Broadcasting Culture in the U.K - Dissertation Example

(2) suggest, closely related to wider controversies revolving around race, class and sexuality. The methodology of this study will be that of a careful examination of what the movie audience actually sees and further, how these images/sounds influence their changing interpretation of gender roles within the film. Thus an analysis somewhat similar to the close-analysis of literary theory will occur in which what Bert States calls "the thing itself" (the film) will be considered together with its catalyzing effect upon the thoughts of the audience (States, 1).

Due to the fact that this close analysis will involve a fairly detailed examination of the movies, two representative movies will be chosen for each of the decades concerned: Tarantula and Psycho from the 1950's and Fight Club and Thelma and Louise from the 1990's. While other movies will be mentioned, a discussion of just four examples in detail might seem a decidedly flimsy framework on which to hang an analysis of gender roles in film, but the depth of analysis possible by choosing just a few examples enables a firm foundation for the ideas to be laid.

If an analysis descends too much into generalities it is liable to become just that, generic; films are best examined as the viscerally simple and yet overwhelmingly complex "things" that they are. A skimming over multiple films does not enable this. CHAPTER 11. High Heels in the Lab: A Close Look at the Portrait of Femininity in the 1950's Classic Tarantula It is possible to watch the apparently generic 1950's "monster movie" Tarantula without discerning the message that is almost subliminally contained with it that a woman can pursue a career.

This dissertation reveals that different constructions of the “masculine” and the “feminine” have occurred since the beginning of Western dramatic literature in Ancient Greece, and have been continued within that most modern of art forms: film. The camera is traditionally seen as “male”, and it has a “gaze” that supposedly dwells upon the outer features of the female body while ignoring the complex human being beneath. The opposite is meant to be true of the man, who enjoys the position of having his intellect admired and his body ignored.

When the camera looks at this body and the actions of the human beings within them in a problematic and more ambiguous manner, as has been shown in the four films discussed here, a more complex interpretation of human gender roles is possible. Thus Steve in Tarantula is a sexy, voluptuous woman and also a potentially brilliant scientist. The heroine of Psycho is equally feminine but takes on the “masculine”, active role of the thief trying to abscond with the money. Norman Bates controls his own world, and in fact literally “gazes” at his future victim through a peep-hole, but reveals surprisingly feminine features and neuroses.

Indeed, the role of “Mother” that he takes on to murder people might be seen as the spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to subsume this feminine side. These two films, the representative of the 1950’s, were written at a time when gender roles were fairly rigidly enforced, although the stirrings of the massive changes that would occur during the 1960’s were starting to occur.