{"id":2,"date":"2024-01-29T23:14:07","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T23:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/spring-2024\/aryadesa\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2024-05-03T16:28:58","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T16:28:58","slug":"sample-page","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ascjcapstone.com\/spring-2024\/aryadesa\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing: the female gaze \u2014\u00a0rise of the modern Hollywood heroine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From Lara Croft to Lady Bird: how and why beloved female leads has evolved over time.<\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Original design by Arya Desai. Created in Canva.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Heroine<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Last summer, moviegoers returned to cinemas in record-level numbers since the pandemic. They had come to see Margot Robbie as the nostalgic childhood doll, \u201cBarbie\u201d. However, this rendition of the plastic heroine was breaking out of her shiny toy box and starting to speak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way society perceives itself has always been tied to the TV screen. Through the beloved characters on TV, watchers could be the best versions of themselves: action heroes, spies, stars, and more. The \u201chero\u201d was someone to look up to, especially if one saw themselves represented in the character onscreen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For girls, the heroine has the same effect. But the relationship with these female and female-presenting characters has been as tumultuous and complicated as society\u2019s perception of women over the years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think a lot about Beauty and the Beast<\/em>, because when I was a little girl, I watched that and The Little Mermaid.<\/em> [This] led us to thoughts that our only objective in life was to find our handsome prince or to be okay with the person who kidnaped us\u2026,\u201d says Maikiko James, who serves as Programs Director for the organization, Women in Film Los Angeles<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These classic ingenues that many young girls watched in childhood, grew up to be popular archetypes of the manic pixie dream girls, femme fatales, and lovers. On the whole, well-mannered and beautiful, despite challenges that happened to them over the course of their films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey collapse on the chaise lounge and cry so beautifully,\u201d KC Stone, the Marketing and Communications Director for Women in Film, recalls of older heroines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cWhen you watch old films, women are so composed, even if they’re losing themselves. Even if they are breaking down,\u201d adds Stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLady Bird\u201d, a famous representation of the modern heroine, embodies this transition from perfectly polished heroines of film past. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI resonated so much because Lady bird is kind of grungy and gross\u2026she has oily roots and grown out pink hair. She has acne, she doesn’t wear makeup, and she screams and she’s messy and she’s loud,\u201d says Stone.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Today, the rise in popularity of strong-willed heroines like, Greta Gerwig\u2019s  \u201cLady Bird\u201d (Lady Bird<\/em>) and \u201cBarbie\u201d (Barbie<\/em>), Celine Song\u2019s <\/em>\u201cNora\u201d (Past Lives<\/em>), or Emerald Fennell\u2019s \u201cCassie\u201d (Promising Young Woman<\/em>), has seemingly revealed a new type of female lead. Definitively one crafted through feminine eyes instead of masculine ones. In other words\u2026the female gaze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how and why has the female gaze, or, \u201cThe ways in which women and girls look at other females, at males, and at things in the world\u201d (OxfordReference.com<\/a>), found its home in the heroines of modern cinema?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Saoirse Ronan as “Lady Bird” . Courtesy of Canva Images. Original Canva design by Arya Desai.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mulvey\u2019s Male Gaze<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

One way is by looking to the past and deconstructing what the heroine looked like under the eyes of the infamous male gaze. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was something that film theorist, Laura Mulvey, was well acquainted with. Indeed, it was Mulvey who wrote her game changing essay, \u201cVisual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” which coined the term \u201cmale gaze\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As she grew up and became a feminist filmmaker, she began to look at films from her fresh perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cInstead of being a voyeuristic spectator, a male spectator as it were, I suddenly became a woman spectator who watched the film from a distance and critically, rather than with those absorbed eyes,\u201d Mulvey explains in a recent interview<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Marilyn Monroe Courtesy of Canva Images. Original Canva design by Arya Desai.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

There is no better example of this than \u201cLorelai Lee\u201d (portrayed by Marilyn Monroe) in the 1953 film, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. <\/em>Her iconic performance in the film as a promiscuous femme fatale on the hunt for rich men, shot Monroe to newer heights of stardom. However, despite her conviction to find wealth, Lorelai was characterized through her proximity to the men in her life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It\u2019d be hard to say it passes the famous Bechdel Test (female characters are seen speaking to one another about something other than men), as each is obsessed with men, albeit in different ways,” notes Patrick Brown in his review for thecinnessential.com.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between the 1970s and 2000s, the housewife had been replaced. In her place stood the action heroes, femme fatales, and manic pixie dream girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike the starlette’s of the golden age, these female heroines were positioned to represent the “modern woman”. The only issue: they were still constructed mainly by men, and it showed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A study by the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative<\/a> found that, \u201cin the top 400 movies from 1990-2006, females were more than five times as likely as males to be shown in sexually revealing clothing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Doctor Stacy Smith, the president of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, this finding highlights an issue with many of Hollywood\u2019s heroines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThere are more males than females, but when females are shown, they are much more likely to be shown in a hypersexualized way,\u201d says Smith. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One of the most infamous of these characters is \u201cLara Croft\u201d. In 2001, Simon West directed the original “Tomb Raider” film, starring Angelina Jolie as Lara. <\/p>\n\n\n

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Angelina Jolie as “Lara Croft”. Courtesy of Getty Images. Original Canva design by Arya Desai.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

“When you look back at the original adaptations of these characters there was something beautiful and clean and honest about these women. Her braid is still perfect. She has dirt splattered on her butt, perfect little bang pieces, and a perfectly well-done French braid down her back…it’s like a dirty, but dirty so that men can think she’s hot,\u201d says Stone on Jolie’s \u201cLara Croft\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Equally as guilty are the manic pixie dream girls. These leading ladies embodied the saying, \u201cyoung, wild, and free\u201d, with their colored hair and mismatched socks to prove it. Of course, underneath the carefree exterior comes a healthy dose of trauma and emotional instability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cManic pixie dream girl\u201d was first coined by movie critic, Nathan Rabin, to describe Kirsten Dunst\u2019s character of “Claire Colburn” in Elizabethtown<\/em>: \u201cThat bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Modern Heroine:<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Greta Lee as “Nora”. Courtesy of Canva images. Original Canva design by Arya Desai.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s heroine is certainly far from perfect, but progress is on the way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Nora”, the lead of Celine Song\u2019s film, Past Lives<\/em>, is regarded as a step in the right direction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNora, the protagonist in Song\u2019s Past Lives<\/em>, is just trying to maintain her life as it is and how she loves it, which is feminism in its own way, because she’s choosing herself consistently through the film now,\u201d Stone argues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike the heroines of the past, Nora\u2019s story involves two potential male love interests, but she makes her ultimate decision based on her desired lifestyle and job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI think we’re seeing a shift of femininity being more self-possessed as opposed to, like oppressed,\u201d Stone adds. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Films and TV like Lady Bird<\/em> and Fleabag, <\/em>cast a much-needed spotlight on the actual \u201cmessy\u201d woman in a way that encapsulates the female perspective, versus the manic pixie dream girl perception. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI watched that when I had moved to pursue the rest of my degree and I resonated so much because Ladybird <\/em>is kind of grungy and gross\u2026she has oily roots and grown out pink hair. She has acne, she doesn’t wear makeup, and she screams and she’s messy and she’s loud,\u201d says Stone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which takes us back to the plastic lined streets of Barbie land. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGerwig\u2019s \u2018Barbie\u2019 recognizes identity and gender are complex and messy,\u201d writes Jennifer Stokes, a senior lecturer in Digital and Information Literacy at the University of South Australia (Variety.com<\/em><\/a>).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRobbie\u2019s Barbie works to escape the role of object, both literally and through the cinematography. She is beautiful, but not sexualized. She controls her narrative,\u201d Stokes adds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Margot Robbie\u2019s journey as \u201cBarbie\u201d is in many ways symbolic of the heroine’s breakout. She is, in fact, not a perfect plastic doll anymore, and neither is this new kind of heroine. But, a closer look into cinema\u2019s hall of fame will reveal that characters indicative of this modern female lead have <\/em>come before, but, instead, not given the same welcome. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thelma and Louise <\/em>(1991), now a cult classic, generated a fair amount of criticism during its initial release. The reason being its female leads: two middle-aged female characters who escape polite society and turn vigilantes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is something Eva Neuwirth, a graduate of American Film Institute and a Los Angeles director, took note of, when comparing the film with another box office hit from its year, Silence of the Lambs<\/em>. \u201cPeople felt very, very comfortable with the idea of Jodie Foster struggling to hold a gun in this way\u2026it played within a sort of patriarchy and not to say that it’s not a feminist film…but it wasn’t threatening in the same way that Thelma and Louise<\/em> pissed off men.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time of its release in the early 1990s, the film was one of the first of its kind. The cowboy outlaw had become the cowgirl outlaw, and some critics weren\u2019t happy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere were those, including journalist John Leo of the \u2018toxic feminism\u2019 take in Time<\/em> magazine, who took exception to Thelma & Louise<\/em>: those who saw the film as gratuitously violent (despite the fact that the film\u2019s body count stands at just one), and the men as unrealistic caricatures,\u201d notes Pamela Hutchinson, an arts writer for The Independent<\/em><\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For every Lady Bird, Barbie, Fleabag<\/em> or more, many women of color heroines are simply overlooked. And it is clearly still a problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The welcome that many women of color leads have and still receive as \u201cmodern heroines\u201d has yet to be equal, according to Stacey Smith. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cOpportunities are still curtailed for women and people of color. Even when the identity of the director might correspond to the identity of the lead character, we still find that women and people of color face limits that their white male peers do not,\u201d Smith says in a 2023 industry report<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Before Past Lives<\/em>, came films with strong Asian female leads who navigated their identities similar to \u201cNora\u201d. The Joy Luck Club <\/em>was one of these, but received no industry awards at the time of its release in 1993. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was recently talking about the Joy Luck Club<\/em>, which, you know, before Crazy Rich Asians<\/em> was the first movie that had an all Asian-American cast. And I saw myself represented. And then it took another 25 years to make a film starring an Asian.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Margot Robbie failed to receive a nomination for her role as titular \u201cStereotypical Barbie\u201d, the media was in outrage. Her Latina co-star, America Ferreira\u2019s nomination for her role as \u201cGloria\u201d, was seemingly swept under the rug.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is interesting that there’s such an outrage, understandably, over Margo, who is a white woman versus America, who also delivered a great performance but is a woman of color,\u201d says Stone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Formula <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The \u201cformula\u201d for producing a successful modern heroine isn\u2019t one size fits all. But many experts agree that it starts with representation behind the camera. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThere is a clear relationship between who works behind the camera and who we see on screen,\u201d writes Smith in a 2023 industry report<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is backed by numbers, in a report<\/a>, Smith finds that, \u201cFor films with male direction only, the percentage of female speaking characters on screen was  32.5%. When a female was attached to direct, that number jumped to 47.6% of all speaking characters – a 15.1 percentage point difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think something that’s really critical that we’ve seen happen is that now more people are seeing themselves represented\u2026because not only does that make them feel seen in the world, but gives them that thought, if that person made that story, I too can make stories and be my own owner of my narrative\u2026,\u201d James comments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking at the past few years of female heroines, the rules apply. Barbie <\/em>and Lady Bird <\/em>were directed by Greta Gerwig. Past Lives <\/em>was directed by Celine Song. Promising Young Woman <\/em>was directed by Emerald Fennell. Nomadland<\/em>, which featured a middle-aged female lead, was directed by Chlo\u00e9 Zhao. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But reaching this level of opportunity is still guarded by a system that works against female directors and in turn, female stories. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Urvashi Pathania, a Brooklyn-based filmmaker and graduate of AFI has experienced this, despite success with several grant programs and fellowships, \u201cLeaping out of that fellowship tier is hard, once you start talking about Hollywood it isn\u2019t as easy as those programs make you feel\u2026the path to actually getting your film funded is much more circuitous than you would think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Eva Neuwirth on the set of film, “Suck Hard”. Photo courtesy of Eva Neuwirth.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

\u201c[AFI] told us that the only thing harder than getting people to fund your first feature, is getting people to fund your second feature,\u201d Neuwirth says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking to the future, James and the Women in Film team, \u201c…think it’s a trajectory. I think it’s a path we have to be helping people get to where people like Greta Gerwig or Chlo\u00e9 Zhao have gotten.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiving people more of the opportunity to have power over their narrative is really how we advance culture and society,\u201d James adds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all, it wasn\u2019t until the 2023 Oscars that three of the best picture films were directed by women, setting a new record (Variety.com<\/em><\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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