Temporal and spatial analysis of gender representation

下面为大家整理一篇 的essay代写范文 -- Temporal and spatial analysis of gender representation，文章讲述长期以来，电影一直被视为社会观念和当前状况的代表。如果我们专注于电影如何处理性别问题，那么毫无疑问，我们会发现大多数电影都可以归类为认可女性还是男性。本文分析了两部电影，它们可以证明是女权主义的最代表，但是它们的表现方式不同。 The Hours被视为一部完全支持女性追求自由和自我救赎的电影。

 

Temporal and spatial analysis of gender representation

ⅠIntroduction

 Films are so long regarded as the representation of social concepts and current situations. If we focus on how films deal with gender issues, we would find out with no doubt that most of the movies can be categorized as whether approval of femininity or masculinity. In this paper, two movies are analyzed which can be proved as most representative of feminism, however in different manners. The Hours is regarded as a movie totally supporting of females chasing after freedom and self-salvation. It depicts three women’s pathetic lives by which to demonstrate how tragic of female to revolt and resist against tedious family situation they are in. The other one, Notting Hill, is by contrast, a comedy but also delivers a concept that women could also be more successful in career and more glamorous than men and it is also possible that a woman fall in love with a man who is less successful than her. The concept this movie contains is rather feminism too and compared with the former one, the way of depicting feminism of Notting Hill is more allusive and less pathetic. The two movies indeed have some impacts on their audiences and may strike people to reflect their own life and change their perceptions.

ⅡThe Hours

Though directed by Stephen Daldry, a male director, this movie is totally a masterpiece and opens a new chapter in conveying and guarding feminism. This movie connects three women’s life in three different times through a great novel, Mrs. Dalloway, by a female English writer Virginia Woolf, and describes how all of them are eager of freedom, meanwhile mired in pathetic reality and tangled mental state. (The Hours) The connections between three women living in distinct eras are the most unique part of this movie, the female writer Woolf living in 1923, the housewife Laura, and the modern lady Clarissa in New York. They have their own lovers who are faithful, tolerant and easy-tempered, however all the heroines are suffering from their own solitude and bitterness, which on the other hand reflects a fact that though their lovers offer them a harmonious family, their heart can merely be understood and some of their obscure emotions can merely be shared by their husband or female lovers. Taking the writer Woolf as an example, at the beginning of this movie, Virginia committed suicide and left a letter which said “…You have given me the greatest happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I know that I am spoiling your life, and without me, you could work.… You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good.…I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.”(The Hours) One question may be raised up towards the suicide of Virginia that why would she commit suicide when she was beloved by her faithful husband. This may indeed reflect what most of the females are going through. Though they are in a harmonious relationship with their lovers, their inner heart was struggling, perplexed and even despaired.

One noticeable plot is that the three heroines kissed females or had a homosexual relationship once in the movie. Virginia kissed her own sister who came to visit her. Laura kissed her own neighbor who was also a woman. Clarissa had a female lover, Sally with whom she had lived together for ten years and had a daughter. There may seem to be coincident for Virginia kissing her sister and Laura kissing her neighbor and some may regarding the plots as nonsense and irrational. However, when both Virginia and Laura were kissing another female, they were both suffering psychologically, like Virginia having been staying in depression for a long time and was keeping under the supervision of her husband and servant, and Laura was also suffering from her harmonious and also boring marriage. (The Hours) So, the kissing plot is never a coincidence but rather the revolution and resistance of the two heroines towards their tranquil life. It is a representative of them being eager of vitality, love and enthusiasm towards life.

Another scene that is also distinguishing in this movie is that all the three heroines seem to have deep and strong connection with death. The movie starts with Virginia committing suicide. Then Laura, a house wife who is motivated by Virginia’s novel, also has pretended to left her son and husband and commit suicide in a hotel. Clarissa is the only one who has never had the idea of ending her life, but somehow she has been taking care of a sick man who is at the edge of death for ten years. It seems that Clarissa is the opposite of Virginia and Laura, since the latter two heroines are trying to end their life which tends to be a little bit indifferent about the value of life and Clarissa seems to regard life as extremely important. From the surface, there may seem to be a controversy. However, the reason why Clarissa holds other people’s life so precious is because she could fulfill her lonely heart and give herself an excuse that her life is going on well and she is happy and busy. Taking of the sick man takes up Clarissa a lot of time of her life and that makes her feel fulfilled that she could lie to herself she had a normal and happy life. In the movie, all that Clarissa is doing is preparing a party for Richard, by which she wants to cheer up him and re-build his confidence towards life. However, when Clarissa failed to persuade Richard to join in the party and failed to cheer him up, she was put in front of the reality, or the real thought that she has been covering for all the past years, that she is living meaningless. What Richard said to her proved how Clarissa has been escaping for years, “I think I’m living just to satisfy you.…Just wait till I die, then you’ll have to think of yourself.” (The Hours) Later, Clarssa confesses herself to her daughter “When I’m with him, I feel…Yes, I am living. And when I’m not with him, yes, everything seems sort of silly.” (The Hours) For Virginia and Laura, the fact that they are trying to escape what they are suffering in daily life by committing suicide is more apparent.    

ⅢNotting Hill

If The Hours is labeled as depicting female in a pessimist and sympathetic manner, Notting Hill could be marked as using a positive and aspiring way to focus on the importance of female. Instead of creating a pathetic and depressing atmosphere that would provoke audiences to introspect and reflect, Notting Hill is rather warm and romantic considering the way it expresses feminism. The movie begins with a classical and beautiful music She, of which the lyrics are all about praising the beauty of female. As the song sings, “She may be the reason I survive, the why and wherefore I’m alive, the one I’ll call for through the rough and ready years.” (Notting Hill) Accompany the music are the beautiful and fabulous images of the heroine Anna Scott surrounded by all kinds of flashing lights and cameras under various grand occasions. Then, the poor, normal and insignificant life of the hero William was depicted through several daily life scenes described by William himself as he is walking through the market, street pedlar bargaining with customers and a small book store owned by him going through a deficit. The director presented two different types of life in front his audiences at the first beginning moment of the movie. However, love is generated exactly between the two main characters that are far from each other like heaven and earth.

 The plot in which Anna and William meet each other at the first time in William’s book store is rather impressing and indicated that this is a love story that female’s importance is manifested, which is totally different with some classical romantic movie in which hero always plays leading role. When Anna walks into William’s book store, she attracts the attention of William’s completely. William then offers help warmly, even though Anna turns down his offer, he keeps talking trying to get her notice or please her all the time, like sending her one more book and saying “Useful for, uh, lighting fires, wrapping fish, that sort of thing.” From this line, it is not hard to tell that William is trying to build a good and interesting image to Anna. The latter plot in which William splits coffee on Anna and stains her shirt also reflects the inferior status the hero is than the heroine. The moment Anna walked into William’s house, it was so nervous of William to rush to shuffle dirty plates and wipe the table.（Notting Hill）Also, when Anna left his house, William waited anxiously for Anna’s phone call, and when he finally get through the line with Anna, he was jabbering all the time. Audiences could tell from the details that in this relationship that the hero is compliant to the heroine. This is a movie that put the heroine at a high status than the hero, and illustrates the value and dignity of womem.

Ⅳ Conclusion

In classical movies, the sign ‘woman’ “represents the ideological meaning that ‘woman’ has for men.”(Anneke, 353) “In relation to herself, she means no-thing.” (Anneke, 353) “Women are negatively represented as ‘not-man’. The ‘woman-as-woman’ is absent from the text of the film.”(Anneke, 353)  That was the comment that the former feminism film critics made towards classical Hollywood movies. Movies like the Iron Man, the Bat Man or other superhero movies are all concentrated on how male superheroes save the world while the heroine in all those movies always seem to be attachments or symbols of beauty for audiences to feast their eyes on. However, compared with those kinds of movies, the Hours is a movie focusing on the mental and psychological part of female and tries to explain and understand what females are going through in modern society. Notting Hill is a love story in which the famous and glamorous heroine seems to be the decision maker of this love relationship with a poor book store owner. And that point or characteristic of the two movies makes them to be categorized as feminist movies by which the producers are willing to explain, hear and comfort female’s inner and obscure feelings instead of regarding them as some kind of appendants of men. Movies are the reflection of reality and it can be viewed as “constructing a particular, ideological view of reality.”(Anneke353) It is never a negative thing for movie makers to move their center away from male since a more equal human society is needed.   

 

Works Cited

Notting Hill. Michell, Roger. 1999, Universal/MCA.

Smelik, Anneke. “Feminist Film Theory.” The Cinema Book2, London: British Film Institute, (1999): 353-365.

The Hours. Daldry, Stephen. 2002, RCV Film Distribution.

 

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