Parallel Cinema

Legally Blonde: A Meditation of Stereotypes Gender stereotypes are simplistic. Stereotypes do not bother to take account of the thoughts, behaviors, and individual desires of a person, merely taking interest whether or not the person is male, female, or nonbinary. In film franchises, such as Legally Blonde, writers and directors insist on propagating stereotypes despite the ongoing evolvement of archetypes in current society. Although in the final moments of the flick, Elle Woods surpasses such…

Entry 5: For the analysis of Public Women, we focused on the era of the early to mid 1800s. Specifically we read the speech of Angelina E. G. Weld. She stood in front of a large audience of curious southerners to address the controversial subject of slavery. This was her first break at becoming a public woman. She confronted the stereotypes of a woman’s place in the industrializing American country and found a space, her public, to exhibit her strengths and opinions. Weld did this by not…

One of the debates that emerged from the brutal and vastly covered in media, The Delhi Gang Rape (2012), was if Bollywood promoted rape culture through its item numbers critiquing the male gaze on women’s bodies and questioning whether the hyper-sexualization of Bollywood’s actresses served to normalize sexual harassment. The new trend being, the asexual, good Indian girl (who ultimately is coveted by the hero) constructed against the sexualized item-girl and one instantly thinks of the…

discussed Funny Boy in the context of the Tamil-Sinhalese conflict in Sri Lanka. The novel has been written from a young boy, Arjie’s perspective. It documents Arjie’s struggle with discovering and accepting his homosexuality. It also documents a parallel struggle to come to terms with the second hand status that is meted out to Tamils in Sri Lanka and the impending migration to start life afresh in a new country. The unit begins with a brief discussion of the history of the Tamil-Sinhalese…

M was the first Lang’s sound film and the director establishes the new aesthetic of interconnection between visual images and sounds. He understood that “to use sound as a dramatic element [is] absolutely necessary” (Weimar Cinema, 1919-1933. Daydreams and Nightmares, 188). Selected sounds put the viewer in a particular position of the character. Here the girl leaves a frame with mirror in which Beckert saw her, and a car horn interrupts a silence after a few seconds. The shot…

In tandem with the music, sound effects hold a great responsibility on how film may be perceived. The change of tempo, volume and pitch may in addition indicate that the filmmaker wants to respond to these particular sounds. Illustrating an example, low pitched sounds including creaky floorboards and squeaky doors can generate a sense of mystique and uncertainty. Whereas high pitched sounds, for instance the screeching of tires or loud screams, contribute to create a sense of concern and anxiety…

Rosemary’s Baby: The Demonization of Motherhood and Patriarchal Dominated Pregnancy By Chelsea Domaleski Introduction to Cinema Studies Paper 01 “Women are the victims of this patriarchal culture, but they are also its carriers.” Observes Iranian lawyer, former judge and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi. “Let us keep in mind that every oppressive man was raised in the confines of his mother’s home.” Attitudes surrounding pregnancy and childbirth have changed throughout history, while still…

Tomás Gutiérrez Alea employs many different styles that pull from film genres such as documentary, diary, and melodrama within the film Memories of Underdevelopment (1968), which is the film adaptation of the novel Inconsolable Memories by Edmundo Desnoes. This multitude of styles helps to produce a film that takes on the task creating tension not only among the characters, but among the different film elements and the viewers as well. The creation of this tension brings into question the notion…

Dino Omeroviç MAVA 335 European Cinema Final Assignment In modern world, role of gender has always been an important issue that made lots of people question the social structure. Especially the rise of the feminism in the western world pointed out the problems that are caused by the patriarchy, which still seems to be the main source that shapes worldwide cultures and traditions. These problems became a source for many art forms and art became a speaking voice for those who want to change…

Post World War II, the Homophile movement was consciously disavowing openly homosexual acts in attempt to shift the attitudes of social majority by shaping an image aligned with –philia (fondness and love) in opposed to sex (Suâarez 127). Meanwhile, filmmakers under the scrutiny from Motion Picture Production Code were made to abide by the rules of “don’ts and be carefuls”, unable to employ passionate, sexual, and “pervasive” scenes in the plot (Mondello). During this time, Kenneth Anger made…