INDIVIDUAL

THEORETICAL
PROJECT
Olivia Watton

Post-Feminism in contemporary
film
The article I chose discusses post-feminism in contemporary film. Gender
Relationships: The Feminist Model is described as the conflict between male
and female, and the struggle in the fight for more power. If one side gains
more power, the other automatically is degraded in power. Gender
relationships in The Post-Feminist Model however explain that gender is a
social construct that associates different behaviours, attitudes and
expectations to each sex unfairly, and that these attitudes have nothing to do
with the biological sex of the person despite cultural representation.
Some principles of the post-feminism model include that: it does not ignore
the fact that women are struggling in society to become equal with men, and
does not assume that gender-based issues have disappeared. It focuses on
the more modern gender-based problems, post-industrialism, and the way
both women and men are oppressed by gender discrimination. Lastly, it does
not agree with some feminist arguments that may be made but this does
not mean it is dismissing feminism, as it still recognises that feminism is a
powerful movement and is meant for the greater good of the world.

History of feminism
The First Wave: involved suffragette movements in allowing woman to vote
and become more involved in politics. This was the late 19 th century to early
20th century.
The Second Wave: women had gained more political rights, however their
place in society was still much lower than men. The wave included
arguments from how women were portrayed in the media to the social
ladder and how women were at the bottom, and fought for more careers for
women that only men were allowed to do. This took place mid to late 1900s.
The Third Wave (Post-Feminism): explains that society had been changed by
feminism, however became more open-minded and considered both
genders in equality. The two genders become more dependent on each
other rather than being in a battle for power. This was the late 20 th century
to early 21st century.

FEMINISM IN FILM

007
James Bond is the typical masculine character with multiple female
accomplices. The woman is used for sex most of the time, or as a distraction
so that Bond can perform a job without being noticed. Theyd be
accompanied with a nickname that Bond gave them for example, Pussy
Galore and Stephanie Broadchest.
The woman wears seductive and beautiful clothing and makeup, or is seen in
a bikini. The theory of the analysis of the male gaze explains that women
are to be looked upon, where the camera acts as the male viewpoint towards
the woman as she is in little clothing.
Bond films use this in all films, however after the post-feminism wave,
women used in these ways in the films were also used for greater purposes
than eye-candy and became like a side-kick type character, helping Bond on
his missions. Although this is a good thing, the woman are only ever part of
intelligence and not the actual operation Bond is on so are still a minor role.

007
In recent years, since Daniel Craig became Bond, he
has also been sexualised in shots of him emerging from
the water and various shirtless shots. However, this is
seen as a good thing to women and it pleases men to
be found attractive to many. This is however, a small
step towards not just women being seen as sex objects
and it becoming natural.
On Google, one search of bond girls immediately
comes up with pictures of Bond girls in bikinis.
However, if the search of james bond is made, he
appears in just his suits, looking professional.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games provided women with a strong
female character as a lead who is skilled in
archery, boosting the representation of females in
films into positive light. There is no sexualisation of
her throughout the film and it challenges the
stereotypes of the roles of women by showing her
as an excellent warrior and hunter, and showing
the male lead as a poor boy who is in the business
of making bread.
Stereotypes are well challenged and conquered by
these roles, however the lead role is given a male
accomplice who is also an added love interest a
fake relationship is built on this because none of
the characters believe that she can survive on her
own, but she does and battles the common
representations of women.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

This film is a classy spy film that conquers many representations of many
social groups. I love how this film takes many different stereotypes into one
and makes every group that is discriminated against seem the most powerful,
crushing the poor misrepresentations that they are most commonly associated
with.
The biggest representation is women and how powerful they are Roxy and
Eggsy, two main characters, end up being the last two candidates for the final
position of becoming a Kingsman. Whilst everyone believes that Eggsy will be
stronger than Roxy and make it through the final test, he in fact does not, and
Roxy becomes the Kingsman. A quote from the film as they find out that she
has succeeded is at least the girls got balls, which highlights the fact that
Eggsy was weaker than woman.
There are no female relationships in the entire film, which shows in itself how
it differs from a Bond film and doesnt need romance to be interesting.

 Gazelle is a young female accomplice to the villain of the film, who is always by
his side, and she has to physically fight for him as the villain ironically hates
violence and blood, and has to look away when people are fighting. Gazelle is
also a double-amputee, and so represents people with disabilities in a strong,
powerful and beautiful way.
However, despite being one of the strongest characters in the film, the poster
poorly represents her in a sexual way (see upcoming slide Film Poster
representation). Only her legs are shown, and while it shows she is a double
amputee, the film completely turns against its non-sexist storyline with no

 Another social group positively represented are gangs and chavs. Many young,
uneducated people are represented in films and TV as if they have no future and
cannot accomplish anything, and Eggsy is brought up in a council estate with his
mother, younger sister and abusive stepfather. He believes that he will never be
able to get far, and get his mother and sister away from his stepfather, but he is
given the opportunity to make a living by defying all odds, proving to everyone
that he can become someone, and becoming a brilliant young spy.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

(2017)
Hints for the backstory for the Kingsman sequel have been released over
the past few months while they have been filming:
The main villain is female, called Poppy (played by Julianne Moore),
and is trying to take down the Kingsmen
Statesman (the American equivalent of Kingsman) are working with
Kingsman to defeat Poppy, and the leader of the Statesmen is female
(played by Halle Berry)
This again represents how women can be equal to men in power and how
equal genders really can be, rather than the misconception that women
are trying to oppress men instead.

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Comics are known to represent many social groups in positive
ways, and over the years in the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
this has not been changed however some aspects of the films
can spark confusion.
The first example from Marvel is Jessica Jones, a Netflix Original
Series about a woman with super strength and the ability to fly.
She is portrayed as what people have described as masculine
by drinking and being promiscuous. This links to the postfeminism article as it supports how men and women can have
the same behaviours while not changing their biological sex.
The villain of the series, Kilgrave, forces her to be in love with
him as he loves her. The overall moral of the series is that
women can be independent and dont need to have men as a
constant force in their lives to love and be with women are
strong enough on their own and can be everything that a man
can be.

MCU: Agent Carter

Agent Peggy Carter was first introduced in Captain America:
The First Avenger in a high-status position in the army in
America, and the co-founder of SHIELD: the corporation
behind Marvels superheroes. Everyone quickly took a liking
to the character as she has no super power, but is very
strong and an excellent agent / soldier, and holds her own
all whilst being a beautiful love interest of Captain America.
She was given her own series called Agent Carter which
was was all about her during the war being an incredibly
strong woman, empowering so many women as she had so
many action-packed sequences with just strength physically
and emotionally, and no power that made her super-human.
This year however, it was revealed after the second series
that it was to be cancelled due to shockingly low ratings. It
is believed that many became bored, and many did not like
the idea of a female lead in the first place, completely going
backwards in terms of feminism and confusing viewers as to
why, as the representation was exactly how men were
during the war and showed us as equals.

MCU: Black Widow

Perhaps the most important example of post-feminism in the MCU. Natasha Romanoff,
who goes by the alias of Black Widow, was first introduced into the MCU in Iron Man 2
as a glamorous assistant to Tony Stark. When the danger comes to her, she is in a black
catsuit that allows her to become an incredible assassin and produce beautiful action
sequences. In her first sequence, she fights off around ten men, during which time the
man she is with is able to fight off one. She continues to be in The Avengers films and
the Captain America sequels as the only female Avenger. Some have brought up the
fact that she is so successful, but it is unrealistic female representation as superheroes
arent real. It is still good representation as she is strong-minded and skilled with her
behaviour and words, regardless of if she fights or not.

 She is sexualised a lot, for example in Avengers Assemble, when she is first
introduced into the film, she is tied to a chair being threatened by a group of
Russian criminals. While tied to the chair, she manages to fight the entire
group of men and crashes the chair onto one of the men to get it off her.
While being represented in an extreme position of power, she is still
sexualised as she is wearing a tight black dress and picks up black high heels
as she walks away from the fight. This contradicts the powerful image and
shows her to still be objectified even though she is stronger than most men.

 Although Natasha Romanoff is also sexualised in that she is flirtatious with

every man she meets, she is given no love interest and every relationship
with a man that people think will develop into more than friends, they are
kept platonic which is great representation for women to be seen as
independent. However, there has been great controversy for her being given
a romantic interest in Avengers: Age of Ultron, when the romantic interest
was not present in the comics. This, firstly, went against the initial storyline,
and secondly, completely contradicted the fact that she was independent
and needed no love interest to be an incredible character.

 Lastly, since the beginning of the Avengers films (starting with Iron Man in 2008)
there has been controversy as to why Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk and Captain
America have multiple films already whereas Hawkeye and Black Widow dont
have any. Less uproar has actually been made for a Hawkeye film or series, as
people care more to get a Black Widow film made because of the excellent
representation it will give women and how confident young girls will be to have a
solo film for a female superhero. Its reached such an extent over the last few
years that this year, several petitions were made online for a Black Widow film to
be made. It became a viral petition amongst fans and everyone interested, and it

MCU: Sexualisation amongst

men
In Captain America: The First Avenger,

In both Thor films, there are shirtless shots

of Thor as he is getting dressed, and it
shows the women to be staring at him and
admiring until his shirt is on. The second
film includes extreme close ups of his chest,
and this is seen as empowering to men.

Steve Rogers had been transformed

into his super-soldier alias and, aware
that he is shirtless and attractive, the
shot stays on him and Peggy Carter
quickly touches his chest.

Film Poster representation

Representation of women in film posters is usually overlooked, however it has been brought
to the medias attention that, even though the woman may be a large part of the film, it is
her legs or one part of her body on show which sexualises them much to the oblivious
minds of the audience.
A Buzzfeed article cleverly picked up on just a small amount of these posters and recognised
that the womans face never shows, only her either naked or barely dressed body. This
representation is tuned out by the media, and even by us, as it is an occurrence in so many
film posters we see and is therefore ignored.
It depicts the women in the film as a woman with only one purpose sex, which leads to the
questions of why they are represented in this way when in the films they are actually major
parts. Many would argue that as the woman is the biggest part of the picture, this shows her
as the dominant and powerful being. But this doesnt explain why in, for example, Kingsman
and James Bond posters, the most powerful and intelligent women are oppressed and turned
into meaningless sex objects to gain the film more attention as it is seen as less interesting
without a sexual motive. The publics eye is caught by the sexualisation of women in posters
and will most likely remain this way, as sexualisation has become a normal occurrence to all.

FEMINISM IN MUSIC

Beyonc
Beyonc is a feminist icon who frequently releases hits to do with feminism and
the independence of women.
An example of this is Run the World (Girls) which demonstrates the power of
women standing together and being the force that rules the world. Another
example is If I Were a Boy, a song about switching genders with men and how
different it would be if men acted like women and would take into account the
emotions of women. The music video for this shows her as a talented police
officer and the breadwinner of the relationship between her and a man, and she
treats him badly flirting with other male officers, going out to clubs and
cheating on him. In the middle of the video, the roles switch so that he is
actually the one doing this and disrespecting women.

Nicki Minaj
Through videos online and many songs, Nicki
Minaj (despite other songs and media
coverage) is an advocate of feminism and
has openly said at her concerts that women
need to stay in school, become well
educated, and prove that men arent the only
ones who can do this.
She raises the awareness of women who
need help in standing up to men and not
allowing themselves to be treated with
disrespect by them, and that women and
girls should not be brought up scared of
society because of what men can do. So she
tells everyone to stay in school and make
something out of themselves so that they can
prove
many
wrong
and
show
their
independence and strength.

Miley Cyrus
In many music videos and concerts, Miley Cyrus has caused controversy by
simply dressing promiscuously and writing sexually explicit lyrics, much like Nicki
Minaj. She has pointed out the double standards many times, by mentioning that
the media dont point out when a man dresses in little clothing, writes sexually
explicit songs or has multiple sexual partners.
Miley has been called a whore and slut by many people just for dressing in
revealing clothing, despite the fact that she has been in solid, long relationships
for many years and saying that she is also called boring when she wears nonrevealing dressed to awards ceremonies.

FEMINISM IN NEWS /
MAGAZINES

Double Standards
These news stories have become viral
because of a post on Twitter that put
the two side-by-side and compared
them, referencing the double standards
that women who claim to be feminists
place on men and women, and proving
that they really are not feminists as
they oppress the opposite sex which is
completely not what feminism is. This
links to post-feminism in the article as it
focuses on the negative representations
of both men and women.

This representation of women encourages more negative representations of

women in this way, as standards are still held above women to avoid being called
degrading names for being models when they have changed their careers to
something better, however men are crowned for wearing less clothing.

Double Standards

During the Olympic swimming coverage, Helen Skelton wore a loose-fitting jumpsuit completely fair
as she was presenting in the humid aquatics centre. However, viewers complaining that it was too
loose and they could see her underwear at one point during the show, which made her make the
decision to wear more clothes on the next day of coverage. Some viewers and journalists however
took to defending her and her decision, saying she was presenting on a sport that consists of rather
tight kits. (cont)

 Contrasting to this, Gary Lineker tweeted last December that if he lost a

bet, he would present Match of the Day in his underwear. Fans were
furious when he didnt keep to his promise for a long time, and then
complained that his pants werent skimpy enough. This links to the
post-feminism news article as it focuses on the representation of men
and woman and how unfairly men are praised for being more revealing.

Girls life vs Boys life

From early ages, girls are taught that they must have
some level of beauty standards and must be ladylike. Boys however, are always told to follow their
ambitions and choose careers from early ages. This is
evident in these magazines, as it seems to show that
education for boys and their future is more important
than for girls, and that girls are given unrealistic
expectations on how theyre supposed to present
themselves rather than their futures.
This increasingly endangers the younger generations
of women into a false sense of security that your
looks will get you further in life than your education,
which needs to stop otherwise women will never be
seen as equal.

SUMMARY

 When all is put into context of the feminist movements in history and
the waves of post-feminism, we can see a major difference between
different mediums of media. In television, film and music, it is obvious
to see that support and encouragement for women, their strength,
courage and independence is so much higher than in the stories that
make it to the news.
The news has a way of going backwards on feminism and distorting
the image of women, still saying that how a woman presents herself is
the most important thing rather than her skills. It seems to be that
music and film are so much more supportive of women because it
demonstrates the real talents that women can have and how far
people from all different backgrounds have made it into the industry
based on the talent and skills they have rather than their image
presented in the media.