Feminist film Criticism feminist film criticism on amelia earhart character in Amelia film

2. Characterization through Contrast: Dramatic Foils

One of the most effective techniques of characterization is the use of foils- contrasting characters whose behavior, attitudes, opinions, lifestyle, physical appearance, and so on are the opposite of those of the main characters. The effect is similar to that achieved by putting black and white together-the black appears blacker and the white appears whiter. The tallest giant and the tiniest midget might be placed side by side at the carnival sideshow, and the filmmaker sometimes uses characters in much the same way. 13

B. Feminist Film Criticism

1. Feminist film Criticism

Part of project of feminist film criticism is to identify the different kinds of screen representation of women. 14 Feminist film critics work to raise our consciousness about the negative images of women in film in order to denaturalize these images to expose them as cultural constructs, not mirror reflections of the way woman really are. 15 The development of feminist film theory and criticism in the United States has been shaped by three major forces, all of which are, like feminist film theory itself, phenomena of the late 1960s and early 1970s: the womens movement, independent filmmaking, and academic film studies. Although the first two movements emphasized a political agenda for feminist film critics, university film 13 Ibid p.64 14 Andrew M. Butler, The Pocket Essential Film Studies Pocket Essential. 2005, p.90 15 Marilyn Fabe, Closely Watched Film University of California Press. 2004, p.227 studies stressed a theoretical one-not necessarily apolitical, but certainly not political in the same way. From the outset, the contemporary U.S. womens movement had a distinct cultural focus. Feminist attention to stereotyped images of women dominant in patriarchal culture made cinema-and first and foremost, Hollywood-a likely target for critique. Much of what might be called the first stage of feminist film criticism focused on film images of women and their disparity with womens actual lives. Since many women attracted to film study were part of the first generation of Americans reared on visual culture, their simultaneous recognition of the power of the image and the power of the versions of femininity presented therein came as a major revelation. 16 The study of film encompasses a wide variety of types, historical periods, national productions, and related topics. Many studies of film concentrate on fictional, full-length feature films, though there are other types such as shorts, non-fictional documentaries, and docu-dramas. Various studies divide the film production into various periods, from the beginnings in 1896, dependent on major developments in film production silent, sound, color, etc. or in historical periods pre-World War I, the Twenties, the Depression, World War II, post-World War II, the 50s and 60s, post-60s, Film Noire, etc.. Most studies in North America concentrate on Hollywood studio production films and some on non- Hollywood feature films. However, other nations or world-regions have developed their own trends and history of film production, whether in France, Germany, Britain, Italy, 16 The first and most influential studies of images of women in film are Molly Haskell, From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies New York: Holt, Rinehart Winston, 1974; and Marjorie Rosen, Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies, and the American Dream New York: Coward, McCann Geoghegan, 1973. Japan, Latin America, India, etc. The study of film relates to a wide range of other topics - literature, stage, art, costumes, aesthetics, ethics, culture, erotica and pornography, television, technical inventions, computers, etc. These, like many aspects of the study of film, have complex relationships and interaction. 17 Feminism is an area of thought, philosophy and politics that covers a variety of areas within film studies: canon formation, representation of women, representation of gender more properly sexual inequalities between women and men, the gendered construction of the viewer and the possibilities for female cinema. 18 Contemporary feminism has employed deconstructive strategies in order to destabilize a binary model inscribed in the masculinefeminine dyad. Instead, feminists have provocatively elaborated new frameworks in which to locate the gendered and sexual subject. These theorists have drawn from the Derridean model, which argues that binary structures will always privilege one of the binaries over the other: for example, male over female. Rather than trying to reverse this so that the feminine will be privileged over the masculine, as emancipator feminism has striven to do, these feminists have attempted to destabilize the foundational structures on which binarism relies. 19 The feminine is a social construction just as the masculine is. Feminine qualities are traditionally considered to be passivity, modesty, nurturing and feeling, whereas masculine qualities are activity, exhibitionism, uncaring and 17 Philip F. McEldowney “Introduction: Women in Cinema - A Reference Guide”. Article accessed on 23 March 2011 from http:people.virginia.edu~pm9klibsciwomFilm.html 18 Andrew M. Butler, The Pocket Essential Film Studies Pocket Essential, p.80 19 Sarah Gamble, Routledge Companion to Feminism and Postfeminist. Routledge Taylor Francis Group, 2006 . p.46 thinking. These are characteristics that our society specifically late twentieth and early twenty-first century western society assumes that females and males will have. Female can have masculine qualities and males have feminine qualities. 20 The aim of these feminist studies of the media was gender equality.

2. Gender Stereotype