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Who Is Catherine Hardwicke A Hero

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In the contemporary teen film “Red Riding Hood (2011)” the director, Catherine Hardwicke explores the female adolescents voyage of personal freedom, love, power and Heroism. Red Riding Hood constructs a cinematic landscape to celebrate the liberating journey of heroine, Valerie. Adolescents today, similar to Valerie have a yearning for independence. They desire the freedom to do as they please and make their own choices. The film displays this obsession through the protagonist Valerie. Hardwicke is able to connect with today’s modern audience through the portrayal of Valerie as a heroine who escapes her father’s restrictions and embarks on her life of freedom, with her werewolf lover, Peter. Valerie inspires adolescents with her rebelling …show more content…

She is forbidden to speak her mind, make plans for her own life and even venture out of the town into the forest. Red riding hood journey’s from the limiting boundaries of her home and ventures into the forest where she not only finds escape from these limits but also undergoes inspiring transformations. Travelling this forbidden path to be with her lover is a rebellious move on Valerie’s behalf. The further into the forest that Red Riding Hood travels, the more spacious and panoramic her views and paths become. Valerie shakes off the restrictions of the town and it is where she finds a measure of freedom, in contrast to the cramped and claustrophobic town that Hardwicke has created. This perception created within the film, that Valerie is happier, without being imposed by her parents restrictions, reflects the desire for independence that many adolescents have today and causes them to side with Valerie as a courageous …show more content…

Valerie refuses the terms it sets and escapes into the wild. In the forest, she is able to access and express violence, desire-actions and anger and emotions ordinarily deemed forbidden for the young girl to express. But rather than being punished for expressing these taboo emotions and violating the restrictions that forbid Valerie going into the forest, Hardwicke’s fairy tale rewards its heroine with a romantic union, influencing teens that they too will be rewarded for their independence. The film celebrates such unruly travel, as not only a necessary act for Valerie to undertake to discover and kill the big bad wolf; it is also represented as a pleasurable journey. As Valerie strays from the path, having found both agency and romance on the fringe of the forest, Valerie finds an independent space to inhabit and chooses the wolf lover that she wants. The film exploits the geography of the fairy tale forest to tell a story of female power and heroism. Hardwicke’s film rewrites and enhances Red Riding Hood’s wayward journey into the forest, representing it as a positive, satisfying and empowering achievement for the heroine. In doing so, she is reinforcing teenagers within society to embark on a journey similar to that of Valerie’s, in order for them to reach the ideal state of freedom and

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