The woman pictured here is a character called Imperator Furiosa. She is the main character of Mad Max Fury Road, a film set in a postapocalyptic world where women are enslaved as machines for breeding. Spoiler alert, she goes on to save them and save herself.
Sounds like a typical action movie right? You’d think so, except this simple combination of a strong female lead, liberating other women from sexual slavery seemed to be so feminist, it threatened to have some men lose every inch of manhood just by watching.
Could it be possible that a woman is the lead of an action movie? How could it be possible that that woman wasn’t completely dependent on men?
And how could men everywhere possibly withstand the emasculation of this totally “weak
…show more content…
How dare such a movie lure “masculine heterosexual men” through the temptation of explosion and violence, and, out of all unimaginable grand deceptions, introduce a heroine!
In an all-boy’s school, it is easy to get sucked into a culture of hypermasculinity.
Perhaps your peers, your teachers, and your parents have certain expectations of you – that you become a “real man”, that you “man up” and that you stop acting like “a little girl”. That’s just normal right? Shouldn’t we, as men, be expected to be tough and courageous? Of course, there’s something deeply disturbing about that idea. Because if “to be a man” means to be tough and strong, and to be “a little girl” or “to be a pussy” – which are code-words of “woman”, is the opposite of being a man – then doesn’t that logic mean that being a girl – is the opposite of being courageous and tough?
That is dangerous, because it actively contributes to a social culture where women are discouraged from being strong and competent.
I’m going to assume you think that that’s a bad thing – but if you don’t, all I can say is that there was a 50% chance you could’ve been born a woman, and the fact that by pure fate you weren’t born one, does not entitle you to
…show more content…
One simple example, till 1966, the male idea that women belonged in the domestic world, meant women were banned from the public service upon marriage. Those structures still exist today. It’s called male privilege. You have it, I have it. It no longer looks like banning women from work post-marriage, but it’s still there. It looks like
• Gender pay gap – where a woman doing the same job as a man gets paid 17% less
• It looks like positions in high power dominated by men – Tony Abbott’s cabinet featured one woman out of 19 people; which we pleasantly learnt was doubled in the next year to a grand total of two women.
• But it also looks like what we’re talking about today – violence against women. Because while it is true that men also suffer from violence by women, the violence against women by the hands of men is hugely disproportionate – it is way higher and far more widespread.
• And that’s problematic. Not just because it is disadvantageous for women currently, but because these kinds of systems actually tend to White Ribbon Day @ Tech keep themselves
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
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 most important events of this film all revolve around the female characters. While there are some male charac...
In the first paragraph of Laurie Penny’s essay “What to do when you’re not the hero anymore” she tells the reader how she recently went to see the new Star Wars movie. To her surprise a female character, Rey, fought off a bad guy as an equal. Hollywood has incredible power in how messages are portrayed in books, TV shows, and movies. It is no secret that media representation normalizes the reality of white male power. Penny explores how it is becoming more common to see a women lead in books, movies, and TV shows, rather than the stereotypical male.
portrayed as the “femme fatale” and also “mother,” the “seductress” and at the same time
Some people might say that these movies provide entertainment and transport families into the lives of princes and princesses. Many critics have said that the films have amazing soundtracks and have detailed and interesting plots. Still, however entertaining the films may be, the way women are viewed and treated outweigh any enjoyment that a viewer could have. The subliminal lessons young women learn from these films have lifelong repercussions and negatively affect the female
In today’s society, it can be argued that the choice of being male or female is up to others more than you. A child’s appearance, beliefs and emotions are controlled until they have completely understood what they were “born to be.” In the article Learning to Be Gendered, Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell- Ginet speaks out on how we are influenced to differentiate ourselves through gender. It starts with our parents, creating our appearances, names and behaviors and distinguishing them into a male or female thing. Eventually, we grow to continue this action on our own by watching our peers. From personal experience, a child cannot freely choose the gender that suits them best unless our society approves.
fact that a person is a woman is still shown to be a disadvantage when
From the beginning of the human race the gender roles of man and woman appeared to be straightforward. Women, being able to procreate, were sought to as nurturers, while men were to protect and provide for their family. Throughout all cultures, practices and beliefs of individuals toward masculinity significantly vary. Masculinity or manliness associates with characteristics such as strength, bravery, handsomeness, and physique in a male. With the ongoing changes in human history, the term masculinity has greatly evolved. Our western views’ paint a clear image of how children should be raised according to their gender role, which leads to more and more of them falling victim to the stigma of societal pressures and stereotypes. For example,
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.... ...
Also, the film revealed women empowerment and how superior they can be compared to men. While demonstrating sexual objectification, empowerment, there was also sexual exploitation of the women, shown through the film. Throughout this essay, gender based issues that were associated with the film character will be demonstrated while connecting to the real world and popular culture.
In addition, women are paid less than men for the same type of work. According to Lean In, Sheryl Sandberg mentions that women were paid fifty-nine cents for every dollar men were paid in 1996, but women protested to raise the compensation to seventy-seven cents (6). This means that even though a woman and a man perform the same work such as an engineer does, both do the same assignments and have the same responsibilities in the technology place, men are paid twenty three cents more than women. Moreover, women suffer from “gender discount” which means women have to pay for being part of the workplace or society ...
...on how they have overcome this demeaning concept, it is still present in many of the films created today. Laura Mulvey, a feminist of the Second Wave, observed the evolution of female representations in films. She concludes that films still display dominant ideologies that prevent social equality between men and women. Mulvey came up with three common themes that mainstream films continuously promote within their films. These three common themes reinforce that women are always going to be seen as nothing more but objects. They do not serve any symbolic purposes except to help advance the story by motivating the objectives of the male characters. As evident, Happy Endings is one particular film that embodies all of these traits and as a result, the female characters are perceived as sexual objects in both the perspectives of the male character(s) and the spectators.
It creates a deficit in the equilibrium between the sexes, and discourages women to compete for higher paying jobs, leading men to dominate different professional fields. Also, society doesn’t profit from the feminine workforce’s skills. Whether it’s in innovation or other, this discrimination discourages women to work and blossom in their careers leading to deprive everyone from enjoying the product of the feminine work force, and what it can bring to contribute to human well-being and world innovation in different sectors. In addition, it becomes harder for single women to afford a living compared to that of men, which creates a society favoring married women to single ones, and also drives women to think that they have to depend on a man if they want to become successful.
Women have made progress in the film industry in terms of the type of role they play in action films, although they are still portrayed as sex objects. The beginning of “a new type of female character” (Hirschman, 1993, pg. 1). 41-47) in the world of action films began in 1976 with Sigourney Weaver, who played the leading role in the blockbuster film ‘Aliens’ as Lt. Ellen Ripley. She was the captain of her own spaceship, plus she was the one who gave out all the orders. Until then, men had always been the ones giving the orders; to see a woman in that type of role was outlandish.