Fabiana Andrade
Instructor: Stephen Williams
Film & Culture
April 30, 2013
Society still has a hard time accepting the role of a female character being the primary or
the main character. It is hard, especially for males to focus on and relate to a female character.
Usually during a movie, it is almost always a male main character or if it’s a woman, there is a
man that is just as important in the part he plays in the movie. It rarely portrays a woman being
stronger than a man, although there are a few movies that do. One of the ones that pop into mind
is “The Women.” It is an all-female cast. The men that are mentioned in the movie are always
present through the phone or just by being mentioned, but never is their voice heard or that they
are seen. In that movie, it shows a woman who is somewhat weak and passive towards everyone
around her. As she comes to find out about her husband having an affair with another woman,
she and her friends embark on a journey to self-discovery in which she realizes how strong she is
and truly finds out who she is and what she wants out of life. Although I wouldn’t want to spoil
an ending, it is safe to assume that true to Hollywood endings, she and her husband have a
promising future together. These kind of movies appeal mostly to women, which is fine to make
a movie with the purpose and intent of a female audience but if it is hard to appeal to men with
movies like those, image how much harder it was for women since the beginning film makers
allowed them to partake in a part for a movie. I am going to write about women and film and
how hard they had to work and claw to be in the position they were at their primes and open up
the opportunities for women today and their contribution to how far along we’ve come today in
being open and acknowledging that we are all equal as humans.
Femmes Fatales is a book about feminism, film theory, and psychoanalysis. Then book
opens up with a quote from Sigmund Freud, “…to those of you who are women this will not
apply-you are yourselves the problem…” He then invokes a poem from Heine, “Heads in
hieroglyphic bonnets, Heads in turbans and black birettas, Heads in wigs and thousand other,
Wretched, sweating heads of humans…” This quote is taken from the seventh section of the
second cycle of The North Sea. Throughout history, people have knocked their heads against
the riddle of the nature of femininity. When speaking of Sigmund Freud, the author understands
his comment to be that the question of the woman reflects only the man’s own ontological doubt.
“Historically, there has always been a certain imbrication of the cinematic image and the
representation of the woman. The woman’s relation to the camera and the scopic regime is quite
different from that of the male.” (Doane) The first chapter is about women being an object of
sexual desire, the author refers back to the era of silent film and when it changes to sound. It says
that women are a sexual object and that the time of silent film was a time of voyeurism. It then
goes on about a masquerade and how femininity is a mask. “Womanliness therefore could be
assumed and worn as a mask, both to hide the possession of masculinity and to avert the reprisals
expected if she was found to possess it…” (Doane)
The book gives an example of a woman in the first scene of Now Voyeur which depicts
the Bette Davis character as unattractive and undesirable. This image signifies repressed
sexuality, knowledge, intellectuality, and undesirability. Giving the notion that smart women are
not attractive. In the movie, the moment she removes her glasses, her undesirable characteristics
are gone and is transformed into a spectacle. “The intellectual woman looks and analyzes, and in
usurping the gaze she poses a threat to an entire system of representation.” (Doane) To sum up
an interesting part I read, a woman by the name of Linda Williams has demonstrated how in
horror genres, the woman’s active looking is ultimately punished. The monster she sees is a
mirror of herself. This novel consists of the author examining questions of sexual difference, the
female body, and the analyzing and criticism of men who have looked down on women and in
reference to cinema throughout time. The title is very appropriate because Femmes Fatales is a
mysterious and seductive woman.
In Fast-Talking Dames, DiBattista explains that when she first encountered fast-talking
dames in classic movies on television during the big screen’s Monroe era, it opened her eyes to
what was possible for women. This book is about the comedy of the 30’s and the verbal
sassiness of the female characters in it. She says that his book is a study of one of the most
impressive and influential creations of the talkies- the fast-talking dame in which it isolates the
quality that distinguishes her life on screen; the dame suggests an unaffected delight in women.
“A pretty or even beautiful face has no particular claim on damehood- that distinction is reserved
for the quick-witted as well as the attractive. Brains as much as fine facial lines and beguiling
eyes account for the unique sexual allure of the fast talking dame.” (DiBattista)
“No one talks like a dame, certainly not like the fast-talking dame of vintage American
Comedy.” (DiBattista) Film critic Andre Bazin said that American comedy was the most serious
genre in Hollywood in the sense that it reflected the deepest moral and social beliefs of
American life. “No one could articulate the nature of those beliefs and their moral claim upon us
better than the fast-talking dame. For that distinction she deserves to be celebrated not just as a
sexual ideal but as an icon of American individualism, bold and imaginative in her pursuit of
happiness.” (DiBattista) Those quotes sum up what the book is about, she then goes on to talk
about the fast-talking dames individually such as Jean Harlow, Carol Lombard, Ginger Rogers,
Myrna Loy, Jean Arthur, and Claudette Colbert. The author describes blondes in cinema at the
time as the sexual lore of American culture, blondes are typically seen as prized trophies and
bombshells. When talking about brunettes in cinema as well, she says that men may prefer
blondes, but they marry brunettes.
The Power of Glamour is about when the Glamour Era met the Golden Age of cinema.
“It cast a spell on a public beaten by the Depression and the threat of war.” (Tapert) This book
reveals the qualities of women who have defined style that have lasted for generations such as
Coco Chanel. It’s about the women who have left their legacy in film and style throughout the
generations. It features Gloria Swanson, Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Carol Lombard, Kay
Francis, Dolores Del Rio, Constance Bennett, Claudette Colbert, Katherine Hepburn, Greta
Garbo, and Marlene Dietrich. I recognize many of these names from the previous book I read,
Katherin Hepburn I have read about in all 3. It goes through them one by one describing their
lives and contributions to cinema and history.
In conclusion, women make up an important part in film. When referring to the older
days in film, women were portrayed as what the perfect wife should be and when it wasn’t
portrayed as such, it was usually used for comedy. They were more of a pretty face and a
supporting role, not so much a leading role although of course there are always exceptions.
Today we have come a long way compared to film fifty years ago. More movies are supporting
a female’s independence and intellectual abilities. Movies such as Salt where Angelina Jolie is
a fierce spy who thinks quick and can physically go up against males and conquer. Other movies
where women are successful in business, finance, and other things among that.
Works Cited
DiBattista, Maria. Fast-Talking Dames. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. Print.
Doane, Mary Ann. Femmes Fatales. London: Routledge, 1991. Print.
Tapert, Annette. The Power of Glamour. New York City: Crown Publishers, 1998. Print.