Critical Investigation: Task 4

Online research sources

1) MM44 - The Gender Politics in The Walking Dead and The Hunger Games.
 - Sophie Stringfellow explores constructions of masculinity and femininity in the Walking Dead, a continuing  TV series, in comparison with Suzanne collins' more helpful gender perspective on the other side of the dystopian revolution represented in Hunger Games

- "In contrast to the machismo on display in the first episode of The Walking Dead, The Hunger Games gives us an all-female domestic scene in which Katniss comforts her sister who has woken from a nightmare."
- "it is possible to discuss her heroism, a stereotypically masculine quality, as she volunteers to take her sister's place at the reaping."
- "Unlike many of the hyper-masculine characters in The Walking dead, Peeta also demonstrates a clear sense of self-perservation. We see this towards the end, when he is gravely injured and hides himself, instead of attempting any feats of bravery"
- "The Hunger Games have access to a spectrum of 'ways of being' and any restrictions on their behaviours come solely from the particular rules of the dystopian society, rather that expectations based on gender.

Protection issues - care or control.

- "The powerful sisterly bond represented by the pin drives the plot and helps to spark a revolution... The relationship between the two sisters is also mirrored in the arena with Katniss and Rue, whose poignant interactions shows girls who are capable of looking after each other."
- "In The Hunger Games, protection between male and female characters is based on mutual care which never calls the strength or capabilities of the women into question"

2) MM34 - Engendering Change: What’s Happened to Representations of Women?

- Nick Lacey explores the traditional view of active men and passive women, and finds that feminism still has a fight on its hands

- "John Berger - Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at."

- "Emma peel featured in The Avengers from 1965-7 and brought a radical and powerful combination of female sexuality, intelligence and lethal combat skills to the small screen. Nevertheless, despite her dynamism, she still deferred to her (male) boss, steed."

3) MM42 - Does Pink Matter? Early socialisation into gender roles has long been an issue for debate, often epitomised by the gendering of products and the associations of the colour pink.

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4) MM56 - Furiosa and the ‘Male Gaze’: Is Fury Road a Game-changer? Nick Lacey suggests the massively successful Mad Max: Fury Road challenges patriarchal values, using the theories of Laura Mulvey, and narrative approaches to gender.

- "Mulvey suggested that mainstream cinema institutionalises the 'male gaze': that is, that most films are shot from a male perspective."
- "Mulvey also suggested that women's bodies are often represented as fragmented, through the use of close-ups, giving women 'the quality of [an] icon' rather than an active agent in three-dimensional space."
- "Finally, from Mulvey, in mainstream cinema narrative, men are active, 'forwarding the story, making things happen' in contrast to women's passivity

5) MM55 - The Fourth Wave? Feminism in the Digital Age. Chloe Gray explores networked feminism, and the role of digital and social media in transforming debates about the meaning of gender equality.

- "Feminists who currently advocate for a fourth-wave of feminism believe the circulation of feminist issues rely on social media technology for communicating and organising their activism efforts. 'its defined by the technology: tools that are allowing women to build a strong, popular, reactive moment online.'
- "Feminism is often divided into 'waves' to explain the cultural context in which they began. The 'first wave of feminism' began in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, with a main focus on suffrage. The 'second wave' began in the 1960's campaigning for the growth of equal rights and leading to the Equal Pay Act of 1970, amongst other equality laws. Since the late 1990's, we are believed to have entered 'the third wave' (often identified as post-feminism). The new fourth wave of feminism is also known as 'networked feminism'. It aims to tackle social equality issues found both on, and using, modern technology.

6) MM52 - The World Of Mockingjay: Ideology, Dystopia And Propaganda. The Hunger Games trilogy addresses media saturation, reality TV, celebrity culture and ideology. Lydia Kendall argues that media theory and concepts can help unpick the radical politics underlying the latest film in the controversial and hugely successful franchise.

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7) MM40 - Playing with the past- Post-feminism  and the media

- "Post-feminism is better described as the current 'set of assumptions' in contemporary society and culture. This set of assumptions is, of course, reflected and reinforced by media texts. Post-feminism can be defined as the current ideological belief in culture and society that we are somehow past needing feminism - that the attitudes and arguments of feminism are no longer needed; that those battles have long been won."

8) MM36 - Marty, Bob and Leo: the Changing Nature of Masculinity. The collaboration between auteur Martin Scorsese, Robert de Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio.

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Media Edu

WJEC MS1 Representation of Femininity - Rob Miller | Thursday October 24, 2013

1) "Intertextual references to Lara Croft in the action adventure video game Tomb Raider(2013) are apparent in her representation as a post feminist icon who exhibits both stereotypically male and female characteristics." (H)

2) Watson, as with Kiera Knightly has successful exploited a sexualised secondary persona that has been carefully managed and manufactured – objectification is not welcomed but understood as a step on the ladder to movie star success, thus conforming to the cultural stereotype of a good looking, physically attractive female lead.

3) This develops gender debate over this type of representation in that stereotypically youth is seen as aspirational for female audiences while youth and good looks are seen as essential for women in the film industry to remain in the public eye. This is the opposite of masculinity in film for which variants of age are seen as far more acceptable.

4) Exceptions such as Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep evidence this fascination as older women still at the peak of their careers (or rather maintaining a successful reputation over some) who are sexualised for the male gaze and who are empowering for female audiences. Tabloids readily ignore their acting capabilities and happily promote their physical representation before their professional portfolio.

5) After 10 years of playing Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter franchise she has morphed into a sexualised young woman (Emma Watson)

Gender Theory - Jeremy Orlebar | Thursday December 09, 2010

6) David Gauntlett in Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction argues that: ‘Femininity is not typically a core value for women today. Instead, being ‘feminine’ is just one of the performances that women choose to employ in everyday life – perhaps for pleasure, or to achieve a particular goal.’

7) Butler’s work is significant because it speaks for the subject position of men as well as women.

8) "Some feminists view women as separate ontological beings from men and others like Judith Butler see gender as an artificial cultural performance."

9) "Butler argues that gender is performative. She says that no identity exists behind the acts or performance that express gender, and these acts constitute the illusion of the stable gender identity."

10) Notions of self and gender are to a certain extent shaped by media stars leading to the idea that the gendered self is flexible and multiple.

• Post-Feminist Icon: When a female character exhibits the stereotypical characteristics of a male and a female
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e-Jump Cut online media journal

Feminism and film by Helke Sander translated by Ramona Curry

- "The question about feminine imagery cannot even begin to be answered due to the lack of film-producing women. And it would break all rules of statistics to force a deduction about aesthetic similarities from the 100 films women have produced at different times, in different cultures and countries, about the most varied topics and most diverse genres"

- "we should consider that until very recently femininity was always defined by others, by men. Only now have women begun to comprehend themselves as social subjects and to throw off alien interpretations of their nature and being."

- "Women have just begun to dare to see themselves and others, society, with their own eyes. They are beginning to compare alien opinions and theories to their own experiences. They are formuating first concepts, with the help of which we can begin to comprehend the nature of past feminine oppression, today's social contradictions, and our expectations for a different human future."

- "nowadays we always find both images: woman as object and as subject. Therefore, both — the traditional and conditioned, and the politically new — will be present in work by women, including that of contemporary women filmmakers"

- "The visual arts at least tend to answer this question about feminine imagery with “Yes.” Women's preferences for certain genres, materials and forms also seem to express particularly feminine aesthetic concepts."

Aspects of British feminist film theory
A critical evaluation of texts by
Claire Johnston and Pam Cook

- "according to Johnston, “the ‘truth’ of our oppression cannot be captured on celluloid with the ‘innocence’ of the camera,” for feminist cinema to be effective, she claims it must be a counter-cinema. Johnston here sounds like Godard, particularly when she asserts,

“Any revolutionary must challenge the depiction of reality: it is not enough to discuss the oppression of women within the text of the film: the language of the cinema/depiction of reality [sic] must also be interrogated, so that a break between ideology and text is affected.” (Notes, p. 29)"

- "According to Johnston, feminist filmmakers must confront the representations of reality within the text of the film itself in order to expose their falseness. "

Women and representation

by Jane Gaines

- "Feminist theory that sees all women on the screen only as objects of male desire — including by implication, lesbians — is inadequate.”

- "In "Pornography and Pleasure," Paula Webster turns a critique of the anti-pornography movement into a statement of feminist strategy based on shifting our emphasis from men's pleasure to women's. She says,

"In placing the gratification of men above our own, we pose absolutely no danger to male dominated society."