A Grade Theorists to apply to your productions

The Male Gaze Laura Mulvey Feminist Theory Visual

Pleasure and Narrative Cinema Written in 1975

The cinema apparatus of Hollywood cinema puts the audience in a masculine

subject position with the woman on the screen seen as an object of desire.
Film and cinematography are structures upon ideas. Protagonists tended to
be men. Mulvey suggests two distinct modes of male gaze voyeuristic
(women as whores) and fetishistic women as unreachable madonnas.
(Also narcissistic women watching film see themselves reflected on the
screen). (Film texts: Alien, Jackie Brown vs Foxy Brown).
People who criticise her ideas say that she is ignoring the fact that all genders
male and female want to feel dominated and overwhelmed by the cinema
experience. Also, she ignores the fact that men are capable of metaphoric
transvestism whereby they are able to view the film from the perspective of a
woman. (Thelma and Louise, The Piano, Knocked Up, Brick Lane).

Lacan Psychoanalysis and The Mirror

Lacans theory of the mirror is an idea around the idea of identity. He

considers the point at which a person develops a sense of self and conscious
identity. He considers the point at which a child recognises their own
reflection and begins to consider how others perceive them, modifying their
appearance to satisfy their perceptions of how others see them. Mulvey
extends this idea when she writes about the silver screen which she suggest
operates like a metaphorical mirror; reflecting back to the female viewer
representations of female identity, but these representations are not genuine
reflections of the viewer but rather male perceptions of idealised femininity.

Queer Theory Judith Butler

Emerging out of field of Gender studies (the study of males and female roles
historically, politically, socially etc). Queer theory challenges the idea that
gender being male or female is part of the essential self, that it is fixed,
immovable in other words Queer theory suggest that our male or female
gender does not control all aspects of our identity or how we perceive other
peoples identity. In other other words gender, particularly as it is represented
in performance on TV, Film etc, is fluid, flexible depending on the context in
which it is seen. For example an audience can see Tom Cruise playing a
straight pilot in The Right Stuff and interpret his gender, although male, as
having very queer or gay attributes. The theory developed as a way of

combating negative representations of gay sexuality in the Media. It combats

the idea that people should be divided and categorised, indeed marginalised,
due to their sexual orientation or practice and that a persons identity should
not be limited to their sexual preference. It asks us to consider how the media
constructs gay representation. (Apply to representation of gay sexuality in
Knocked upany others? What about Graham Norton? Alan Carr? Does Post
Modern Irony regarding representation of gay characters relieve the audience
of burden of moral responsibility regarding evolving attitudes a more flexible
idea of gender?)

Subculture Representation of Groups Dick Hebdidge

In his book, Subculture and The Meaning of Style, Dick Hebdidge said that a
subculture is a group of like minded individuals who feel neglected by societal
standards and who develop a sense of identity which differs to the dominant
on to which they belong. Ken Gelder lists 6 ways in which a subculture can
be recognised: 1) Often have negative relationship to work 2) Negative or
ambivalent relationship to class 3) Through their associations with territory
( The street, the hood, the club) rather than property 4) Through their stylistic
ties to excess 5) Through their movement out of home into non-domestic
forms of belonging (social groups as opposed to family) 6) Through their
refusal to engage with they might see as the banalities of life.
Other ways of recognising a subculture might be symbolism attached to
clothes, music, visual affectations like tattoos etc. (Examples Ben and his
friends in Knocked up representing a subculture some of the values of which
Alison and as such the America she initially represents might benefit from).
Subcultural values often associated with being cool.

Anthony Giddens Traditionalist vs Post Traditionalist views of

society

Media representations of society can be seen as traditional or post

traditionalist. Traditional societies are ones in which individual choice was
limited by its dominant customs and traditions. Whereas post traditionalist
societies are one where the ideas set by previous generations are less
important that those of individuals. Post traditional societies are no longer feel
so deepen were limited to time and place. Giddens says, we are living in a
post traditional society where we are much less concerned with precedents
set by previous generations and that our options are only limited by what the
law and public opinion allows. We have replaced seen/discreet systems with
remote expert systems, institutions and corporations.

Bell Hooks: Interconnectivity of race, class and gender.

Pen name of Gloria Jean Watkins. First major work Aint I a woman? Lack,
women and feminity written in 1981. Focused on the perpetuation of
systems of oppression and domination in the media paying particular attention
to the devaluation of black womanhood. The idea of lack or otherness refers
to the way that women and ethnic minorities are usually represented as
other. Their primary purpose is simply to be other than the norm (usually a
white male hero). They are therefore known more by the context of lack than
by a realised or complex identity. This theory can be linked to ideas of the
monstrous feminine found in feminist analysis of literature and art.
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Representation of youth and teenagers
Considering Quadrophenia.
This film is great for thinking about subculture. The film looks and mods and
their interaction with the rockers. Think about how fashion, music, language,
drugs and sex are used symbolically to make meaning and represent values
like rebellion, anger and disillusion. Dick Hebdige said that subcultures use
style to represent their resistance to the dominant ideologies of a corrupt
society. They take symbols like the smart clothes or mopeds and modify or
customise them to show their alternative values. Watch the film again and see
if you can identify these symbols and what they represent.
Can this theory be applied to more recent films depicting youth? Watch 8Mile
and think about the urban music / hip hop rap subculture. Can the symbols of
this subculture be analysed in a similar way to Quadrophenia?