Second Wave Feminism

In Hollywood film women 's roles have varied quiet considerably between genres, geographical placement, and period settings. These factors contribute to the different representations of women 's roles in the film they are present in. The roles are diverse going from the traditional maternal role to that of manipulative murderer. Women 's roles in movies can be almost equal to the male roles, and the co-stars are not given the majority of the acclaims just because they are male. Society has set certain standards that women are supposed to follow. The most common image of women is that they are very passive and try to avoid conflict in any situation. More and more in society women are breaking down the social barriers that confine them to their specific roles. The films Rear Window and Resident Evil show women in roles that are untraditional for our society. These two movies help to show how women are rebelling against social norms and that they are taking more active and aggressive roles. In film noir’s we can see women represented as the femme fatale, a woman whose mysterious and seductive charms leads men into compromising or dangerous situations. In action movies we see the heroine who is strong both physically and mentally, and has the ability to use weapons. Women seem to be more trapped than men because they are supposed to live up to society’s standards dealing with beauty and size, which are more physical characteristics. These specific guidelines have been set by

I think that the movie keeps the gender role stereotyping unchanged. It reflects certain conservative trends of the decade during which it was made, the influence of feminist ideology as well as some commonly recognized American values, for example, individualism and self-reliance. Even if this movie is produced by male filmmakers in the conservative Reagan era the profound influence of feminist ideology can be traced in most of the following issues.

This genre is typically modern, perky and upbeat, but the common narrative in all of them is that it features a woman who is strong and she overcomes adversity to reach her goals. There is also a message of empowerment that also struggles with a romantic predicament and using comedy to poke fun at the male characters. Industries are still producing soppy romantic comedies for the female audience but the divide between the standard chick flick and romantic comedy is slowly disappearing. Similarly to the beginning of this essay it is evident that institutions are moving in the direction of women’s place in culture in relation to this film genre; women are usually shown as the super power since they are made to appeal to the female audience. However

With today's society punctuating political correctness and their opinions over anything reveals the truth of what has actually been going on for ages. Major themes in movies from ten years ago all the way from plays 120 years ago show a vast amount of realism that is in our society today still. Movies like Crash by Paul Haggis, shows the very essence of racial profiling within the country's law enforcement agencies. You also have A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen that represented feminism which is a big topic in debates and women's right movements. However the definition of being a feminist may have changed since the 1880’s. These major themes are still prevalent in today's society.

From silent short films of the 19th century to full length films of the 1920s, women have played important central roles over time. Women have transitioned from submissive conservative roles to liberal something. A big part of this is due to the view of women changing in history.

Today’s filmmakers have three areas to focus on: the event or theme of the film, the audience who will be watching the film, and lastly, the individual characters and the roles they play and how they are portrayed and interpreted. Many of these films bottom line objectives are to focus on the “erotic needs of the male ego.” The focus on fetishistic scopophilia tend to slant the view such that we see the world as being dominated by men and that woman are

Towards the end of the twentieth century, feminist women in America faced an underlying conflict to find their purpose and true meaning in life. “Is this all?” was often a question whose answer was sought after by numerous women reaching deeper into their minds and souls to find what was missing from their life. The ideal second-wave feminist was defined as a women who puts all of her time into cleaning her home, loving her husband, and caring for her children, but such a belief caused these women to not only lose their identity within her family but society as well. The emotions that feminist women were feeling at this time was the internal conflict that caused for social steps to be taken in hopes of

Let’s use the superhero boom of big budget films as an example for the rest of Hollywood. Even with pushing out about three pictures a year on average since the turn of the millennium, there still has not been one directed by a woman. Ava DuVernay recently dropped out of Black Panther due to “creative differences”. Michelle MacLaren, known for her work on Breaking Bad, also did the same for

When discussing cinema, two movies that have likely never been mentioned in the same sentence are Citizen Kane and They All Laughed. While Citizen Kane is a drama from 1941 based on a real-life newspaper magnate, They All Laughed falls under the romantic comedy genre and wasn’t released until 1981. The films differ in everything from style to plot, but their one commonality is something that ties together many movies: the depiction of women. Despite all the differences, both movies fail in their representation of women, as do many movies from all different genres and decades. Feminist film theory argues that too many female characters in movies are static and their only importance, which is usually related to their physical appearance, is granted

“You cannot be a humanist unless you are a feminist. You either advocate equality for all or you are a misanthrope” (Michael A. Sherlock). From women’s suffrage to abortion laws feminism has evolved with contemporary battles and a variety of approaches. The

The 1980s’ strengthened the sex roles of maleness with an inclination for action heroic films such as The Terminator, Top Gun and Die Hard. Die Hard was specifically played into the role of the leading male; with a partner who had left him to chase a career but in the end, he ended up telling her to return to the family. The late 1980s and 1990s gave rise to some amount of feminism with the increase of the female heroes that are seen in films such as Thelma and Louise. There were some other films that led to leading female characters that included: Silver, Copycat and Fatal Attraction that were shown as the male and female sex roles were being challenged. From the late 1990s-2010, sex roles in movies were being challenged more than ever before.

Women were now being portrayed as powerful, unpredictable, and possessing a mysterious sexual power, which they used to elude male control. The 1960’s also brought with it his tensions that resulted the escalating war in Vietnam, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, black ghettos going up in flames, the women’s liberation movement, the youth anti-war rebellion and free love theme, and the Civil Rights movement. It was safe to say that the American public had violence on its mind and the movie industry capitalized on the public’s apprehensions.

An article in the New York Times claims that all those feminist messages were lost to the audience that was just too consumed with the actress beauty to get the message. None the less Liz Taylor’s film kept pushing the envelope of socially acceptable topics and in movie Suddenly, Last Summer, the major taboo was ripped wide open on homosexuality and possibly delinquent/criminal behavior because most likely the male escorts were minor poor young boys. This movie portraits how far will the established social norm will go to keep containment , the clear message that a men was better off dead than be homosexual was not lost in this very turbulent movie.

Since its humble beginnings in the later years of the nineteenth century, film has undergone many changes. One thing that has never changed is the filmmaker’s interest in representing society in the present day. For better or worse, film has a habit of showing the world just what it values the most. In recent years, scholars have begun to pay attention to what kinds of ideas films are portraying (Stern, Steven E. and Handel, 284). Alarmingly, viewers, especially young women, are increasingly influenced by the lifestyle choices and attitudes that they learn from watching these films (Steele, 331). An example of this can be seen in a popular trope of the “romantic comedy” genre in this day and age: the powerful man doing something to help, or “save” the less powerful woman, representing a troubling “sexual double standard” (Smith, Stacy L, Pieper, Granados, Choueiti, 783).

When referring to the history of feminism in the manner of the first, second, or third wave, one is undermining the experiences that were ongoing during, in middle of, and before those waves that history defines. What ideologies of oppression were being spoken of to raise awareness and whose experience was being excluded/diminished? The articulation of feminism in using the metaphor of waves to describe how the ideologies peaked and rescinded, is incorrect because it focuses only on the voices of those who were able to bring their problems to the surface and excludes those who had a different experience or may have brought awareness in a quieter manner. There are many feminisms and each interpretation is defined by the collective oppression, rather than looking at the situation in an individual perception, which is what creates disagreements and division between feminists. Many definitions of feminism, feminisms, exist simultaneously because it is evolving as fast (or, well, as slow) as the world is changing and if one group of people are to speak of others experience of oppression (or lack of) in place of them, the result can be the glossing over of experiences and therefore, undermine experiences of others.