“The fictional narrative of Precious’s tragic young life reminds readers and viewers of the real tragic experiences of young girls much like her,” says Mia Mask in The Precarious Politics of Precious: A close reading of a Cinematic Text (Mask 98). Many girls can relate to Claireece Precious Jones in some way through race, class, gender, sexuality, or looks. Many girls are abused, sexual harassed, are teen moms, face financial issue, or are struggling with confidence and school from external conflicts. Precious has a huge impact and effect on the audience because we can see ourselves as Claireece in some way. In all the film’s we have viewed and discussed in class, women are held down by men or are pressured to please a man, play the girlfriend …show more content…
There is a lot of stereotypes and judgment placed on the LGBTQ community just like there are on women like Precious. I do sometimes have a hard time understanding and relating to the LGBTQ community. Both of these great movies gave me a better understanding and portrayed the struggles faced with sexuality. I gained more knowledge on how relatable these two love stories were between women compared to the love shared between heterosexual couples. Karen Hollinger states in Feminist Film Studies, “Desert Hearts’ positive portrayal of lesbian romance succeeds as no film had before it in reversing the overt homophobia that previously characterized representations of lesbianism in mainstream cinema. It was the first mainstream film to present a lesbian romance as sincere and loving…” (Hollinger 141). Both these films presented the innocent love of women who also faced judgment, abuse, and were struggling to break out of the problems and boundaries society placed on them. The film Boys Don’t Cry was based on the true story of Brandon Teena. Brandon was murdered because of her sexuality. Many people, not just women, have similar issues and are abused, judged and harassed because of them. Both of these films were able to relate to the audience and draw them in like
During the Silent Era of Hollywood films white, Northern European-American men were the ones that created and sustained the social norms that were common during that time. Women were looked upon as objects by men in some of the films, and then in other films women are portrayed as a damsel in distress. Like the directors and producers do not believe that women can stand up for themselves and they must depend on men to do everything for them. An example of when women are seen as an object to men in one of the films is in “Tango Tangles” when the leader of the band has sneaky feelings for the “hot check girl” and then two other men also develop feelings for the check girl.
In Hollywood film women 's roles have varied quiet considerably between genres, geographical placement, and period settings. These factors contribute to the different representations of women 's roles in the film they are present in. The roles are diverse going from the traditional maternal role to that of manipulative murderer. Women 's roles in movies can be almost equal to the male roles, and the co-stars are not given the majority of the acclaims just because they are male. Society has set certain standards that women are supposed to follow. The most common image of women is that they are very passive and try to avoid conflict in any situation. More and more in society women are breaking down the social barriers that confine them to their specific roles. The films Rear Window and Resident Evil show women in roles that are untraditional for our society. These two movies help to show how women are rebelling against social norms and that they are taking more active and aggressive roles. In film noir’s we can see women represented as the femme fatale, a woman whose mysterious and seductive charms leads men into compromising or dangerous situations. In action movies we see the heroine who is strong both physically and mentally, and has the ability to use weapons. Women seem to be more trapped than men because they are supposed to live up to society’s standards dealing with beauty and size, which are more physical characteristics. These specific guidelines have been set by
One level to address when watching the film Precious is the Micro issues that Precious faces in the movie. The movie does not directly describe all of Precious’s immediate family members but one can see
One of the main reasons I chose this film is because when I was younger my parents loved this movie and still to this day will watch it if it comes on television. This movie really touches my life on a personal level and is very relatable because of my mother. My mom has always been very much a “tomboy” growing up. She told me stories of how she had to play baseball because there wasn’t a softball team and how she got into a fight at school and beat a kid up because he kept harassing her and the teacher thought it was two boys. She actually played competitive travel softball for over 20 years and I actually got the chance to watch her a few times.
These powerful ideologies the women are contemplating over time the course of the journey places heroines in a position where they must make a choice Does she accept her potential, or return to being forced in to live in the socio-political norms that constrains women views and ideologies? The moments of realization of who the heroine truly is, is when exposed to a difficult scenario of tyranny and oppression. This is when the Gothic heroine and Young Adult heroine choose their self-worth over their tyrannical, patriarchal forces that had been holding them back.
The film Precious is an emotional movie that deals with the unfortunate realities of everyday life for some individuals. The film that stares Gabourey Sidibe who plays the main character Clarice “Precious” Jones is based out of Harlem in the year of 1987. Precious is a sixteen year-old obese and uneducated teenager whom has had to grow up in a severely dysfunctional family environment. Her mother verbally and physically abuses her, often times using her as a personal servant. Her father has been sexually abusing her since childhood, and has impregnated her twice. Precious has lived with the ugly truth that because of her weight, skin color, and sexual abuse, she does not fit in
This genre is typically modern, perky and upbeat, but the common narrative in all of them is that it features a woman who is strong and she overcomes adversity to reach her goals. There is also a message of empowerment that also struggles with a romantic predicament and using comedy to poke fun at the male characters. Industries are still producing soppy romantic comedies for the female audience but the divide between the standard chick flick and romantic comedy is slowly disappearing. Similarly to the beginning of this essay it is evident that institutions are moving in the direction of women’s place in culture in relation to this film genre; women are usually shown as the super power since they are made to appeal to the female audience. However
In conclusion, the film She’s the Man shows the audience how gender gets represented in films. It shows the traditional femininity as well as the traditional masculinity. This illustrates that gender has impacts on power and gender relations to contribute gender inequality. Gender norms are enforced in films which maintain the power inequality difference between both genders. These issues confine the way modern films represent gender and gives a direct effect to the
Both movies are very black and white. The views are traditional and not meant to be changed. This is why both strong female leads believe in being strict. This is why they use fear and intimidation to appear dominant over their students. They both show that everyone has their own faults that they deal with and must be handled in a particular manner. They have to overcome the situations that they are put through. Both women, handle their self in a very well-mannered
This book was probably the most brutal reading I’ve ever read. However, I found it incredibly eye-opening and excruciatingly honest about what life can be like for girls in impoverished and uneducated situations. Sapphire’s writing makes her character, Precious, seem real by incorporating her feelings, questions, and by writing in altered English grammar to make it seem as if her feelings are being spoken. I really enjoyed reading this book as it brought life and sensitivity to the statistics I’ve been reading about in my nursing clinicals and classes this semester.
Today’s filmmakers have three areas to focus on: the event or theme of the film, the audience who will be watching the film, and lastly, the individual characters and the roles they play and how they are portrayed and interpreted. Many of these films bottom line objectives are to focus on the “erotic needs of the male ego.” The focus on fetishistic scopophilia tend to slant the view such that we see the world as being dominated by men and that woman are
From television to film, from music to advertising, men are often portrayed as strong willed and powerful, while women are often shown as submissive, powerless, and sexually promiscuous. Particularly in American
In order to properly view a story from a feminist perspective, it is important that the reader fully understands what the feminist perspective entails. “There are many feminist perspectives, and each perspective uses different approaches to analyze and interpret texts. One is that gender is “socially constructed” and another is that power is distributed unequally on the basis of sex, race, and ethnicity, religion, national origin, age, ability, sexuality, and economic class status” (South University Online, 2011, para. 1). The story “Girl” is an outline of the things young girls
The film version of Diary of a Teenage Girl, rather than condemning patriarchal privilege and its attendant exploitations as the book does, is instead a very careful take on a young 's girl 's exploration of her sexuality. The film and the book share the same premise but ultimately differ on delivery due to their inherently different approaches to capturing Minnie’s life as her and the other characters are portrayed differently, so much so that is a cautious take on an otherwise un-barred novel. Rather than touching upon patriarchal privilege and its exploitations, the film smooths over many of the more intense aspects in order to create a happy ending for itself, which is fundamentally different than what the book intended.
on society and culture. But since the beginning, there has been trend of male dominance in entertainment. This has contributed to gender inequality by not giving young girls strong role models in movies. It has also created ideal gender images that young children and adults feel obligated to follow. In more recent years, with the rise of feminism and gender equality, many have begun to push for changes in movies and Hollywood. Gender inequality in film can be reduced by creating more roles for women, avoiding gender stereotypes such as the damsel in distress, and avoiding oversexualizing women.