Ted Talk - The women in film revolution begins with you, Naomi McDougall-Jones

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gj2pWl1vjCY

Notes
- 'the movies you watch don't just effect your hobbies, they effect your career choices, your emotions, your sense of identity'
- 95% of the movies you have ever seen were directed by men
- 55% of the time you have seen a woman in a movie she is partially naked
- 'prism of one perspective' - male
- moviesbyher.com
- 'this is about making a better world' - finishing statement

Ted Talk - Girls in Film, Alicia Malone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk_5KQzstew

Notes
- 'lack of girls in film' - directors
- 100 top-grossing films of 2012, 4.1% of directors were women
- 'lack of women working behind the scenes'
- 'not getting their perspective told on screen'
- 'lack of interesting female characters'
- San Diego State University, top films of 2014, 12% had a female protagonist.
- 'women's stories are simply not being told'
- Connecting through story-telling
- 'audiences learn about the world through films and they learn about themselves'
- Stereotypes instead of role models
- Charlize Theron 'how rare it was to find a character which is not just strong, but also allowed to be broken and vulnerable, in short, human'

My Fair Lady

The use of an icon is evident specifically in My Fair Lady. Audrey Hepburn was and remains a role model to many people. The change of her character in this film is evident mostly through the way she dresses. These screenshots (above) show this gradual transformation. Throughout the film, the focus of the audience's gaze is on Eliza Doolittle, this is obvious due to the elaborate costumes and general aura of Audrey Hepburn in comparison to her fellow actors, who generally wear dull colours and fade into the background as to not distract from the focal point.

Pretty Woman

Here are some screenshots I took from Pretty Woman. I made some interesting observations about the way women seem to be 'transformed' after an encounter with a man. Similarly to in Grease, the modification of Vivian's (Julia Roberts) clothes mimic that of Edward's (Richard Gere) fashion style. Many things could be drawn from this. Is Vivian conforming to the preferred aesthetic of male desire, or is she simply changing her own style due to personal growth? 

Film Quotes & Images - Aesthetics

At this stage of my visual investigation I started linking relevant quotes from selected films to images taken from them. I am really enjoying the process of this and am finding that I can communicate my ideas in response to these themes a lot easier through the medium of collage and line.

I found that at this stage my ideas are flowing a lot more effectively compared to the beginning of the project. Making work straight away after looking into particular theories helped me to do this, I feel as though to start with I was a bit stuck on where to start and the more I did the more the momentum of the project grew. 

Grease

Whilst watching Grease, one of the most popular films in the genre of make-over movies, I took some screenshots of examples of Sandy, the female protagonist, before she modifies her appearance. Interestingly, the change she makes at the end of the film is reflective of Danny's style, therefore, to be accepted by him. Whether or not this would have been a permanent alteration for the character, or just a demonstration of Sandy's ability to be 'one of the guys' is not stated. Throughout the film, Sandy embodies the naive, girl-next-door image. Meeting Danny obviously has a fundamental impact on her, influencing the choices she makes and ultimately transforming not just her visual appearance, but her understanding of the world. 

Transformation Movies

After talking to Pete, I realised the direction I want to take my project in centres around transformation or 'make-over' movies. The concept of someone adapting their visual representation and the reasons for this is something I am interested in researching further. The first films that come to mind are Grease and Pretty Woman, where the influence of a man is essential to the female character's transformation. I intend to look into these first and think about the aspects that may fuel the theme of my essay.

Tutorial with Pete

My tutorial with Pete today helped me to define the films I may want to focus on for my case studies within the essay. Getting started and writing a plan is always the hardest part of the essay for me. Once I get into it I actually quite enjoy the process. I am feeling as though I can get a pretty good start on this soon, although I am stepping away from my draft a lot, I prefer the research and concept behind my new thesis.

What if I had been the Hero? - Sue Thornham

Notes from Text

• 'In films like Miss Congeniality (Petrie, 2000), Legally Blonde (Luketic, 2001) and The Devil Wears Prada (Frankel, 2006) these negative traits are associated with a feminism that is now irrelevant and which must be rejected by the heroine in her search for successful female selfhood'.
• Mulvey (male gaze)... 'thus presents as neutral or natural what is in fact a highly constructed mode of discourse'.
• Virginia Woolf... 'women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size'.
• 'If feminist theory has critiqued femininity and the multiple sites and structures through which it is constructed, postfeminism celebrates its return. It is a femininity still naturalised as both destiny and ideal for women, to be achieved through constant self-surveillance, self-modification and consumption, but one which is now seen as productive of female power and pleasure. The difference comes through the operation of choice: this very traditional-looking femininity is presented as the outcome of individual choice for the contemporary young woman'.

New Intro & Developed Essay Question

To what extent do the pressures of western cinema influence women to modify their appearance?

This essay aims to highlight and question the idea that the film industry embodies the patriarchal views of western society when it comes to aesthetic expectations on-screen, particularly considering the portrayal of women in relation to gender roles. Why there is such a presence of a male gaze within film seems to be obvious when looking at who the people are behind the camera. According to the New York Film Academy, there is a 5:1 ratio of men to women working in the film, which could be a direct indication of inequality within the industry, both in regards to the opportunities for women to work as a director/film maker, and also in relation to the way women are seen in film altogether. Because such a large proportion of men are writing and directing female characters, they are more often than not going to be created from the perspective of male desire. Therefore, women end up being confined to their appearance and appropriated for the male characters, who by default of their gender, are more relatable to the men who created them.

Key Text - Stars & Audiences, Richard Dyer

Notes from Text

• 'images of stars construct the fantasies and pleasures of moviegoers' - Link to Mulvey, fantasy.
• Spectatorship theory... 'moviegoer is positioned according to the pleasures of male heterosexual desire'.
• 'Others, while recognising the difference of the stars, determined to overcome it, either by aspiring to the ideals of feminine 'attractiveness' which the star represented'.
• 'Stacey calls these relationships 'cinematic identificatory fantasies''.
• Masochism... 'central to the allure and power of Marlene Dietrich'.
• 'Dietrich added her idiosyncratically cool sensuality which represented her indifference to male desire'.
• 'With masochism, ultimately the victim retains control of the masochistic contract, requiring the dominator to submit to the desire of the dominated'.
• 'styles were designed as spectacle for male desire' - Star styles, icons.

Further Notes

• Stars... 'escapist spectacle'.
• 'identifications with stars motivated by practical actions outside the cinema'.
• 'actions they took to transform the self and construct similarity between moviegoer and performer'.
• 'Hollywood film became integrated with the consumer economy in America'.
• 'films displayed fashions on the screen and there was a movement to transfer screen fashions to the high street' - Way in which a society is influenced to change their appearance.

Peer Review Session

I found the session today really useful, I feel like it has been such a long time since I spoke to anyone else properly about the practical work for this project and it was nice to be able to clarify where my work is going and get some suggestions on where I can improve and develop my ideas.

Femmes Fatales - Mary Ann Doane

Notes from Text

• 'The woman who wears glasses constitutes as one of the most intense visual cliches of the cinema' - Link to transformation movies.
• 'concerned with repressed sexuality, knowledge, visibility and vision, intellectuality, and desire'.
• 'In dishonored (1931), Dietrich assumes a masquerade when she works as a spy'.
• 'Marlene Dietrich once again appears to demonstrate her control over male, she literally plays with the veil'.
• 'Apart from any intradiegetic deception or duplicity attached to the feminine'.
• 'She is not the subject of feminism but a symptom of male fears about feminism'.
• 'The femme fatale is the figure of a certain discursive unease, a potential epistemological trauma'.
• 'for her most striking characteristic, perhaps, is the fact that she never really is what she seems to be' - Icon.

• Femme Fatale definition - An attractive and seductive woman, especially one who will ultimately cause distress to a man who becomes involved with her'.

Expectations

Still looking into the portrayal of the fragility of a woman as a damsel-in-distress, reflecting the essence of the roles/jobs usually given to a male character. The example used here is of an FBI agent, linking to the general depiction of women and the limitation of dialogue given to them in comparison to a man.

Continuing this idea I looked into stars from typical movies which arguably highlight female empowerment. In the image below I started to think about the audience's perception of female characters and this could impact a society on the whole.

Undressing Cinema - Stella Bruzzi

Notes from Text

• Challenging theories around femmes fatale... 'But why presume that a tempting female image is necessarily conditioned by either the narrative of the films she inhabits or the framework of male fantasy?' - Women are over-identified by their appearance, both on and off screen.
• 'the vicissitudes of female dress ultimately undermine the woman and render her subservient to (and the victim of) the man who retains his iconographic stability'.
• 'The justification for this sacrificial offering of the desirable, feminine woman has been sought in her appearance: the conscious eroticisation of her look through seductive clothing and make-up, and the use of this look to manipulate men'.
• 'Woman (unlike man), is even required by society to make herself an erotic object. The purpose of fashions to which she is enslaved is not to reveal her as an independent individual, but rather to offer her prey to male desires; thus society is not seeking to further her projects but thwart them' - Society represses women when it comes to their ambitions/opportunities.
• 'Fashion is used, in De Beauvoir's estimation, to absent women and reduce her to an idealised sign'.
• 'The pursuit of elegance and beauty, therefore, is appressive, trivialising and demeaning'.
• 'Men's clothes are functional, women's are not'.
• 'Doane's argument comprehensively disempowers the femme fatale... the construct and embodiment of a dominant male fantasy'.
• 'Despite her ability to manipulate and seduce the men around her... the femme fatale is somehow impotent and harmless'.