Sexuality and power are synonymous to each other. This was shown through Howard Hawks’ Gentle Prefer Blondes, where Lorelei Lee, played by Marilyn Monroe, uses her sexuality as power over her fiancé. Another instance in which sexuality is seen as power is presented in Sam Mendes’ American Beauty, where Angela Hayes , played by Mena Suvari, unknowing uses her sexuality to alter the depressing life of her friend’s father in a mid-life crisis. The disadvantage of power is that the extreme use of it constitutes oppression. Consequently in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and American Beauty it is clear that Lorelei Lee’s and Angela Hayes’ sexuality restraints or oppressed not the people around them, but it oppressed themselves. The purpose of this essay is to establish how sexuality and its oppression are seen through the use of costumes and cinematography.
Possession of sexuality is being able to arise sexual feeling from another person. In both movies, this is accomplished through costumes. In the opening act of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes where Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw perform I’m Just a Little Girl from Little Rock both Lorelei and Dorothy are both shown wearing eye-grabbing skin-tight, low-cut dresses that are slit at the thigh to expose their legs and also shows every little curve of their bodies. The little or lack of costumes are undoubtedly used to demonstrate sexuality. This can be examined in the cruise ship when Dorothy sings “don’t anyone know about the birds and bees” the olympic team dancing around her are adorned in nude coloured sorts that makes them appear naked.
In American Beauty, the lack of costumes are used to reveal sexuality as well. Similar to the opening of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in which the two ...
... middle of paper ...
...mple when her hands move from her chest and lowers the camera zooms in and follows.
Oppression through cinematography in Gentlemen Prefers Blondes is during the same number as Dorothy is not just surrounded by diamonds but consistently chased and surrounded by the men on stage without room to breathe just like the scene where she’s boarding the cruise ship and they're all gathered around her. For Angela it is clear that her forward sexuality deterred her in gaining any favourable interest from others. This is evident in the scene where she's swaying her hips in front of Jane’s window but the camera zooms in away from her to Jane.
In conclusion, in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and American Beauty, costumes reveals Lorelei and Angela’s bodies while cinematography enhances their sexuality. These filmic elements also act as oppression as these restrain both characters.
To elaborate, Scott argues that as a picture interpreter, we must make a distinction between the “ideal and the real,” to understand the true meaning of an image. She argues how the Gibson Girl and the American Girl were two idealised visions of modern beauty and femininity which made women to try to be like them. These two girls became markers of their decade, ...
In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Mulvey states that, “Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen.” (Mulvey 40). A woman’s role in the narrative is bound to her sexuality or the way she
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.
In Deborah E. McDowell’s essay Black Female Sexuality in Passing she writes about the sexual repression of women seen in Nella Larsen‘s writings during the Harlem Renaissance, where black women had difficulty expressing their sexuality. In her essay, she writes about topics affecting the sexuality of women such as, religion, marriage, and male dominated societies. In Toni Morrison’s short story, “Recitatif” there are examples of women who struggle to express their sexuality. The people in society judge women based off their appearance, and society holds back women from expressing themselves due to society wanting them to dress/act a certain way.
Many different depictions of gender roles exist in all times throughout the history of American culture and society. Some are well received and some are not. When pitted against each other for all intents and purposes of opposition, the portrayal of the aspects and common traits of masculinity and femininity are separated in a normal manner. However, when one gender expects the other to do its part and they are not satisfied with the results and demand more, things can shift from normal to extreme fairly quickly. This demand is more commonly attributed by the men within literary works. Examples of this can be seen in Tennessee Williams' “A Streetcar Named Desire”, where Stella is constantly being pushed around and being abused by her drunken husband Stanley, and also in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's “The Yellow Wallpaper”, where the female narrator is claimed unfit by her husband as she suffers from a sort of depression, and is generally looked down on for other reasons.
The most important events of this film all revolve around the female characters. While there are some male charac...
Over the years America’s ability to address taboo issues by channeling them through popular culture has become increasingly popular (Pruitt, 2007). Among the many taboo issues as evidenced by the number of mainstream films which minimally address the matter, is the issue of men living on the down low (Hamilton, 2009). An example of such is the 2011 film “For Colored Girls.” The film like many bring up the issue of men being on the down low, but they have neglected to go in-depth as to why men chose this lifestyle – rather than the age old notion that they fear social rejection (Pruitt, 2007). As it relates to the drama “Angels in America,” written by Tony Kushner, the work does a great job highlighting men who have secret lifestyles and two of the characters within the drama that exemplify characteristics of living on the down low – Joe Pitt and Ray Cohn (Kushner, 1993)
Despite the fact that the character of Phyllis as the “tough as nails” perpetual, intentional aggressor is a valid attempt to obliterate the image of women as the oppressed, one interpretation of this role is that she ultimately seems to misrepresent herself, and females in cinema, anyway. Janet Todd, author of Women and Film, states that, “Women do not exist in American film. Instead we find another creation, made by men, growing out of their ideological imperatives”(130). Though these “power girl”characters are strong examples of anything but submissive and sexual females,the...
The sacred and profane are slathered all over the characters of American Beauty and their motivations. Durkheim's (1912) idea of the scared is that it is ideal that society holds itself to, the “dream.” In this case, rather than a specific religion, the characters are cradled in the religion of the “American dream.” We know that the “American Dream” is a suitable source of the sacred because “Sacredness does not require a God. Flags, national holidays, and other markers of collective solidarity are sacred in the same way— and serve the same group- binding function—as crosses and holy days”(Graham and Haidt 2011). There are several manifestations of the sacred throughout the film, taking the forms of the beautiful Angela and the successful Buddy. While we see these manifestations of the sacred, it must be remembered that the power of the sacred is that is does not have any real existence in the world. Lester, and others like him, have the idea of something higher, more beautiful, more free, and greater than what he has. “In a word, above the real world where his profane life passes he has placed ...
Gerard Butler and Katherine Heigl, are two very famous stars who represent America’s acting industry as two of the most highly regarded feminine and masculine actors. Both are thought to represent femininity and masculinity and very. It comes as no surprise that these two characters were chosen to play the parts of Abby and Michael within The Ugly Truth. The Ugly Truth displays a lot of stereotypes of men and women or what is expected to be masculine and feminine. According to Gendered Live: Communication, Gender, and Culture by Julia Wood, “A stereotype is a generalization about an entire class of phenomena based on some knowledge of some members of the class” (Wood, 2011, 122). Stereotypes can cause a lot of problems in society if individuals don’t fit the particular mold or idea of what it means to be feminine or masculine. Within The Ugly Truth, the first stereotype which arises is that women in powerful roles cannot have a relationship (Luketic, 2009). As an example, this particular stereotype causes a large amount of trouble for Abby when she takes to...
The LGBTQ community has wanted to see same sex romances blossom on the screen for as long as film has been around, but overtime has come with some consequences. It has brought to light what people don’t want to talk about and has stereotyped all LGBTQ with the same wreck less, careless, and erotic lifestyles and behaviorisms. This is seen initially wit...
The American black comedy The Wolf of Wall Street directed by Martin Scorsese was released December 25, 2013 and stars the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill and Margot Robbie. While on face value The Wolf of Wall Street looks like a film about excessive cocaine binges, long evenings filled with men with cigarettes, large portions of alcoholic consumption, having many sexual escapades with various women and even dwarf tossing from time to time, the film is deeply rooted in perception gender within the genre of The Wolf of Wall Street. The word ‘genre’ is rooted into a similar category as
Williams, Linda. "Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess." Braudy and Cohen (1991 / 2004): 727-41. Print.
...emale sexuality or the "castration" undertones. Female viewers, on the other hand, could be angered by the characterization of female sexuality as being something monstrous and almost inhuman. This is the kind of response, however, that can bring into a dialogue contemporary society's prevailing notions of sexuality.
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.