Laura Mulvey’s 1975 essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1991) argues that mainstream cinema is structured for the ‘male gaze’ and excludes the female point of view because the camera assumes a male perspective. Women in the audience have to adjust their view to fit in with the male one presented to them. Some mainstream films in the 1980s, for example, have attempted to challenge this view and the associated limitations on female representation. Consider Susan Seidelman’s Desperately Seeking Susan(1985), which is concerned with feminine identities, or Thelma and Louise(1991), which although directed by a man, Ridley Scott, shows two women breaking away from the definitions of a male world characterised by diner and kitchen. The ambiguous ending of Thelma and Louise, like The Awakening and The Bell Jar, presents the ‘reader/viewer’ with images of suicide/flight/rebirth, but allows us to decide how we interpret its meanings. Specific questions these films raise are: have the women moved ‘beyond’ patriarchy or have they simply given in to its inevitable presence and power? What sense of identity emerges in these films?
You might also examine Debra Granik’s film Winter's Bone (2010) Analyse how the ‘heroic’ quest of central figure Rhee traverses the county to confront her kin, breaks their silent collusion, and tries to hold her family together. How does the film re-assess female identity?
Friedan and others discuss the impact of women’s magazines on the discourse of femininity. Examine closely a range of American magazines, interpreting both written and visual texts, and analyse the 1990s version of the feminine that emerges. In particular, concentrate on the ideological positions adopted by the magazines, the myths they create and the values they promote. Relate this back to Plath, Friedan and Harvey’s view of the 1950s and 1960s.
‘Sex in the Citycan be viewed as a “post-feminist” text redefining female identities in complex and varied ways.’ Discuss this statement with close reference to the television series.
How are masculinity and femininity examined in a popular action film such as Die Hard? To what extent does the film represent the idea of the ‘new man’ and ‘liberated woman’ while, at the same time, resorting to fairly conventional gender codes?
Marlon Riggs’ 1989 semi-documentary film Tongues Untied seeks, in its author’s words to ‘shatter the nation’s brutalising silence on matters of sexual and racial difference.’ Blending documentary footage with personal account and fiction, the film shows black gay identity. Watch and discuss the film in the light of this chapter’s themes, focusing on the idea of ‘silence’ that haunts it. Examine why black gay men have been unable to express themselves in the contemporary USA.
How does The Hunger Games explore postfeminist identity?
Orange is the New Black explores an alternative community of women in which differences of various kinds are uppermost. Discuss this idea with close reference to the series.
Women Working: 1800-1930 – A digital exploration of women's impact on the economic life of the United States between 1800 and the Great Depression, from Harvard University