WOMN 2620 - Feminism and Pop Culture, Feminist Film Theory, Indigenous Cinema

Feminism - Britannica

"Feminism is the belief in the social, economic, and political equality of the sexes."

Feminism - Oxford dictionary

"The advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes."

bell hooks feminism definition

Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression

socially constructed

Judith Butler believes gender to be ___________ rather thann biologically fixed

Angela Davis feminism definition

"Feminism involves so much more than gender equality. Andit involves so much more than gender. Feminism must involve a consciousness of capitalism...and racism and colonialism and post-colonialities... and more genders than we can even imagine, and more sexualities than we ever thought we could name.“

Tamara Martsenyuk - feminism definition

• Feminism as a movement for equal rights and equal opportunities for women and men.
• Feminism as a social theory that critiques patriarchy as an unjustsocial system and as a social movement that has significantly improved the status of women in many societies

popular culture

________ emerged w/ the development of mass media, including newspapers, radio, and television

• primarily designed to appeal to the tastes and interests of the general public, w/ a strong emphasis on entertainment

popular culture products

films, TV programs, entertainment content in print and digital media, popular music, advertising

popular culture - oxford definition

TV shows, books, toys, etc. that are popular among ordinary people in a particular society

commercial profit, passive and uncritical

Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer - Cultural products are produced primarily for _________ rather than artistic or educational purposes

• industry encourages ___________ consumption

• prioritizes entertainment over critical reflection

mass audience

Andi Zeisler - Populat culture i any cultural product that has a _________. In
Shakespeare’s time, it was a theatre. In ours, it’s everything from Top 40
radio to The Simpsons to Paris Hilton

high, low

Andi Zeisler - But historically, pop culture grew out of low culture, the uncouth
counterpart to so-called high culture. If _____ culture comprised the art,
literature, and classical music made by and for the world’s educated
elite, ______ culture was the baser stuff with which the masses contented
themselves.

amuse

Andi Zeisler - High art was supposed to entertain, yes, but it was also
supposed to inform, enrich, and inspire. It was considered enough,
however, for popular culture to simply ______.

Participatory culture

Henry Jenkins - fundamental transformation of popular culture in the era of digital
media: from the passive consumption of media content by audiences
to the active creation, sharing, and circulation of content by users
across social media (YouTube, TikTok, etc) platforms.

• this participatory model challenges the traditional distinction
  between producers and consumers

approach

Angela Davis - "I often like to talk about feminism not as something that adheres to
bodies... but as an ________ —as a way of conceptualizing, as a
methodology, as a guide to strategies for struggle. That means
feminism doesn't belong to anyone in particular."

Ways of seeing

John Berger - “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch
themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations
between men and women but also the relation of women to
themselves. The surveyor of women in herself is male: the surveyed
female. Thus she turns herself into an object – and most particularly
an object of vision: a sight”

Women as “to-be-looked-at”

Laura Mulvey - The classical film narrative reinforces male dominance: men drive the story forward, while women interrupt or decorate it but rarely control it.

• Mainstream cinema is organized around a heterosexual male viewer;

• Women on screen are primarily presented as objects of visual pleasure, while men are positioned as active subjects who look, desire, and control the narrative

• active/male and passive/female

Scopophilia

Laura Mulvey - pleasure in looking at others as objects

Identification

Laura Mulvey - the viewer identifying with the male protagonist as an active subject

Vouyerism

Laura Mulvey - investigating or controlling the female figure through narrative.
• Woman = mystery
• “I want to know what she is hiding.”
• She is watched to be understood/controlled.

Fetishistic scopophilia

Laura Mulvey - Turning the woman into a visually perfect, fetishized object to neutralize anxiety
• Woman = spectacle
• “I want to look at her.”
• She is watched for visual pleasure.

Gaze

Janice Loreck - a term that describes how viewers engage with visual
media. Originating in film theory and criticism in the 1970s, the _____ refers
to how we look at visual representations. These include advertisements, television programs
and cinema

male gaze

Janice Loreck - “In the _________, woman is visually positioned as an “object” of
heterosexual male desire. Her feelings, thoughts and her own sexual drives are less important than her being “framed” by male desire”

Femininity as a masquerade

Mary Ann Doane - it refers to how a woman presents herself to the world—how she dresses, how she behaves, in other words, how she constructs her social persona

• “Masquerade is the feminine par excellence.”

• “Femininity is a mask which can be worn or removed.”

the woman as a spectator

1. She can identify with the female heroine, with female images, and thereby accept the idea that woman is a passive object of action rather than a fully fledged subject

2. She can identify with the male gaze, but in doing so she loses her “femininity”

woman with glasses (intellectual)

• intelligent
• professional
• “unfeminine” or insufficiently attractive
• uninteresting to the male gaze

femme fatale

• seductive
• powerful
• mysterious
• potentially dangerous

ingenue

• young
• innocent
• naïve
• vulnerable
• inexperienced

the oppositional gaze

bell hooks - Black representation in mainstream film is often shaped by a white supremacist capitalist patriarchy

“There is power in looking. Mainstream cinema has historically denied Black women full representation as subjects rather than objects of the gaze.” allows Black female viewers to:

• recognize and resist racist and sexist representations,

• refuse imposed identification with dominant cinematic perspectives

• create an alternative viewing position that asserts agency and critical distance

resistance spectatorship

a way of watching films that refuses identification with stereotypical or demeaning images.

cinema as a technology of gender

Terse de Lauretis - Cinema

• It constructs a system of gendered representations.

• In most films, the protagonist is male.

• In cinema, a woman is often a representation—an image— rather than a subject who speaks and acts.

• Cinema is not simply about the “male gaze” (as in Mulvey), but rather a broader system that constructs the very possibility of becoming a “woman” or a “man” as a subject.

Suffragette (2015)

• The main character is a laundress, a married woman with a child.
• The film depicts her transformation as she gradually comes to understand that women’s right to vote could fundamentally change the lives of working-class women

• the struggle of suffragettes for the right to vote in the United Kingdom
• harsh working conditions and low wages for female workers
• discrimination against women in the labor market
• women’s lack of legal rights
• unequal rights within marriage
• deprivation of custody rights from divorced women
• sexual harassment of women in the workplace

Made in Dagenham (2010)

• The film is about the first women's strike at the Ford factory in Dagenham, England, in 1968

• The women demanded to be recognized as skilled workers and to receive equal pay with men.
• The strike contributed to the adoption of the Equal Pay Act in 1970, one of the most important milestones in the history of women's rights in the United Kingdom

The Woman King (2022)

• women's right to choose their own path in life,
• the right to self-realization,
• resistance to patriarchal norms and gender stereotypes,
• violence against women,
• sexual violence as a weapon of domination and psychological control.

• presents a postcolonial perspective on African women.
• They are depicted as agents of history

Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

• Katherine Watson, an art history professor: “I thought that I was headed to a place that would turn out tomorrow’s leaders, not their wives.”

• A young woman’s choices in life
• The influence of external factors on her choices: family, school, teachers, and friends
• The role of education in her life
• Developing critical thinking and analytical skills

• The film shows that there is no single right path for every woman.
• Every woman has the right to make her own choices and decide what kind of life she wants to live.

The Stepford Wives (1975; 2004)

• A satirical science fiction film that presents the seemingly perfect world of families living in Stepford.
• These seemingly happy housewives are later revealed to be robots

The image of the Stepford wife has becomea metaphor for the patriarchal ideal of womanhood

Key characteristics of Indigenous cinema

• Films are created by Indigenous filmmakers.
• Stories are told from Indigenous perspectives rather than from the viewpoint of colonizers.
• Colonial stereotypes are challenged, reinterpreted, or rejected.
• The films explore Indigenous history, cultures, and contemporary life.
• They place a strong emphasis on decolonization, cultural memory, language revitalization, gender issues, and the struggle for Indigenous rights and self-determination

Beans (2020)

Directed by Tracy Deer - A coming-of-age film about a 12- year-old Mohawk girl during the 1990 Oka Crisis in Canada.

Tracey Deer

• Canadian Mohawk filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer.
• She is the first Mohawk woman to receive a Gemini Award (2008).
• She has directed both documentary and feature films that explore issues of:
• decolonization,
• Indigenous cultural heritage,
• language revitalization,
• Indigenous women's experiences
• gender inequality.

Mohawk Girls

A comedy TV series that follows the lives of four Mohawk women living in Canada.

Directory Tracey Deer - "I’m making a show about my own life, about my sister's life, my friends', my cousins’. I grew up on the reserve feeling invisible, voiceless, in all aspects of my life — here on the reserve, out in the bigger world. I felt really boxed in”

Night Raiders

Directed by Danis Goulet: Indigenous Dystopian Science Fiction / Thriller
• The film can be read through the lens of intersectional feminism

• The central figure of resistance is a mother, Niska.
• Her struggle against state control over motherhood and the family sphere.
• “I really did set out to make a matriarchal movie.” - Danis Goulet

• Through Niska and Waseese, the film transforms motherhood, mcare, cultural identity, and community into forms of resistance against colonial and patriarchal power

challenges the traditional representation of women as victims, caregivers, or secondary characters.

Rhymes for Young Ghouls (2013)

Directed by Jeff Barnaby: Historical drama about Aila, a 15-year-old Indigenous girl living on a Mi'kmaq reserve in Canada

Key themes
• Discrimination and violence against Indigenous children in the residential school system.
• Forced assimilation of Indigenous children in the residential schools.
• The legacy of colonialism and its devastating impact on Indigenous families.
• Resilience and the protagonist's struggle to preserve her dignity and cultural identity.