Feminism

Feminism theorist- Mary Wollstonecraft

A book called ‘Vindication of the rights of women’ was written by Wollstonecraft, it’s a book about women rights. The book is her devotion towards women's natural talents that they should not be measured by men's standards. For example Men usually take advantage of the female role in horror films, however in ‘silence of the lambs’ that isn’t the case for agent Sterling. At first in the opening scene you immediately assume the female character will be a victim, due to her being alone and defenceless. Until the man reveals her to be part of an organisation (FBI) that is known to protect others, then suddenly she is stereotyped to be the butch, masculine character.

“One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers; and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilised women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact respect.” By Mary Wollstonecraft http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_vindication000.htm. Mary’s point is shown in the film silence of the lambs from during the first 40 minutes, the women character is looked at as a young women who is weak and powerless, however the longer you watch the film the more you think agent the women as being an intelligent, brave character, an example is when she goes into Hannibal’s lock up, based on a psycho killers word, she goes alone not knowing what to expect, that can be thought of as stupid or brave. Also towards the end she figures out riddles which no other FBI agent managed to do, and captures and kills the buffalo bill on her own, so now she is the hero of the film.

‘The seven year itch’

In the film ‘the seven year itch’ Marilyn Monroe plays a femme Fatale character, a femme fatal character is a woman who uses her sexual power to lure in the male characters and trap them in there schemes. Male characters that are manipulated by femme fatale characters often end up in bad situations.

In the subway scene of ‘the seven year itch’ Marilyn is accompanied by a male character, who is clearly in a trance from her flirtatious charm. In the picture on the left it is the part when they have just come from the cinema from watching ‘the creature from the black lagoon’ and they are talking about it but Marilyn is talking about the creature only wanting to be “loved, needed and wanted” perhaps she is talking about herself and using the creature to put across her feelings. Also as they are walking she keeps walking across him and bumping into him, this is a form of flirting, by touching him and leaning on him she is using her sexual power.

In the beginning of the scene it shows you a shot of the cinema and the film Marilyn and the male character have gone to see. The film ‘ the creature from the black lagoon’ was a film back in 1954 about a strange prehistoric beast lurking in the depths of the Amazonian jungle and a group of scientists try to capture the animal and bring it back to civilization for study. This film was a horror film and usually in a film when a male and female go to the cinema to watch a horror film stereotypically the female always tends to end up snuggled into the arms of the male for protection.

This scene is one of the most iconic scenes of the 20th century, when Monroe stands on a subway grate as her white dress is blown by a passing train. She my find it “simply delicious” however her dress blowing up and revealing her underwear would be an extreme way of flirting, nowadays she would be referred to as a ‘slut’. As she is enjoying herself on the subway grate, her male friend doesn’t hold back on checking her out, neither does the camera, this camera shot is used as if from a mans perspective, this shot would be used for the male audience.  It seems her flirting has worked and she has got him in a trance. As you can see from the image on the left, he is looking her up and down whilst her dress is being blown up.

Queer Theory

 

What is Queer Theory?

“Queer theory is a set of ideas based around the idea that identities are not fixed and do not determine who we are. It suggests that it is meaningless to talk in general about 'women' or any other group, as identities consist of so many elements that to assume that people can be seen collectively on the basis of one shared characteristic is wrong. Indeed, it proposes that we deliberately challenge all notions of fixed identity, in varied and non-predictable ways.”Judith Butler,
(Gender Trouble) 1990. http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-que1.htm

 

Queer theorist- Calvin Thomas

Calvin Thomas is an American who works in the fields of critical theory, modern and postmodern literature and culture. He is a professor at Georgia State University. His writings have focused on gender, sexuality and the body, with an especial interest in "straight" responses to queer theory.

His book is called Masculinity, Psychoanalysis, Straight Queer Theory, “using Lacanian psychoanalysis and queer theory to explore the unstable relationship between heterosexual masculine identity and cultural representation, this book examines the ways straight men are queered and abjected in literature, theory, and film.”

Queer cinema- psycho beach party

“Queer cinema is a term used to describe films which are made to portray or discuss some aspect of gay or lesbian experience.”

Psycho beach party is about a 1960's Beach Party mixed with slasher horror staring Lauren Ambrose as Florence Forrest, a not-so-innocent girl in 1960's Malibu who becomes the first girl surfer at Malibu Beach, Florence suffers from identity disorder and occasionally her alter ego Ann Bowman, a sexually aggressive, foul-speaking girl, comes out in which during that time several beach partiers are found murdered. The suspects include Florence herself, surfer Kanaka, B-horror film actress Bettina Barnes, exchange student Lars, and even Florence’s own mother.

Florence Forrest is the star of the film and has very tomboy traits; she has a deep voice, dresses fairly manly and surfs, which in the film is the only girl who does, nevertheless I can imagine her to be the femme character, which is the more female character with a lesbian relationship. Florence however has split personality; her other character Anne bowman shows signs of being a soft butch character such as foul language and sexually aggressive, she is a women who exhibits some stereotypical butch lesbian traits without fitting into the masculine stereotypes associated with butch lesbians. Her male friend Kanaka is definitely the drag queen, a drag queen is someone who dresses up as women but is a man. Lars an exchange student I would say is a sissie, which is a camp person who is not very masculine and is easily scared. 

 

Other stereotypical homosexual characters:

QUEEN- a very flamboyant, effeminate gay man who can be considered a drama queen at times.

BUTCH- A women who is the masculine character within a lesbian relationship. She is very tomboy like.

LIPSTICK LESBIAN- Slang term used to describe a lesbian woman who exhibits extreme feminine gender attitudes.