Historical Text Analysis

Captain America

Stereotypical women during war times wearing bright coloured dress and serves the family and husband. Dr Gonselli scene- The doctor is in a white lab coat, analyzes meaning of lab coat, shot dead by Nazi spy, Steve Rogers breaks metal restraints and breaks free takes two bullets to the chest and kills spy with one punch. Dr Gonselli dies; Steve Rogers survives and is back up straight after surgery. Captain America Vs Red Skull, Hero VS Villain, red skull red head black coat almost kills cap with three knives to throat. Captain America frozen in ice. Beach scene- Captain America runs past a busty women in a bikini and stares at her as he does. Climax scene. Captain America needs to save his girlfriend (Princess) and does this with the help of the president (Helper).  

Fantastic four

Typical teenage girl- Crush on an older man, Susan storm gets a peck on the cheeks from reed Richards and is infatuated by it. Stereotypical most teenage girls love older guys, smart guys or bad boys. Susan storms entry in a long floral dress showing her curves, presenting as the heroine/princess. Alicia Masters is blind needs help manoeuvring and second princess. Crash scene, Susan trips over rubble and then gets saved by Reed Richards. stereotypical of women being saved by men (Princess saved by Hero), Susan storms powers- symbolise women’s importance - invisible shows they do not matter as much as Ben Grimm, Johnny storm or Reed Richards. Mole King has Alisha Masters who have been captured. The Thing tries to Save Alisha from Doom but is reverted back to a human."Insurance"- doom refers to Alisha. The thing saves Alicia, Human torch stops the beam from destroying the millions in their home town and reed faces off against doom, Susan just disappears.     

Bibliography

(GRIID), J. S. (2014, February 12). Normalizing Male Dominance: Gender Representation in 2012 Films. Retrieved October 5th, 2014, from GRIID: http://griid.org/2013/02/12/normalizing-male-dominance-gender-representation-in-2012-films/

Beauman, N. (2007, July 30th). Superheroes need rescuing from sexism. Retrieved October 7th, 2014, from The Guardian : http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/jul/30/superheroesneedrescuingfrom

Demarest, R. A. (2010). Superheroes, Superpowers, and Sexuality. Retrieved October 7th, 2014, from Student Pulse: http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/312/superheroes-superpowers-and-sexuality

Demarest, R. A. (2010). Superheroes, Superpowers, and Sexuality Pg2. Retrieved October 7th, 2014, from Sudent Pulse: http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/312/2/superheroes-superpowers-and-sexuality

Dyce, A. (2014, July 2nd ). Will Comic Book Movies Ever Get Female Heroes Right? Retrieved October 15th , 2014, from Screen Rant: http://screenrant.com/female-superhero-women-movies/

Gina Misiroglu, D. A. (2004). The Superhero Book. Los Angeles: Visible Ink Press.

Hendry, S. (2010 , February ). Media Magazine . Super Heroes - The Impact of 9/11 , pp. 48-51.

Johanson, S. (2010, May). Cast Iron . (E. Magazine, Interviewer)

Jr, R. D. (2010, May). Cast Iron . (E. Magazine, Interviewer)

Jr, R. D. (2014 ). Marvel Studios: Assembling a Universe. (Marvel, Interviewer)

Lacey, N. (2010, December ). Media Magazine. Engendering Change: What's Happened to Representations of Women , pp. 65-67.

Ndalianis, A. The Frenzy of the Visible in the comic book worlds. In A. Ndalianis, Animation: An Interdisciplinary Journal (p. 238).

Pappas, S. (2014, June 18th ). Do Superheroes Model Damaging Gender Roles to Kids? Retrieved October 5th, 2014, from Live Science: http://www.livescience.com/46380-superheroes-and-violent-play.html

Parr, M. (n.d.). Chick Flicks: 10 Feminist Friendly Blockbuster Movies. Retrieved October 5th, 2014, from What Culture: http://whatculture.com/film/chick-flicks-10-feminist-friendly-blockbuster-movies.php/4

Stringer, H. R. (2011). Feminism at the Movies.

Turner, P. (2013, April ). Media Magazine . Dark Knight, Dark Ideas , pp. 37-41.

Wikipedia. (2013, May 25). Pretty Persuasions. Retrieved October 5th, 2014, from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Persuasions

Critical Investigation Tutorial #4

·         Good textual analysis of the Avengers – excellent use of media language and concepts. It’s possible you’ll need to go back to add a little when you have your plan complete but that is easily done. In addition, you may find you need some textual analysis from a different scene to back up part of your essay plan but again you can add this later if need be.

·         Bibliography and historical text – trouble uploading but clear from conversation that you have done this work. Make sure you get these uploaded but I’m not worried about this at all.

·         You’ve already started collecting quotes/book sections for certain parts of the essay plan – excellent to see.

·         You NEED to research the very recent news about Marvel creating a new movie with female protagonists. Start here: http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/28/7083641/captain-marvel-movie-announced-marvels-first-female-superhero but you’ll find plenty more (I’m pretty sure I saw it on the Guardian website too)

·         Research ‘One Week Of Why’ and the NYC YouTube video of a woman receiving a huge amount of street harassment

·         Excellent plan – type it up in full with notes/quotes divided up to each section

Task #4

Essay Plan

Why do comic book movies like The Avengers reinforce traditional gender stereotypes and what impact does this have on audiences?

Introduction (200 words)

Lay out the argument: comic book movies reinforce gender stereotypes and influences audiences.

Mention primary text (secoundary and historical text)

Ø  (Feminism at the Movies. Edited by Hilary Radner and Rebecca Stringer. Published 2011.)P36. "Lad Flicks": Discursive Reconstruction of Masculinity in Popular Film. P268. From Victim to Vigilante: Gender, Violence and Revenge in the Brave One (2007) and Hard Candy (2005). P44-6. The Queer Limits of Lad Flick in Masculinity.--"... The presence of an attractive women to 'reassure' viewers of the protagonists sexuality".-pg45

Ø  http://screenrant.com/female-superhero-women-movies/

“The lack women in the spotlight is becoming impossible to overlook”

“The battle for equality between men and women in superhero films is a fight plenty will volunteer for, but the narrow field of roles (and powers) afforded to women isn’t just about equality – it’s about boring storytelling.”

Ø  http://griid.org/2013/02/12/normalizing-male-dominance-gender-representation-in-2012-films/

“Women are constantly being misrepresented in these films, shown for purposes of objectification, support of the male characters, and mostly as love interests that drive the male characters.”

Section 1- Historical text -- Captain America (1990)/Fantastic Four (1994) (250 words)

Ø  What things were like in the 90’s and prior to that time period and 2 paragraphs separate for both texts.  

Ø  Textual analysis

Ø  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuQRpGFPZGw

Ø  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbMaPdofB4

Watch and analyse the two movies and identify a scene from each that presents gender stereotypes, then apply theories.

Theories/ Key Words

Ø  Mulvey - Male Gaze

Ø  Dominate ideologies

Ø  Gender stereotypes Dominate Representation

Quotes:

Ø  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Persuasions

“Persuasions returns to work at a New York City strip club….Persuasions returns to Genentech for observation but later appears again as an exotic dancer.

Section 2- Primary text: Avengers (600 words)

Ø  Textual analysis

Ø  Academic and institutional research that link to primary text

Quotes:

Ø  http://whatculture.com/film/chick-flicks-10-feminist-friendly-blockbuster-movies.php/4

“In Iron Man 2, Black Widow was more of an object. She spent most of the movie bending over various objects in revealing clothing.”

“The Avengers was a bit of a boys’ club but given the treatment of Scarlett Johansson, it qualifies as a feminist movie.”

“Black Widow was a very useful character. She recruited Bruce Banner without the use of seduction techniques, she discovered Loki’s plan and she deactivated the Tesseract. As a bonus, Black Widow doesn’t even have the most revealing costume, an honour bestowed upon Hawkeye.”

Ø  http://griid.org/2013/02/12/normalizing-male-dominance-gender-representation-in-2012-films/

“The Avengers, we are privy to a perfect representation of women in films. Five men standing, preparing to protect the city of New York from being wiped off the map, and there is one woman with them. She is dressed in a suit that perfectly forms to her curves, as to appear appealing, and she armed with the smallest weapon. This is how women are portrayed in cinema.”

Ø  http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/312/2/superheroes-superpowers-and-sexuality

“Tempering telepathy and telekinesis with warmth and compassion, Jean secretly hungers for a passionate partner,” for X-Men’s Jean Grey, and “a classic beauty in every sense of the word,” for Storm, also of the X-Men (www.marvel.com). 

“DC Comics does not appear to be much different for they describe Cat woman “in a tight leather cat suit…the Princess of Plunder…[whose] heart would always belong to Batman,” and exalting Wonder Woman as being “as beautiful as Aphrodite” (www.dccomics.com).

Section 3- Secondary text: The Dark Knight Rises (250 words)

Ø  Does this further support your argument

Ø  Anymore quotes and research?

Ø  Textual analysis

Quotes:

Ø  http://screenrant.com/female-superhero-women-movies/

“The issue got even worse in Thor: The Dark World – a film that would (for a nice change of pace) find Jane infected by the film’s Macguffin, thereby requiring her to play a more active role in the plot.”

“The Dark Knight trilogy had Bruce Wayne embarrassed and rejected by the women of Gotham for a change.”

Ø  MM44-Dark Knight, Dark Ideas

“…Batman as a symbol of vigilantism, justice, vengeance and even fascism.”

“…fights criminals by putting on a mask, attacking them in the dark and dishing out his own vigilante justice, uninhibited by the laws, restrictions and corruption that the local police deal with.”

“Bruce Wayne became the terrorist and Batman became both torturer and operator of a mass surveillance system; it was exactly the point that in fighting the villain, he became the villain

Section 4- Wider context and Feminism (600 words)

Ø  Academic research

Ø  Web research :everyday sexism, Twitter

Ø  One week of why/ NYC street walking

Quotes:

Ø  MM34 - Engendering Change: What’s Happened to Representations of Women?

“Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” Berger 1972

“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female.” Mulvey 1985: 306

“…it’s too simplistic to assume that this era had no strong female characters in the media. For example: Emma Peel featured in The Avengers from 1965 to 1967 and brought a radical and powerful combination of female sexuality, intelligence and lethal combat skills to the small screen.” (Jones 2002)

Section 5- Are things changing? (300 words)

Ø  The other side of the argument

Ø  New Marvel movies – Female leads Up to the minute research

Ø  New Thor in comics

Quotes:

Ø  http://screenrant.com/female-superhero-women-movies/

“Sif had quickly emerged as the only real ‘warrior woman’ seen in a superhero film to that point – despite being more of an ‘Asgardian’ than a bona fide superhero.”

“A warrior goddess (who managed to exude sex appeal without showing skin)”

“One of the most promising super powered women in Marvel’s stable was reduced to one of the most stereotypical soap opera tropes imaginable.”

“Wonder Woman was long-hailed as the greatest example of the need for young women to see super powered role models on the big screen”

Ø  http://whatculture.com/film/chick-flicks-10-feminist-friendly-blockbuster-movies.php/4

“Hawkeye ended up as more of the disappointing female character; his costume being more revealing, having less screen time and getting captured by the enemy.”  

Conclusion:

 Go back to the main argument and have you changed perspective any hope for change?

Ø  http://www.livescience.com/46380-superheroes-and-violent-play.html

“Watching TV shows with Iron Man or the Hulk might make little boys more prone to gender-stereotyped play and make both boys and girls more likely to play with pretend weapons, new research finds.”

Ø  http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/312/superheroes-superpowers-and-sexuality

“For the women superheroes, they are built to promote their sexuality. Nearly all of the women have hourglass figures that could rarely be accomplished in real life, like Barbie, with a small waist and large bust and hips. The breasts especially are very pronounced. These women are seen as beautiful in the American culture, and other women try to emulate the body styles. Unfortunately, some pursue this in the unhealthy manner of eating disorders while trying to achieve the pronounced waist and others resort to plastic surgery to increase their bust size. The heroines also have long hair, not too long, but falling to somewhere in the middle of their back, and worn loosely with perhaps a headband to hold it back off of the heroine’s face.”

“Skin tight jumpsuits seem to be the standard attire for the superhero male, with muscles showing clearly through the material.”

“There are typically briefs or a belt of some kind drawing attention to the narrow hips, or some sort of shoulder covering designed in a triangular fashion that once again draws attention to the waist and hips.”

Critical Investigation Task #1

In this scene, there are two characters present, the first being the all-powerful God of Mischief Loki, and Natasha Romanoff, also known as the seductive assassin known as Black Widow. Loki is wearing black and dark green Asgardian armour, the green connotes peace, and is associated with tranquillity; however, this links in with his title as God of Mischief and is in turn loud and destructive. Black widow is wearing a skin tight black suit which compliments her curvy and hot body, adding to the sensuality of the scene to a minor extent.

  

There is high key lighting that shows all the actors expressions and emphasises the setting of the scene, as Loki is placed in a Hulk containment unit, which is circularly shaped and has see through glass and the floor of the containment unit can be opened to drop the prisoner (or in this case Loki) out of the helicarrier and down to the ground which is hundreds of thousands of feet. Filler lights have been used, especially when the camera was zoomed in on Loki’s face to show his superiority over Black widow. Also, the filler lights were used on Black widow’s scenes where her fear was clearly shown on her face. The body language of Loki is strong as he is a God, which shows he should be superior and defined as a stronger entity compared to Black widow, demonstrating the link to gender stereotypes of how men are at the top of the hierarchy and that they look down on women as dirt beneath their shoes, which is evident as Loki’s prison is at a higher level compared to Black widow. The main prop that has been used is the Hulk containment unit, which for Marvel fans is very renowned for the utilisation in the comics as the method to keep Hulk in captivity.

The institution that supports the Avengers is Marvel based and is an all-star cast the use of stars like Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Robert Downey Jr and other stars shows that Marvel had gone all in to this production venture.   The genre of The Avengers is fantasy, Sci-fi and action. The conventions that present The Avengers as a fantasy is the inclusion of the Norse gods, Thor and Loki, who have been a part of Nordic myths and legends. The fact that the movie includes legends makes it look surreal, especially with the way they have been shown there costumes emphasise their heritage quite a lot. The Avengers is targeted at the Marvel fan base, the target demographic is made up of a majority of males that are aged between 12 years old and 35 years old, and belong to the B, C1 and C2 demographic. Marvel is a mainstream media institution so the target audience are mainstreamers, also the explorer psychographic as the Marvel cinematic universe is still a new media institution. The assumptions about the audience’s characteristics are implicit within The Avengers is that they seek adventure and action, as well as have a link to the explorer psychographic.

This scene present Black Widow as deceitful and cunning, this is exemplified by the reaction of the God of trickery when he was tricked by Black Widow in to revealing his plan to her and being tricked. This subverts the stereotypical view of women in society, in the current society we see women as the person who takes care of the house and kids rather than working. The disposition that is associated with this view is caring and loving, but this view shows her as evil and in some sense a femme fatal. Socially, this scene shows how women can be more than just passive they can be cunning and malevolent. Historically, the view of women has changed completely as they are seen as equals and in some cases superior to men. Economically, it shows how women are also helping with the economy.

   

In this scene Black widows character is put to the test as she is put against two of her fellow Avengers members. The first being the strongest and the mightiest shows that her representation as a woman is stronger as it shows women aren’t weak and don’t need to be protected, they are able to fight their own battles, until she is being chased by the Hulk where she is running down the corridor where as Hulk is demolishing everything in his path. It can be connoted that Hulk is the representation of society and there view in the world and Black widow is presented as women trying to escape the stereotype until she is hit out by the stereotype and becomes a princess, according to Propps seven character circles, and is saved by Thor. 

Tutorial 3

Met deadline – 2,500+ words on Notes and Quotes, seriously impressive!

Found four articles on Media Magazine – currently working through those.

Check Media Edu for case studies – there should be something on comic book movies. The Avengers is mentioned in this page on synergy: http://media.edusites.co.uk/article/what-is-synergy/

Major gap now is academic books and journals…

Also check the books we have in DF07 – a Feminism in the movies book would be useful. We’ve also got a book on comic book movies coming in next week, keep an eye out.

You’ll also need to use the BFI trip to fill the academic gap in your research.

The Next step:

> Look up media edu

> Read and pull out quotes from book 

Critical Investigation Tutorial 2

Good research so far – particularly primary/secondary texts

Some useful links:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/jul/30/superheroesneedrescuingfrom?commentpage=1

http://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/jul/01/gender.world

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/21/superheroes-cultural-catastrophe-alan-moore-comics-watchmen

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/shortcuts/2014/jul/16/female-thor-good-feminine-male-superhero-better

Academic

http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/2988/1/WRAP_THESIS_Tasker_1995.pdf

Send me back the link for the book we need to order

Check bookshelf for women in film – you may need to go slightly more general than comic book movies.