Feminist film theory

(INTRO/THESIS) The media negatively affects society’s view of the feminist movement and harms the image of women in general. (end of intro) By definition, feminism is “the social, political, and economic equality between the sexes”. When the first wave began, it was radical to call yourself a feminist. However, people knew the real meaning at that time, the actual definition. In the new wave of feminism, people have come to see this word as ugly and undesirable. It has become skewed and twisted…

In much of her work, Mary Cassatt explores the politics of gender and ‘the gaze.’ Born in Philadelphia to a wealthy family, Cassatt settled in Paris in 1866 and became actively involved with the Impressionist movement, finding inspiration in the works of Manet and Degas. However, during this time equality between men and women was seemingly absent: whilst men were encouraged to pursue a career, women were often confined to domestic life, deprived of many personal and social freedoms. By choosing…

It is based on the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure, which hold that language is a self-contained system of signs, and the cultural theories of Claude Lévi-Strauss, which hold that cultures, like languages, can be viewed as systems of signs and analyzed in terms of the structural relations among their elements. Central to structuralism…

Dorothy Cobble, Linda Gordon, and Astrid Henry further explain this idea in their book Feminism Unfinished! by explaining that the earlier generations of feminists focused on identifying the political and social inequalities they dealt with. Whereas the third wave of feminists sought out to address these inequalities. In further explanation, these authors stated, “While connected to earlier movements to advance gender equality and social justice, this new feminism was not a mass-based movement…

Firestone, a radical feminist, attacked the idea of the “biological family” with a close eye on the idea that biological division of labor created through reproduction is the primary cause for male domination. Firestone’s arguments through her own book continued to be developed in the book Further Adventures of Dialect of Sex. This book is composed by multiple feminists who use theory to address several issues that pertain to women’s rights. The key debate that occurs in this book address, once…

Many famous feminists have been racist. Some, such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Frances Willard, spoke out against the fact that “degraded black men” could vote, but white women could not. Women of color have endured racism from White Feminists, even being made to walk in the back at feminist marches. In the 1980s, women of color eventually began the womanist and mujerista movements because they did not have a place in mainstream Feminism. Brittney Cooper, a professor of Women’s and Gender…

Don’t take this article the wrong way, support of women 's rights is a good thing, but there are few that take it beyond what it is. They call themselves feminists, others would consider them as radical feminists. There is a difference between the two, feminism is a belief that man and woman should be equal in society and have equal opportunity in the world; radical feminism is a belief that men have been dominating over women for years and the women should be above the men in the societal…

"The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians” (Pat Robertson, 1992). With respect to Mr. Robertson, Feminism is about equality. Despite its focus on the female gender, Feminism does not correlate to man-hating. Feminism, while an American design, is a global movement. Despite advances in women’s…

Despite Hugh Hefner’s belief and early support of equality for women, Playboy has been constantly denounced as exploitive of women and their bodies. Are the centerfolds exploitive? Do they lead to casual misogyny? A 1993 study by researchers at The University of Western Ontario examined centerfold models in four hundred thirty issues of Playboy from 1953 to 1990. How explicit are the centerfolds? Playmates were only photographed with genitalia partially visible in six percent of all centerfold…

While writing an essay about Pixar and its movie that brought in political views, she brought up some very good points. These political points included Wall-E with the mass consumerism problem and Brave with the feminist topic. Even though Amanda Marcotte mainly speaks on the feminist topic, she hit on some very good points when she brought up the fact that Wall-E was about mass consumption. ‘Wall-e was definitely a good visualization of how the people’s greed and laziness and turning our…