender, as well as sexuality and social class’ (Radtke,H,L.(2017).p1) this quote suggests due to gender being an imbedded system from birth that people have build up these stereotypes that need to be broken.
Mulan shows that women are powerful and when given the same treatment as men can do anything they can if not even better. That strength can come from perseverance and practice and skill not gender/sex. This is done a lot throughout the film but one of the times it is prevalent would be when Mulan rides into battle with her hair down and shows people her strength. Not only that but she shows that she has wit and intelligence with her motives breaks the stereotype of women being fragile, weak and only here to serve men as well as only being shown as objects. Mulan’s journey within the film beats the concept that only men can do successful and therefore she begins the movement that women can be warriors.
Even though Mulan does feminism and gender representation some justice, media in general still has a long way to go to break the more damaging stereotypes and gender roles that they are still placing on people to this day.
References (APA List):
Eckert, P & McConnell Ginet, S. (2006). Language and Gender, Second Edition; Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Pg1-3. Chap1 (stanford.edu)
Storey, J. (2018). Gender and sexuality, Women at the cinema; Routledge. P1-2. someTitle (aula.education)
Trier-Bieniek, A & Leavy.(2014). P. Gender & Pop Culture; Sense Publishers. P2-3. someTitle (aula.education)
Munro, E. (2013) Feminism: A Fourth Wave? ; Centre for Cultural Policy Research at Glasgow University. P1. Feminism: A Fourth Wave? (aula.education)
Radtke,H,L.(2017). Feminist theory in Feminism & Psychology [Part I]: Dealing with differences and negotiating the biological; University of Calgary, Canada. P1. Feminist theory in Feminism & Psychology [Part I]: Dealing with differences and negotiating the biological (sagepub.com)
Little Women (2019’s version) Proposal for Film and Screen cultures:
For this proposal of analysing a two-tiered film I chose to write about ‘Little Women’ which is set within the 19th century centring around four sisters and their stories. This film has a heavy portrayal of men and women and how they are viewed and present themselves within this time period. Women within this are represented as elegant and feminine through the women’s attitude towards men and the way they dress, this can indicate the class of the women and the men.
When I analysis this film in full I will look further into moments in the film that involve intertextuality and blank parody within this film. The film could be reference and compare to both the book and other version of the film which demonstrates similar aspects but has many differences however still manages to create a similar effect to each other.
The film as several aspects of intertextuality and relies on nostalgia, the imperfect memory of humans and postmodern feminism.
Within this I would look further into how Gerwig decided to structure the film and uses tone when jumping back and forth between the different presents and parts and how she cleverly uses parallels or transitions throughout the film to do this smoothly. Along with this I would look into how the choice of actresses effect the performance and could contribute to the theory of Mulvey such as the four different sisters presenting themselves as four different archetypes of femininity by each presenting different aspects of how people view women such as Meg gets married and has children whereas Beth is fragile and weak, this follows Mulvey’s ‘bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning’ (Mulvey, 1975) and is suggested by several theorists that due to the absence of the father and their relationship with their mother could’ve had an effect on each of the women. The women are represented in different ways using men and society as a way to demonstrate how women are treated as a means of nurture, this is especially shown through the mother’s character and these aspects of the film fall into Mulvey’s narrative theory of the ‘Male Gaze’ and how women in film and for the audience are put within film for the viewing pleasure of men.
There are different points where using some IMR rules to enhance Mulvey’s theory. Examples of this is when the camera is on Joe, the lighting is warm, and the camera follows Joe. Throughout the film the lighting switches to indicate the idea of the present and the past as it’s been written through the perspective of Joe (which carries throughout the film and shows a lot of her emotions and experiences), the idea that this is written is shown more towards the end of the film where Joe’s character experiences loss and grief and ends up writing down her life for her sister. This is a clever way of ending the film as though it were written, which is suggested that it is fiction through the use of the lighting and how the last couple scenes are presented, that she gives the audience this romantic ideology of her falling in love with a guy to please the reader which ends up falling under the notion that Mulvey puts across of Women having to end up with a man in the end (or die) so that the men have this view of control.
With analysing this film, I will talk about how this film can be classed as both a 1st tier film and a 2nd tier film depending on how the audience is viewing it and I will look into the IMR and how the film follows a lot of the classical Hollywood style of film. Analysing this will also allow me to see what kind of elements the film could lack and how the author and film uses the common ideologies of how people view women/feminine presenting people (especially in this time period) to create this idea of a perfect ending.
Watching this film from a two-tier perspective allowed me to analysis how the plot line and the way it is produced and uses the rules of IMR and the idea of scopophilia is used both for the audience and with the male characters when it comes to their perspective of the women. The women are often shown as beautiful/graceful however we do see a side to the women’s personality which doesn’t specifically fall into Murvey’s theory and could fall under William’s theory, however at the end it still has a lot of moments where the characters are evolved around men.
I noticed how the film uses the idea of the 4th look (surrounding Mulvey) at the end as it grabs the audience’s attention and makes them very aware of their surroundings due to how the ending sequence took place and how cleverly it was designed to make the audience question whether this was reality or not which really enhances the 1st look due to how the audience watches the film.
So, when I go into writing a full analysis of this film, I will look more in-depth at these different theory concepts and representation within the film Little Women, I can approach each of these different theories in detail with different aspects of the film.
My Annotated bibliography:
Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema PDF. https://files.coventry.aula.education/e091c215d45b33f6eddf7e8d1a4d717dlaura_mulvey_visual_pleasure_and_narrative_cinema.pdf
This book is written by Laura Mulvey who did a feminist’s perspective of film narrative and IMR. She theorises about how cinema is shown through the ‘male gaze’. Mulvey believes that within cinema women are often shown within the perspective of a heterosexual man. Within normal old cinema there is a patriarchal ideology where women are viewed as objects for men visual pleasure, this is shown within Hollywood style of film.
Mulvey believes there are 3 gazes: the spectator, camera and the character which can be represented as the real, the symbolic and the imaginary. As this is presented through the eyes of male power it is often viewed in three ways: scopophilia, voyeurism and narcissistic.
‘Women as image, men as barer of the look’ shows that Mulvey believes that within cinema women are represented through a way that a man would want to see, which in this case-study demonstrates that in a range of different ways such as the sister’s personalities showing through with the way they dress such as the character Amy who dresses in big, elegant dresses to show try to show of class compared to her sister Joe who dresses more casually and comfortable. Mulvey suggests that women are either shown as passive and men are more active when it comes to the gaze of women in narrative cinema.
Burch, N. (1979). Film’s Institutional Mode of Representation and the Soviet Response. The MIT Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/778236
Noel Burch wrote about the making of cinema, and how by the 1940s the cultural ascendancy of narrative cinema was complete. This book goes into how Vertov and Eisenstein developed two different forms of cinema and only one was popular due to the demographic of people who had access to watching film, which then will develop into the Classic Hollywood Narrative that we see in cinema today.
Noel Burch talked about how camera shots were developed and made, as well as lighting, montage and editing put together this Hollywood industry style of film making. How a lot of these elements are meant to be invisible and almost natural to the audience watching, this was part of the development of IMR roles that Noel talks about within the book. Which within this case-study demonstrates a range of the rules of classic Hollywood cinema and how they want to keep this idea of a veil on the production such as the camera movements with Joes character and the subtle switches in lighting to enhance the plotline.
Carroll, N. (1982). The Future of Allusion: Hollywood in the Seventies (And beyond). The MIT Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/778606
This book covers how the language of sixties films is constructed and how there have been changes of the nature of Hollywood symbol systems. This book goes into depth about what allusions are and how they are involved within different films. The book mainly goes into the old vs new on the language of film and the elements that make up film such as genres as symbols.
Carroll also goes into how the two-tier model was constructed and what the two-tier model can involve within Hollywood illusionism. Carroll talked about within two-tier film are successful due to being able to create a mass audience and but still manages to communicate different messages to select groups who would understand subtleties and Carroll goes into depth on this and how it applies to older films from the 60s/70s.
OTHER REFEENCES (I’m going to use for the essay):
Bradshaw, P. (2021, June 3). Little Women (Sony/Columbia Pictures) Review. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/nov/25/little-women-review-greta-gerwig-saoirse-ronan-emma-watson
Burch, N. (1979). Film’s Institutional Mode of Representation and the Soviet Response. The MIT Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/778236
Carroll, N. (1982). The Future of Allusion: Hollywood in the Seventies (And beyond). The MIT Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/778606
Hooks, B. (1992). The Oppositional Gaze. Oppositional Gaze. https://files.coventry.aula.education/21beb43df1ef379f2ce1e816de928bbbhooks_oppositional_gaze.pdf
Le Saux AFC, Y. (2021, June 1). Yorick Le Saux AFC / Little Women. British Cinematographer, Yorick Le Saux AFC.
https://britishcinematographer.co.uk/yorick-le-saux-afc-little-women/
Mulvey, L. (1975). Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema PDF.
Willemen, P., & Goldsmith, B. (1998). To Be Outside and In-Between, Essay On Looks and Frictions: Essays in Cultural Studies and Film Theory. Film-Philosophy 2.1. https://files.coventry.aula.education/0f4de2ecf2d1c34f0d587d8cb8fee2b2essay_on_willemen.pdf
Willemen, & Dixon, W. W. (1995). It looks at You: The return gaze of cinema/video reception. State University of New York Press. https://files.coventry.aula.education/94d1c2662db86a8a9bc477acf247c7abit_looks_at_you_chapter_one_.pdf
Williams, L. (2001). When the woman looks. Routledge. https://files.coventry.aula.education/d19c1904f5571d02b1bcaf1e02cb484fwilliams_womanlooks.pdf
‘Blue Velvet’ – 1986
(https://images.app.goo.gl/MrLpdiKpHsSs1abbA)
Going into watching the film Blue Velvet I was intrigued as to what this film was going to be about and how the director would portray the plot, as older films can sometimes have really bizarre plots or camera-work/effects within them depending on the different styles and genre of film that is being portrayed. As I did not know much about this film going into it I was interested in seeing what this cast and director had to offer.
During watching this film there were moments that I thought were fairly laid back or mundane and had very little interest in them, plot wise, however the camera work and editing was done well within the film. I do think there were moments in the film that were too mundane and I felt like the director did this to balance out the more graphic elements of the film. However, I thought they did an interesting job building suspension and uneasy feelings in some scenes with the lighting and music. But for the most part I felt disturbed with the graphic elements and sexual assault within the film. The disturbing elements built up more and made me feel slightly uncomfortable within certain scenes.
However, I do admire that the film had some unique qualities to it such as the the mise-en-scene and camerawork, as the now considered ‘old fashioned style film’ made the film have some interesting visual elements to it. Such as the impactful scene of the women singing ‘Blue Velvet’ which added to the plot slightly and highlights why the film title is Blue Velvet, along with the robe that the women wears. Along with this the music within the film sometimes came off as eerie and sinister to build tension and create atmosphere and would fade or cut off to add to this which I thought was really well done within the film. So, despite there being a few hard scenes to watch I don’t regret the experience of watching the film purely based on a media stand point, I think that this film had some unique visual representation, such as the candle shots, that would be interesting to analysis and see why the creator made specific elements and scenes the way they did.
I believe that this film is a Crime and thriller mystery due to having a range of the typical tropes and conventions that are within the genre, although it had a hint of romance due to Jeffery (main character/protagonist) and Sandy’s relationship at points in the film.
As for whether I would recommend this film, the answer is no I would not due to its graphic nature and sensitive topics within the film, especially as it has graphic scenes and can be triggering for some people particularly those who have been through/are sensitive too: sexual assault, abuse or violence/gore. Although this film does have some interesting elements I personally think you have to have a particular taste to watch this film more than once and it wasn’t something I personally enjoyed or would want to see again.
Iconic scene from Blue Velvet
I personally found the task of picking out my favourite film and the best film I have ever watched challenging as I adore so many films and have so many films that come close to being my favourite, from films that have stunning cinematography such as ‘The Aeronauts’ to other films that are beautifully nostalgic like ‘My Neighbour Totoro’, ‘Wall-e’ and ‘Up’ or even a more recent film that has stuck with me such as ‘Encanto’ which is gorgeously animated, has high quality musical elements and has great representation.
(⚠️Tw: This film covers mentions of suicide and mental health) So, picking just one was a difficult thing, however one of my favourite movies as of right now is a spectacularly gorgeous animated film called ‘The Silent Voice’ which follows the life of two main characters one who was picked and discriminated on for being deaf and her dealing with mental health as well as her bully who struggles with social anxiety and depression and we, as an audience, get to see how he views the world and people in it. This is one of my favourites as it was a film that stuck with me and I would often go back to. The way the style and characters are portrayed are striking and the storyline is emotional and moving in a way that allows an audience to connect to the characters. The film also is animated in such a beautiful style and this really makes an impact as I grew up with, and still enjoy, animated films and I admire the work that goes into them. The film also really connects to the viewer on personal level as we get to see this characters struggle and be vulnerable with their trauma and mental health.
The best movie I have ever watched as of right now is torn between a film called ‘Hidden figures’ which is a film based on true events that has a impactful plot and the film also has strong cinematography as well as high representation of strong, black, intelligent women as the main characters within the film. Along with this the film covers important topics and issues that are still needing to be to be talked about today such as racism and feminism. Along with a film called ‘Over the Moon’ which is based around a Chinese family, that uses strong music and visual elements, such as the use of colour and style, to demonstrate how this main character deals with the loss and grief of a loved one, her mother, and how she deals with change and new family. These two films are two of the best films I’ve seen due to their high representation, mise-en-scene, sound and cinematography/visual elements. Along with this the characters are relatable and will allow the audience to create a connection with them. From my media perspective these are two films are ones that keep me interested in analysing and developing my ever growing interest in the film industry.
The main difference between my favourite film and the best film would be that my favourite films are typically ones that I go back to, that tend to be emotional or nostalgic, that I connect too and would watch multiple times. However, my best film are ones I more appreciate for the technical and creative way it was done and are often films that I would want to look at in further detail and I don’t have to particularly like the film to know that it is a good film, however in this case both of these films were enjoyable and amazingly done.