Essay on The Representation of Women in Some Like It Hot and Alien 3

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.

In today’s world, men and women are perceived equally by the society. In the past, authority and control define men while women are given the characteristic of helplessness. Men are able to get hold of high positions while women usually are subservient to them. In movies, we would usually see women portray roles that are degrading due to the stereotypical notions they associate with this gender group. Moulin Rouge, a movie set during the 1900s narrates the story of a courtesan woman, Satine, as she undergoes hardships to earn money, experiences love but unfortunately, due to her irrational choices, faces tragic consequences at the end. Satine is a symbol of how women are being treated by the society during the era before post-feminism,

“Aliens” was directed by James Cameron. James Cameron is 62 years old and he is a Canadian filmmaker, producer, screenwriter, inventor, engineer, philanthropist and deep sea explore. “Aliens” is a horror, science fiction and blood-thirsty film. This movie was released in 1986. The main character was a woman called Ellen Ripley. She was the only survivor on the spaceship and was saved by a crew from a company called Weyland-Yutani Corporation. She has been asleep and drifting for fifty-seven years. On an interview with all the executives from the company, they wanted to know testimony about the Aliens. However, everything that Ripley told them was all true, but the executives think the things that Ripley told them regarding to Aliens are made up by her. Therefore, the executives still decided to go on an expedition to that spaceship, also they want Ripley to go with them. They went on to spaceship and they found a girl called Newt. They went through a few fierce battles and this story end up with only a few survivors. In this movie there are many examples of gender stereotypes.

In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, gender roles play a major role in how characters think about themselves and others. Men are raised to believe that they are responsible to suppress women’s independence and autonomy, and women often internalize a sense of inferiority and/or subservience. The results of these conditions often include men’s violence against women, and a general mistrust between the two genders. In this novel, Rasheed demonstrates this type of behavior to be true. Rasheed is a single shoemaker whose first wife and son died many years ago. He becomes the suitor for the young 15-year-old mariam. He is a very traditional and strict older gentleman, which some difficult situations for Mariam to deal with in her life. Rasheed tries to exhibit excessive dominance in their marriage and instructs Mariam to be obedient, subordinate, and compliant with every single one of his demands.

Women and women of color play specific roles in movies and films. It is a little more obvious when it comes to women of color to the roles they play in movies and films. We see women and women of color play a couple of roles. Does not matter the movie they will always find a way to play one of the few roles that are “meant” for women to play. Movies such as Southside With You, The Color Purple, and Queen of Katwe show women having these kinds of roles. Today’s movies and films show specific roles for women and women of color to play.

In contemporary film women's roles in films have varied quiet considerably between genres, geographical placement, and between

The film sets a certain viewpoint on gender. It labels men and woman a certain way. Women in the film are set to be delicate and sex-driven. Men are set to be tough, brutal, workers. Marla was played by a thin, attractive, petite actress. Her clothes were always feminine. Tyler was played by a fit, muscled man that fit society's definition of attractive. The movie made it clear that men are masculine, and women are feminine. Basow said, “Gender is constructed by every socializing agent and force in society: parents, teachers, the media,

The Screwball comedy is a film genre that found its way onto the screens in the early 1930s and lasted till the early 1940s. They were a consequence of the newly adapted censorship law in 1934 that restricted addressing adult content on screen. They therefore incorporated more comedic and creative ways of symbolizing topics such as sex and homosexuality. Screwball comedies were mainly based on plots that had conflict between social classes as their many premise and always had a happy ending which was almost always marriage. This consistent maintenance of the status quo of marriage is a major aspect of feminism depicted in screwball comedies (Heather 26). While advocating for marriage, screwball comedies highlighted the shift in the

Like most popular gender-bending films, Some Like It Hot calls us to critique constructions of sexuality and gender both within the context of historicized moment of the films production and from the perspective of later

“ You cannot talk about genre without talking about gender.” Initially, this would appear to be a simplistic statement. On closer analysis, however, one fact becomes evident. It is the representation of gender which informs the genre of the text. Ismay Barwell , in her essay ‘ Feminist perspectives and narrative points of view’ states that “ Every text is gendered since every act of narration…..involves a process of selection….and the nature of that selection implies certain values” ( p.99). She makes the point that “ The desires, attitudes and interests which guide any choices made must be either male or female”( p.98 ). It is within this frame of reference, that the two texts will be analysed.

In society, women are often perceived as the weaker sex, both physically and mentally. In modern times women have leveled the playing field between men and women, and feminism is a highly discussed topic, but for years, women faced discrimination and prejudice both in life and in the workplace, due to their sex. This way of thinking flooded into the world of film. In their works, the authors of each of the various sources address the limitations and liberations of women both on and off the screen in nineteenth century Film and Cinema. Not every source is completely filled with information related to the research topic, but they do cover and analyze many of the same points from different perspectives. Prominent points addressed in each

Since the 1940’s, movies have predominately portrayed women as sex symbols. Beginning in the 1940’s and continuing though the 1980’s, women did not have major roles in movies. When they did have a leading role the women was either pretreated as unintelligent and beautiful, or as conniving and beautiful: But she was always beautiful. Before the 1990’s, men alone, wrote and directed all the movies, and the movies were written for men. In comparison, movies of the 90’s are not only written and directed by women, but leading roles are also held by older and unattractive women. In this paper I will show the variations and growth of women’s roles in movies from the 1940’s though the 1990’s.

In society we have a lot of women actresses. Some tend to play the motherly type, some play the manipulator type and some even play the victims of abusive relationships. No matter what women seem to be coming up in the industry of movies in more ways than before. The three movies I have chosen to analyze in my critique are Heartbreakers, Baby Boy and Stepmom. These three movies all have women in them that either play a major role or the main role. All their roles are very different in character and none of the women in these three movies play a similar role.

on society and culture. But since the beginning, there has been trend of male dominance in entertainment. This has contributed to gender inequality by not giving young girls strong role models in movies. It has also created ideal gender images that young children and adults feel obligated to follow. In more recent years, with the rise of feminism and gender equality, many have begun to push for changes in movies and Hollywood. Gender inequality in film can be reduced by creating more roles for women, avoiding gender stereotypes such as the damsel in distress, and avoiding oversexualizing women.