In the movie, The Other Woman three women band together to take down a man who has been cheating on them with each other. This movie shows these three women attempt to flip gender roles and control the life of the man. Mark King is a typical man successful man with a wife and dog in the suburbs of New York. He travels to the city every day in order to work, which is where he finds the women that he has his affairs with. Kate King is also a stereotypical suburban housewife that stays at home and can be a little ditsy at times. The movie is set up to watch yet another man take advantage of his ditsy wife, but the women fire back at him with incredible accuracy shocking to the viewer and to Mark King. In suburbia, the ideal dynamic of a …show more content…
The city becomes the sinful place where he pursues his mistresses. In common Suburban households, the home can become just a place for the man to rest from his big important job in the city while the wife is there to cater to him and maintain the house. This stereotype is very apparent in the beginning of the movie with the relationship between Mark and Kate King. Carly, the first mistress, becomes the opposite of Kate because she works, she is single, and is much more self-assured than Kate is. Carly represents the city and the benefits it has on women. Kate quit her job and became a stay at home wife in order to focus Mark’s job. This aspect of Mark shows the controlling nature over his wife and she must remain below him at all times. His relationship to Carly although more equal quickly comes to an end when he is forced to choose his wife over her. Once Kate finds out that her husband is having an affair she has a meltdown because in her suburban lifestyle she has nothing without her husband. The woman’s role in suburbia is completely attached to that of the husband. Without him in the picture, the wife is not able to fulfill her normal duties. The beginning of the film highlights the dependency wives feel they have to their husband. The dependency on the husbands allows for a certain freedom that the husband holds because his wife will always …show more content…
This movie attempts to show this progression, and that depending on a man for the life one desires is a notion of the past. The suburban women were expected to rely solely on the man to live, without him she had minimal schooling and no way of survival in suburbia. Although this film still at times puts women into a negative light, but this was also a point of receiving a profit when the movie premiered. This movie received a good reaction from the public considering the public does not always take well to women in lead roles. Even though we live in a world that no longer projects women as accessories on a man’s arm, women still must be put into an objectifying light in order to make a profit consistently. Because the women gain a label of sexual being from the first camera angle, the man becomes “the bearer of the look of the spectator” (Mulvey). This is shown in the way that even though the women are the leads the man is still in control of the “film phantasy” (Mulvey). Films with women as the leads and in control of the films plot line rarely exceed that of the other because the spectator is so used to putting the control into the hands of a male. The dependency of women on men transcend the household it is a systemic epidemic that has been in effect since the beginning of time. Suburbia is a microcosm of the worlds inner workings. The women are forced into a role
" Hollywood producers influenced by the backlash trend in the media, created a series of movies that pitted the angry career woman against the domestic maternal "Good woman"."
What could be a better summer box office hit than a film about women hitting the road, rebelling against society and undergoing a complete metamorphosis in the process? On the surface, Thelma and Louise comes across as a typical chick flick; yet, its a movie that takes on many lifeforms and interpretations. The most fascinating criticism of the movie is whether or not Thelma and Louise go insane. Thelma and Louise's actions govern the central ideas of the movie: Freedom, women vs men, and an internal metamorphosis precipitated by the open road. These overarching themes offer justification for the women's behavior, thoughts and beliefs and answers the three main questions that offer insight into whether the women go mad: Are the two violent because of their experiences, or are they simply on a “man-hating” journey? Do Thelma and Louise have boundaries? Why did the two drive off the cliff? As the answers to these questions are divulged as the movie progresses, Thelma and Louise become symbols of strong, driven, sane women who discover themselves by removing domineering men from their lives and women who create their own destines.
The original film, though far from flawless itself, stirred in the extra ingredient of sexual politics, playing on men’s fear of powerful women abandoning the home for the workplace. In the 21st century Stepford, Kidman is a high flier whose career crash leads her to question “maybe I’ve become the wrong kind of woman” while her hapless husband (Matthew Broderick) moans “your whole attitude makes people want to kill you”. It’s an interesting idea, that women’s liberation has led to a different kind of servitude- to the boardroom not the bedroom. But it was never properly explored.
The Hollywood movie Pretty Woman (1990) is about a prostitute in Hollywood, marrying an extremely rich businessman, in spite of her mutual distrust and prejudice. The movie contains the basic narrative of the Cinderella tale: through the love and help of a man of a higher social position, a girl of a lower social status moves up to join the man at his level.
Not since ‘Babe’ the movie came out, has Ireland been so induced to put down their bacon ‘sarnies' and grab a tin of baked beans instead. The whole Emerald Isle has been taken in by Vodafone’s pink-pint size protagonist, Piggy Sue, to the extent that even the sternest and stoical of hearts have been melted, as the nation has watched Donal, our Piglet rescuing hero, save Sue from the inevitable fate, of ending up jammed between two slices of bread and smothered in ketchup on someones Saturday morning kitchen table.
The film Klute, directed by Alan J. Pakula attempts to subvert this theory, but ultimately proves Mulvey correct in the system of the active male and passive female, that the male controls the film and drives the story forward. Jane Fonda’s character, Bree Daniels, sees herself at the
The Last Seduction was initially released on HBO cable network on June18, 1994 and in theaters three months later in NYC, and Los Angeles. The Screenwriter for The Last Seduction is Steve Barancik, directed by John Dahl, an ITC Entertainment Group production, and produced by Jonathan Shestack. The star cast Bridget Gregory - Linda Fiorentino, Mike Swale - Peter Berg, Clay Gregory - Bill Pullman, Frank Griffith - J.T. Walsh, and Harlan - Bill Nunn. The Last Seduction is the ultimate Film Noir of the 1990s (also known as Neo-Noir) that garnered rave reviews from critics, there was also much controversy around its release and participation in the Oscars. The leading lady character Bridget Gregory added an up to date twist on the of meaning Femme Fatal. Bridget users her intelligence and sex appeal to bring several of the male characters to their doom.
These movies allowed female characters to embody all the contradictions that could make them a woman. They were portrayed as the “femme fatale” and also “mother,” the “seductress” and at the same time the “saint,” (Newsom, 2011). Female characters were multi-faceted during this time and had much more complexity and interesting qualities than in the movies we watch today. Today, only 16% of protagonists in movies are female, and the portrayal of these women is one of sexualization and dependence rather than complexity (Newsom, 2011).
Led by Laura Mulvey, feminist film critics have discussed the difficulty presented to female spectators by the controlling male gaze and narrative generally found in mainstream film, creating for female spectators a position that forces them into limited choices: "bisexual" identification with active male characters; identification with the passive, often victimized, female characters; or on occasion, identification with a "masculinized" active female character, who is generally punished for her unhealthy behavior. Before discussing recent improvements, it is important to note that a group of Classic Hollywood films regularly offered female spectators positive, female characters who were active in controlling narrative, gazing and desiring: the screwball comedy.
The first female character shown in the movie doesn’t have a name and is obviously either a sex worker or a ‘one night stander’. She appears in the movie once and does not even speak at all in the movie. The first impression this movie gives is that women are inferior to men. The director of the movie, Martin Campbell portrayed women in a very despicable manner silencing them and not giving them a voice. The main character does not regard or care about her and leaves a speechless young lady completely surprised in his bed.
...es, in the eyes of the modern moviegoers, this position is no longer reasonable due to the strides already made by women in quest for equality. It is a reflection of how the past American society treated its women and draws to the traditional inclination of the Americans to achieve financial independence as seen in this post war film.
...ereotypes and patriarchal norms (Annie baking, Helen being a rich step-mom, the wedding itself), it also undermines patriarchy at the same time. At one point or another throughout the film all of the female characters go against the common conception and portrayal of women being proper and passive. They can be raunchy, drink, use vulgar language, and show they aren’t that different from men.
By dissecting the film, the director, Jennie Livingston's methodology and the audience's perceived response I believe we can easily ignore a different and more positive way of understanding the film despite the many flaws easy for feminist minds to criticize. This is in no way saying that these critiques are not valid, or that it is not beneficial to look at works of any form through the many and various feminist lenses.
The attitude towards women has changed dramatically since 1990, the year that this film came out; you will however, find a few men who still have the attitude that women were put on this earth for their enjoyment. In the early nineties, women were hyper-sexualized and viewed as pawns in a game. MTV showed music videos with scantily clad women, which were seen as extremely scandalous at the time. The nineties was also an era of growth, liberalization and sexual discoveries that carried over from the eighties.... ...
Back in time and in today’s world, films have been used for entertainment and to show the audience the human imaginations and ideas about the world reality and fiction. Women character roles have been a huge impact to all generations on audience in all ages by reflecting negative stereotype towards actresses. There have been issues about how women’s characters are portrayed as submissive and the one who has to obey the male character’s roles. In addition, women play roles that risk too much by showing parts of her body or being basically naked, which makes the audience see women as sexual object. In fact, the net worth that women receive its less than male actors, which demonstrates to the audience how men's roles are still dominating the