Part A
(1) What is the purity myth and how is it related to the Madonna/Whore binary? Why is this myth impossible to realize for women?
The Purity Myth is described by Jennifer Valenti throughout her novel as the socially created construct that surrounds women based on the premise that in the 21st century a women’s worth is determined by whether or not she is sexually active. A women who is sexually active may feel a loss of worth a this Purity Myth, given that they are consistently bombarded by the fact that being a virgin makes you pure and desirable, but by being sexually active before marriage somehow reduces her worth and makes her less desirable. On the other hand, the Madonna/Whore binary is based on Freudian psychoanalytic theory and …show more content…
The male gaze is not eminent when the consumer is not looking specifically for it but it is indeed visible in most advertisements and some cinematic displays. More specifically the male gaze makes women the object of their gaze and the male counterpart has subjectivity whereas the women are defined by their lack of subjectivity. Women who fall victim to the male gaze are often reduced to objects of the men that they are being stared by at. For example, in the movie Transformers, the character Meghan Fox plays – Mikcaela is simply a character that is there to visually satisfy the male gaze, and does not hold any significant role other than eye candy. This packs the background for the movie without any other significant …show more content…
If woman are at the center of attention they usually have an ulterior goal which is usually a male counterpart, such as the female wants to save the world but only so that the man of her dreams can live to. Partnered with this, a scopophilla gaze which means that the gaze towards female characters in films is saturated with our libidinal desires, and the desire for narrative cinema to embody this by always sexualizing female leads in order to please an audience. Next in movies women are also portrayed without the toughness exterior that men have, for example in action movies such as the Avengers all the other male heroes get a head action shot with some sort of weapon at bay, but once the camera pans to Scarlett Johansson, there is a full body shot. Despite the fact that it is an action movie with a female lead the sexualisation is still there around women, this in fact is a good example of phallocentrism in multiple films – the women are there for pleasure and the men embody multiple phallic
(1) What is the purity myth and how is it related to the Madonna/Whore binary? Why is this myth impossible to realize for women?
The Purity Myth is described by Jennifer Valenti throughout her novel as the socially created construct that surrounds women based on the premise that in the 21st century a women’s worth is determined by whether or not she is sexually active. A women who is sexually active may feel a loss of worth a this Purity Myth, given that they are consistently bombarded by the fact that being a virgin makes you pure and desirable, but by being sexually active before marriage somehow reduces her worth and makes her less desirable. On the other hand, the Madonna/Whore binary is based on Freudian psychoanalytic theory and …show more content…
The male gaze is not eminent when the consumer is not looking specifically for it but it is indeed visible in most advertisements and some cinematic displays. More specifically the male gaze makes women the object of their gaze and the male counterpart has subjectivity whereas the women are defined by their lack of subjectivity. Women who fall victim to the male gaze are often reduced to objects of the men that they are being stared by at. For example, in the movie Transformers, the character Meghan Fox plays – Mikcaela is simply a character that is there to visually satisfy the male gaze, and does not hold any significant role other than eye candy. This packs the background for the movie without any other significant …show more content…
If woman are at the center of attention they usually have an ulterior goal which is usually a male counterpart, such as the female wants to save the world but only so that the man of her dreams can live to. Partnered with this, a scopophilla gaze which means that the gaze towards female characters in films is saturated with our libidinal desires, and the desire for narrative cinema to embody this by always sexualizing female leads in order to please an audience. Next in movies women are also portrayed without the toughness exterior that men have, for example in action movies such as the Avengers all the other male heroes get a head action shot with some sort of weapon at bay, but once the camera pans to Scarlett Johansson, there is a full body shot. Despite the fact that it is an action movie with a female lead the sexualisation is still there around women, this in fact is a good example of phallocentrism in multiple films – the women are there for pleasure and the men embody multiple phallic