I know that the mainstream movie business is an industry that caters primarily to its audience. The audience expects and wants to see certain things in movies. The women may want to see strong female characters and stuff and the men wanna see some "jiggle" right? I mean, I don't necessarily think that, but I know that's pretty much what Hollywood thinks (basically).
What confuses me is how we have heros like the Charlie's Angels (I have only seen the remake with Cameron Diaz etc) who kick ass AND look hot at the same time. What is that saying to the audience exactly? I mean I know that the girls wanna see girls kick butt and the guys just want to see butt.. but that pretty much says that girls can run shit, but they should look good while doing it.
It's not fair. It's actually impossible. And we've discussed this in class; the images of women portrayed in the media aren't real, but some women still strive to look like Angelina and Cameron (or we're told to.. by the media or whatever).
My question is, is a movie like Charlie's Angels good for the image of women or bad? Maybe Charlie's Angels isn't the perfect example. I read an article online that describes it perfectly.
Something very interesting that the author says is:
"Even as a character within a so-called chick flick, whose audience was primarily female, she still manages to reinforce the images of the ideal women that we are meant to picture. Perky, vacuous, tan and well-endowed, and above all else Blonde, she overcomes all obstacles in her path with seemingly no more weapons than a blindingly bright smile, all while maintaining her inner equilibrium and stunning fashion sense. Any girl watching from the audience is presumably meant to come away from the film inspired by the thought that maybe, perhaps, one day, she will be able to marry the twin virtues of style and perseverance the way that Woods does. And perhaps these goals are to be appreciated."
I just wonder where the real women who can also be heroes are in film. And I wonder if a movie that is about a real looking woman who saves the world from exploding would actually be successful or not.
Are you planning on coming to the From Pippi to Ripley conference? It seems like it'll be right up your alley...
ReplyDeleteGoing to second the From Pippi to Ripley thing. "Tank Girl" and "Aliens" especially.
ReplyDeleteI've really come to admire "Aliens" recently for the way it managed to do the exact opposite of what you've outlined as the Hollywood action film stereotype. James Cameron movies aren't particularly subtle thematically or anything but his movie isn't like "Charlie's Angels" where a female viewer is supposed to feel empowered by this supermodel-looking woman who still takes all her orders from a man. Instead, it's Sigourney Weaver - a very unconventionally attractive actress juxtaposed against even more masculine, muscular female space marines - dressed as if she's there to fucking kill things and not strut down a runway who takes shit from absolutely nobody who we find out in the director's cut was actually a working mother who got separated from her daughter for long periods of time because of her work.
And then there's the whole idea of the Alien Queen representing this kind of primal, animalistic, antiquated, hierarchal version of femininity (forever chained to the walls of her cave laying eggs) that needs to be utterly obliterated but that the evil corporation wants to preserve for money.
What I'm saying is I love James Cameron and anything bad you have to say about "Avatar" is instantly invalidated by the fact that he made "Aliens" and "Terminator 2"...and fucking "The Abyss."
I also just watched a documentary last week called "Mickey Mouse Monopoly," and they discussed something similar when pertaining to the movie Mulan. The critics of Disney movies said that they were finally happy to see a strong confident female lead in a Disney movie, but then when she returned home after war, it was as if nothing had happened she became this girly girl who wanted nothing but to be a wife to her love interest. This gives mixed messages to the girls who finally got their strong female leader. Its sad that we can pick out specifically the small number of women who were strong leaders in movies, we should be able to pick out the small number who are not! Women need role models and reality in movies too!
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