Michael wrote this response to the text question during the A2 mock exam. His commentary below the essay shows how he could have improved it.
Explore the key gender representations in your three main texts
In contemporary cinema, women are consistently represented as being subservient to male characters and consistently represented as being less important than men. This is encoded within texts on many levels, from the use of cinematography, to the very screen time that women occupy. I shall be exploring Skyfall, a popular entry in the long running Bond franchise, directed by Sam Mendes, Chloe Barnard’s The Selfish Giant, in many ways a wholly typical social realist film, and Brave, a recent Pixar animated action adventure film that in some ways breaks the conventions of the traditional Disney fairytale staple. Throughout this essay I shall argue that women are consistently represented as being subservient to male characters, and constricted by patriarchal hegemony.
Skyfall makes frequent and stereotypical use of Proppian character roles in order to create meaning for the audience. Within the narrative, Bond takes the role of the active protagonist, and the ‘Bond Girl’ Moneypenny the helpless and passive princess. This is best illustrated with an early scene where Bond and Moneypenny are in pursuit of an adversary. Moneypenny behind the wheel, Bond casually demeans Moneypenny’s every mistake with quips such as ‘didn’t need that wing-mirror?’ Immediately after, in a dramatic and windswept scene, Moneypenny is forced to take a decisive shot. The use of close up signifies her frustration, but also inexperience. There is a stark binary opposition between the timid girl and the gun. When she inevitably shoots bond by mistake, the moment is emphasized through the sudden absence of non-diegetic music. Her failure is both inevitable and confirms stereotypes (traditional) of women being subservient and hapless. This binary opposition between the competent Bond and the hapless Moneypenny reinforces the reading that women are constructed as being subservient to men.
Skyfall also makes the classic assumption that the gaze of the audience is both male and resolutely heterosexual. Women are presented solely for the purpose of the pleasure of the male heterosexual audience. When Severine, another Bond girl is bound to a rock and threatened with a gun, the audience is positioned in a predatory and threatening POV shot. The mise en scene of the ropes binding Severine is clearly sexualized and even fetishistic. Her makeup is symbolically smeared yet still largely intact. She remains conventionally attractive to the assumed audience. In this sense, Mulvey’s notion of the male gaze is wholly confirmed, and Severine, herself a tragic character, used by Silva as a tool of men in the sex trade, is reduced to a sexual object, and then killed when she serves no further purpose. In this sense, the representation of women in Skyfall is not only negative, but arguably damaging and misogynistic.
The Selfish Giant has very few female characters, with instead male characters taking the brunt of the negative stereotypes. One negative male stereotype is that of the youth hoodlum. Arbor, a young and impoverished boy, steals, lies, and grafts in order to get by. While it could be argued that his representation is heroic, by only seeing this one aspect of his character, we are forced to see him as a crude stereotype. In the classroom scene, Arbor confronts his teacher, telling him to ‘fuck off’ before running out of the classroom laughing. We can use Dyer’s writing on stereotypes to argue that this sort of representation can be harmful to the perception of opinion of young men in general. The mise en scene of Arbor’s appearance is always shabby, deprived and somewhat degenerate, and his actions throughout the film remain opportunistic, with only one brief moment of redemption at the conclusion. In this sense, Selfish Giant presents a very narrow and potentially damaging view of gender.
The focus on male characters in The Selfish Giant is largely to the exclusion of female characters. The only real sympathetic female character in The Selfish giant is Arbor’s mother. In one scene, after having the windows of her house smashed by a drug dealer (typical of this setting and other paradigmatic features of the social realist film), Arbor hugs his mother on the sofa. An intimate close up is used to position the viewer in a scene of almost voyeuristic warmth and human contact. However, this scene emphasises the dominance of men over women in a patriarchal and hegemonic society. Despite being an adult Arbor’s mother is helpless after her partner left her, and must instead rely on Arbor for a surrogate husband. This once more presents the representation of gender as being unequal and troubling. However, this could largely be for the fact that, as a social realist film, The Selfish Giant is desperate to convey an ideological stance, and in doing so must use stereotypes in order to make its message of anti-austerity and state inflicted poverty stick. However, by doing so at the expense of developing its female characters, it presents an unequal view of gender roles.
The final film I will be discussing is Pixar’s Brave. Brave is the first film here to actively reject the domination of women through patriarchal hegemony, though there is a definite patriarchy in place. In a character defining scene, Princess Merida challenges gender norms by tearing her dress and adopting the gender and action codes of a man when shooting an offensive weapon at targets, stunning the male audience in a series of dumbfounded close-up reaction shots. The tearing of the dress is very much symbolic. It reflects the agency of Merida to challenge and destroy the patriarchy. (In an earlier conversation, Merida’s mother convinces that the dress is supposed to be too tight, connoting the restrictions placed on women in every day society). Throughout the film, Merida rejects stereotypical representations of women. Her hair is wild and unkempt, her face not conventionally attractive, and she rejects costume codes that would make her more conventionally sexually attractive on the basis that it would get in the way of the archery. In this sense, Brave rejects dominant ideological notions regarding the representation of women.
However, it is important to acknowledge that every representation used by a producer is for potential commercial gain. In Brave, Merida may take on some of the conventions of the action hero (the protagonist of the action adventure is usually a man rescuing women, in this case it is a young girl rescuing her own mother). However, she is still a princess, and easily identifiable as such for the young, female target audience. The only way in which she is able to accomplish these things is through her privilege. When making the film, the director rejected one possible scenario where Merida was the Blacksmith’s daughter, on the basis that it only works if she is a princess. By identifying Merida as a princess, this reinforces not only gender stereotypes, but also stereotypes surrounding class too, suggesting and reinforcing ideas of patriarchal and political hegemony. In the final scene, Merida, makes a concession, agreeing to still be princess, but on her terms. The optimistic non-diegetic music and enthusiastic high key lighting that accompanies this scene symbolizes that this is a great triumph for Merida, though she is, in fact, still forced to be a princess, and still bound by tradition.
All three films are very conservative in their portrayal of gender, with men as well as women being subject to this conservatism. In Skyfall, the Butler Kincaid, when dutifully handing Bond a knife, announces that ‘sometimes the old ways are the best’ The close up of his knowing nod is clearly symbolic of their power and agency the knife gives Bond. It is a masculine weapon, (even symbolically phallic), and connotes that while women appear, men are forced to make the action. In Brave too, there is a reoccurring theme of the old ways. The Billy Connolly voiced king (himself another old white man) announces to Merida that she must do as he says, because it is the old way. While Merida’s reaction presented in her frustrated expression in the resulting close up shot, there is still an expectation that Merida fall in line and follow the will of male characters.
All three films also present a very clear binary opposition between gender. In The selfish Giant, Kitten’s secretary (perhaps wife/girlfriend, she is never considered important enough to be elaborated on) works as a secretary while he works out front. His considerable physical presence distances himself from the few female characters; he keeps order through living up to male aggressive stereotypes while his secretary takes a passive role. The mise en scene of his costume is dirty, rugged, and practical, the precise opposite of the female characters in this film. Likewise in Skyfall, many binary oppositions are made between genders. As Bond shaves (itself a masculine act) after emotionlessly killing two nameless Chinese henchmen, Bond is walked in on by Moneypenny, who offers to shave him. The scene connotes sexuality. The lingering close ups of Moneypenny’s expression reinforce the notion that women should be subservient to men, where they should enjoy taking a submissive role. While Skyfall is often mistakenly referred to as a step forward in gender representation, the consistent incompetence, objectification and fetishisation of the female characters presents a terrible binary to the subjective, powerful and resolutely active male representations.
All media texts use representation to further their own needs and these three texts are no different. They represent men as being consistently strong and women as being consistently the object of male supremacy in order to reinforce societal notions of gender binaries. Skyfall does so to titillate and arouse the assumed conservative heterosexual male audience. The Selfish Giant presents negative stereotypes of (especially young) male characters, but simultaneously underrepresents female characters to the point where they are almost entirely absent. Finally, Brave, while making nods to a girl overthrowing the patriarchy, still ends with her accepting patriarchal hegemony, continuing the ‘princess fantasy’ for millions of young girls everywhere. For these reasons, I believe the representation of gender to be unbalanced in order to reinforce the dominant ideology and commonly held stereotypes.
Commentary
- Visual codes and technical codes should really have been emphasised in certain paragraphs. From writing this, I completely understand how difficult it is to include everything in just 50 minutes!
- I forgot the director of Brave's name. Your essay will definitely look more sophisticated with it! (Brave was directed by Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman, by the way)
- I'm a big fan of The Selfish Giant, but I ended up laying into it in a big way. This is because examiners love to see a definite point of view. So while I do not really believe that The Selfish Giant is in any way a sexist film, I used the key scenes to prove that it is. Skyfall on the other hand...
- I focussed on the male gaze and patriarchal hegemony too much. I should have talked more about how these representations were constructed and why
- After writing the six paragraphs, I still had some time left, so I came back and included two more paragraphs. I am pleased I did this, as I was able to talk about 'old' masculinity and then another paragraph on gender hierarchies. It took 53 minutes in total, slightly over the 'perfect' 50 minutes but still about right.
- However, those last two paragraphs do feel a little tacked on. Why did I write "It is a masculine weapon, (even symbolically phallic)"? I must have been feeling the pressure...
- I could have included Ariel Levy's female chauvinist pigs theory, and Richard Dyer's star theory to elaborate on some of my points
- I feel like I covered how the representations were typical of their respective genres, but I could have pushed this further
