Raising Awareness Through Mockery in Thelma and Louise In Brenda Cooper’s article “Chick Flicks,” she argues, the film, Thelma and Louise employs mockery as a narrative tool, and functions to produce a defiant narrative which fiercely confronts and denounces patriarchy. Societal norms are able to create a kind unconscious compliance, resulting in self-imposed coercion and oppression. A film like Thelma and Louise brings consciousness to women’s own complicity in social norms like patriarchy, so they can no longer blindly follow these norms. This leaves women in either a state of denial and resistance or a state of evolution and change. Through mockery this film sheds light on accepted norms, and in some, causes a defensive response, as it …show more content…
Thelma and Louise turn these ideas upside down throughout the film by both reversing these social constructs and violently rejecting them. For example, when Thelma asks the police officer to get into his trunk, she takes on the, dominate, gun wielding outlaw, and traditional male role. Police officers are usually characterized as the epitome of macho, but in this scene the police officer adopts the traits of a usually feminine character. He cries and begs, using his wife and kids as a way to gain sympathy. Perhaps the scene with the most blatant mockery of female objectification is the truck driver scene. After waving his tongue at them and shouting obscenities throughout the film, the women lure him into a trap. They call him out on his behavior and ask him to apologize, he responds by calling them crazy and yells, “Fuck You!” In response they blow up his truck. Cooper claims, the behavior of the truck driver, both mocks the male gaze and demonstrates its latent sexism. Furthermore, had the truck driver narrative been more subdued, with perhaps a smaller truck, or less obnoxious language, the point may have been lost. Without exaggeration of things like male dominance and sexism, the exaggerated responses of the women do not seem justified (Cooper 44). In other words, critics who call out the film for being overly feminist or too violent are simply missing the
" 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"."
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.
Mainstream movies are about men’s lives, and the few movies about women’s lives, at their core, still also revolve around men (Newsom, 2011). These female leads often have male love interests, looking to get married or get pregnant. Strong independent female leads are still exist for the male view, as they are hypersexualized, or the “fighting fuck toy,” (Newsom, 2011). This depiction has created a culture where women are insecure and waiting for a knight on a horse to come rescue and provide for her as well as the acceptance of women
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.
Wesley, Marilyn C. "Reverence, Rape, Resistance: Joyce Carol Oates and Feminist Film Theory." Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature 32.3 (1999): 75-85. Literature Online. 13 July 2002 .
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.
Most of the current social work clients and workers are women. This gender is also over-represented among women, which implies that women continue to face considerable issues in the modern society despite the changes in the traditional role of men and women in the society. Social welfare policy are usually developed and implemented to confront various issues in the society including the plight of women. However, recent statistics demonstrate that social welfare policy does not always meet women’s needs effectively. This is regardless of the fact that sexism and heterosexism play a crucial role is shaping social welfare policy. Therefore, it is important to develop effective social welfare policy
In Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It stereotypical gender roles are systematically broken down through the obvious reversal of the classical Hollywood narration technique concerning the delineation between the man’s function and the woman’s usually less meaningful function within a film. Throughout this inverted spectacle, the point that Nola Darling is an independent woman is continually made. This point serves to propel the plot forward because Nola’s sexual independence goes against all conventions of typical womanhood much to the ire of three men. The film arranges for a battle between Nola and women in film aspiring to be independent on the one side, with men supported by classical Hollywood narration on the other seeking to undermine their
Thelma and Louise and Shirley are two films, which change that. They portray woman in a positive role, showing them in a positive light against male oppression. Although Shirley Valentine is a
The film, "Thelma and Louise," challenged gender stereotyping by not portraying Thelma or Louise to be weak. In the film, Thelma and Louise committed a murder by shooting a man and leaving him dead in the parking of a night club. At first, Thelma and Louise were pretty devastated that they had committed a murder. After a few days of rest, and thinking, Thelma and Louise were able to pull themselves back together. Thelma and Louise were strong enough to come up with a plan to move to Mexico, change their name, and start a new life. Thelma and Louise were so strong that they both were able to keep their composure around new individuals that they
Feminism is a movement that supports women equality within society. In relation to film, feminism is what pushes the equal representation of females in mainstream films. Laura Mulvey is a feminist theorist that is famous for touching on this particular issue of how men and women are represented in movies. Through her studies, she discovered that many films were portraying men and women very differently from reality. She came up with a theory that best described why there is such as huge misrepresentation of the social status quos of male and female characters. She believed that mainstream film is used to maintain the status quo and prevent the realization of gender equality. This is why films are continuously following the old tradition that males are dominant and females are submissive. This is the ideology that is always present when we watch a movie. This is evident in the films from the past but also currently. It is as if the film industry is still catering to the male viewers of each generation in the same way. Laura Mulvey points out that women are constantly being seen as sexual objects, whether it is the outfits they wear or do not wear or the way they behave, or secondary characters with no symbolic cause. She states that, “in traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote it-be-looked-at-ness.”(Mulvey pg. 715). Thus, women are nevertheless displayed as nothing more than passive objects for the viewing pleasure of the audience. Mulvey also points out through her research that in every mainstream movie, there is ...
Feminist theory was derived from the social movement of feminism where political women fight for the right of females in general and argue in depth about the unequality we face today. In the aspect of cinema, feminists notice the fictitious representations of females and also, machismo. In 1974, a book written by Molly Haskell "From Reverence to Rape: The treatment of Women in Movies" argues about how women almost always play only passive roles while men are always awarded with active, heroic roles. Moreover, how women are portrayed in movies are very important as it plays a big role to the audience on how to look at a woman and how to treat her in real life due to the illusionism that cinema offers. These images of women created in the cinema shapes what an ideal woman is. This can be further explained through an article 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' written by a feminist named Laura Mulvey in 1975. She uses psychoanalysis theories by Sigmund Freud to analyze 'Scopophilia' which is the desire to see. This explains how the audience is hooked to the screen when a sexy woman is present. In a bigger picture, where Scopophilia derives from, 'Voyeurism' is also known as feeling visual pleasure when looking at another. Narcissism on the other hand means identifying one's self with the role played. It is not hard to notice that in classical cinema, men often play the active role while the women are always the object of desire for the male leads, displayed as a sexual object and frequently the damsels in distress. Therefore, the obvious imbalance of power in classical cinema shows how men are accountable to moving the narratives along. Subconsciously, narcissism occurs in the audience as they ...
Picture yourself as a woman in the 1940s. Life is rather mundane, you’re nothing but a housewife. You cook, clean, raise children, and dote upon your manly husband, your behavior is reinforced through film – an industry dominated by the patriarchy which stresses what a woman should do, and how a woman should act. Now, imagine you’re about to change all that. Picture yourself as the Femme Fatale. The Femme Fatale’s role in film, especially that of film noir became the ultimate reflection of the everyday defiant woman seeking equality. Therefore, in film noir, the femme fatale was able to significantly transgress the status quo of the societal norms of femininity and gave a voice to women which can be seen through her emergence post-WWII, the prewar norms of femininity and how she changed them, and her influence on women of the time.
The following outline reveals how the power of inequality is created through stereotypical female characters, overlooked traditional beliefs, different job occupations, and sexual objectification. With this in mind, I assembled a collage with images, words, and colours that convey these themes. The overall atmosphere of my analysis is established through a fiery red background colour. The colour red depicts the feelings of tension, fear, love, and frustration that are recurrently circulating among the female characters in the film.
Outline and assess the view that patriarchy is the main cause of gender inequality (40 marks)