Is this new-wave feminism truly enacting change, or is it just confusing people more?
We have four articles to look at, three of which are regarding three different films, 2017 Ghostbusters, 2018 Marvel Endgame, and 2019 Little Women. The last article is a paper published in 1998 called Feminism and Film. Each of these articles looks at how feminism centers these films negatively or positively, according to these critics and the audience. We will look at if feminism is detrimental to cinema or not.
GHOSTBUSTERS
The first film we can look at is the 2017 Ghostbusters film. This film was written by Katie Dippold and Paul Feig, and Ivan Reitman. Feig also directed the film. However, Feig being the only one of the two to do press. This film stared four highly known and influential actresses. Starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristin Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. Alonge side Chris Hemsworth which we will touch on in the coming paragraph. ​
Initially, when this film came out, there were many opinions about the feministic round of an all-women cast. This is prevalent in many articles when looking up the film's name, the year it was released, and some words along the lines of feminism. Articles like Did the all-female Ghostbusters fail due to sexism? Or Ghostbusters backlash reflects sexism problems in Hollywood? This film was a reboot of the original 1999 Ghostbusters, shot initially with an all-male cast. This time, an all-female cast attempted to create a more inclusive and representation-heavy film. The 2017 film, like 1999, was written, produced, and directed by men. There is backlash from articles stating that although the film had a main cast that was female, the storyline and characters were still very patriarchal driven. Some articles focus on Chris Hemsworth’s role in this film and how he is the model picture of a quirky, good-looking man. This issue of the male gaze still being centered around stereotypes was spoken upon with feminist reviews. “As of this writing, the first trailer for the new Ghostbusters film has over 888,000 “thumbs downs,” and is currently in the top 100 least liked of all videos on YouTube” (Furze).
As someone who later watched the film streaming because of the actors and their previous success and works, I found that if this film had been shot with less well-known actors, the film would not have made it to the screen. It's interesting to observe that, yes, all women main cast, but at the end of the day, there is this hierarchy and podium these women already sit on that the production company knew that just because of their names, they would gain traction. “The bigger problem lies with the Internet, “which puts a small minority of voices into a sort of bullhorn” (Shoard: 2016). These comments are then repeated by the media, getting amplified in the process, turning the misogynistic comments into the story and helping to create a space for people who agree with these views to further expound on them” (Furze). The question is does this defeat the purpose and point of female-centered films if the only way to gain any success or movement is with large companies led by men to give the green light to a story and film run by men only to use these women's fame and name to bring in the profits. If this film doesn't take off because of our idea to keep up with the representation of blockbuster films, then at least the fame will bring profit.
ENDGAME
Next, we look at the 2018 Marvel’s Endgame. The anticipation of the release of this film was a game-changer in the media industry. The film has many aspects that we can analyze, but we will only focus on one scene in the film. Arguably one of the most talked about scenes in Marvel history. This film was written by Christoper Markus and Stephen McFeely. Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, who are known for directing many of the avenger films over the span of 10 years. The film stars many male actors like Robert Downy Jr. and Chris Evens. Contrary to the previous franchise films, this film used the female superheroes that slowly developed over the years as a statement at the film's end. In the article Trends in Gender Portrayal in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Avengers Series: A Conventional Content Analysis we have statistical examples of the underrepresentation of women and hypersexualization. “Like other popular films, the Avengers series hypersexualizes its female characters through both visual and textual representations. According to Gerard and Poepsel, Black Widow, the most prominent female character of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, was written as a character to entertain the male gaze, performing actions like undressing in the backseat of a car and being a lingerie model in the past” (Pg. 3, Morales and Olivio).
Toward the end of this film, a scene sparked many controversies throughout the media. To preface this, the science consisted of all the women superheroes coming together to help Captain Marvel. These women all share the screen for an estimated 15 seconds before it cuts back to the fighting. During this scene, Articles and media outlets had opinions over this scene. In an article by cbr.com, the director is interviewed and speaks about the fact that the all-women scene was reshot multiple times due to test audience complaints. The directors feared ‘pandering’ or just placing this scene without matching the narrative and doing so just to make a point instead of moving the narrative forward. The first Avengers film had three women that spoke and the final one, Avengers Endgame, gathered 19 named-speaking women. To put in perspective, “There was a total of 344 male-to-male conversations throughout the four films” (Pg. 5, Morales and Olivio) The franchise plans for the future phases to continue the feminist aspect in making the main superheroes female-dominated with Scarlett Witch, Captain Marvel, She Hulk, and Kate Bishop.
LITTLE WOMEN
The next film is Greta Gerwig's 2019 Little Women. This film was nominated for six academy awards. This film was adapted and directed by a well-known female in the industry. Yet again, like the 2017 Ghostbusters film, the women first used for their names and fame before anything. This film was adapted by writer Louisa May Alcott, a female writer in the mid-1800s. Gerwig took on the daunting task of writing this screenplay. She took an underlying feminist view throughout the film, Saoirse Ronan’s character being that driving force. “Although set in the mid-nineteenth century, the march daughters' trials, burdens, and aspirations resonate with a modern era and apply to audiences’ live” (Pg. 109, Dewi)” we know that little women use the times and women to push forth a feminist agenda. But in many states, this was too much. The film and text used language and costumes heavily to portray the Marxist counterparts to the societal norm. An important point in this film was “psychoanalytic feminism is the way women act originated or roots in the female soul, especially in the way women think about themselves as women. This reflects in Jo’s statement…Women have minds and souls as well as hearts, ambition, and talent as well as beauty, and I’m sick of being told that love is all a woman is good for” (Pg. 113, Dewi). This quote allows this eagerness of feminism to show through perfectly during this scene. The film continues like this previous quote and after it was released became praised. But shortly after, critics had lots to say about the unrealistic feminist outlook. People began nitpicking the costume and stating that they were wrong for women in the nineteenth century and that this film was just released to make a statement, That same year, five other best director nominees were nominated at the Oscars, and the push for equality within their films and the award show was nowhere to be seen. The need to have a large ensemble with actresses like Emma Watson and Laura Dern is necessary to gain traction. They know people will view the films for certain actresses, then without intention, they can experience the purpose of the intended film. in the end, this film was very successful, but like most of this nature, the opinions of others hovered over that success.
Flim and Feminsm
The article Feminism and Film examines the semiotics and psychoanalysis of feminism in film. The article includes words like detached, significance, dimensions, identity, progress, and threats. Word and how we state things are vital to how the consumer understands the text, and we see in this article that sexism is prevalent. When we look at what women are being analyzed for in the film, it is this aspect of the image that films make women seem as. Hypersexuality is a common issue that actors have spoken up about and have avoided. In a roundtable talk by the Hollywood Reporter with actresses with recent successful films, Scarlett Johanson speaks about her experience of being hyper-sexualized in Marvel and other films throughout her career. “ institution of cinema is characterized by a sexual imbalance of power, and psychoanalysis may be used to explain this. Because psychoanalysis makes sexual difference its central category, feminist thinking can use it to understand women's exclusion from the realms of language, law. and desire—from, in short, what Jacques Lacan called the symbolic register” (Pg. 119, White). The conversation continues onto Fueuds definition of scopophilia which is the view of women in Hollywood and on the screen through a male gaze. “The term refers to the predominantly male gaze of Hollywood cinema, which enjoys objectifying women into mere objects to be looked at (rather than subjects with their own voice and subjectivity).” (Purdue Edu). “In film criticism and theory, making gender the axis of analysis has entailed a thoroughgoing reconsideration of films for, by, and about women and a consequent transformation of the canons of film studies. Bringing into focus the overlooked contributions of women to film history has been a key objective of feminist film studies as well as an organizing principle of women's film festivals and journalism” (Pg. 117, White). This supports the following ideas that reconsidering films and works because of the feminist aspect of films is giving a higher standard of success. Awards and nominations play a big role in how films are rated within the industry. We know prestigious awards like Oscars are only put aside for indy-like films, and blockbuster films like ghostbusters and Endgame rely on their audience's approval. As well as box office approval. Many critics and audience members state that films like Ghostbusters and Marvel are ruined by the feminist force being placed upon these classic blockbusters. However, Endgame was nominated for an Oscar in visual effects. Little Women, a film meant to win many prestigious Oscars during its release for its screenplay and directing the film itself (excluding actor and actress nominations), was nominated for best picture and best-adapted screenplay. It owns one Oscar in costume design. It is important to point out the names of the specific categories because looking at a film that was sure to gather in the wins fell short of even nominating the director. Because films like Endgame and 2017 Ghostbusters were pushed aside due to feminism, the awards make it seem like women are the issue. There is no confusion that many awards show a lack of diversity, and only five women in 95 years have been nominated for best director.
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UN Women highlighted the extent of this gender gap, posting the below graphic on Twitter.
Conclusion
We analyze these three films because of the diverse ways of incorporating film and their success. Many will say although these films found success overall, the backlash regarding feminism in the films hovered over the success. Many articles in the media, as we saw, regarded these films as good but issue-filled. Issued fill regarding the attempt to bring forth the representation of diversity and women within. Despite the lack of support, we see that there is still a way to go for audiences and critics to see that feminism and diversity shouldn’t impact how we view films but should be a normalization of films and their success. “Anderson and Daniels reported that even when a film had a female protagonist, the dialogue tended to be male-dominated” (Pg. 1, Morales and Olivo). Even with male directors and writers, Women directors ad writers, women-dominated casts, or male-dominated casts, there is no winning with the opinion that films do or do not need more diversity. “However, whereas Johnston had argued that 'in order to counter our objectification in the cinema, women's collective fantasy must be released . . . [and] demands the use of the entertainment film” (Pg. 119, White). Some say that with these films, we need to continue to make them despite the opinions to continue enacting change toward normalization.
Reflection
When I first read the prompt, I knew I wanted to focus on films and feminist theory. Throughout the semester, we looked at various texts and data, like films and trailers, and analyzed them. I also used the feminist theory we discussed in class to my advantage in this paper. I found it interesting the amount of information and articles that came up when starting to research this. I knew there was traction to this idea of film and feminism, but I didn’t fully grasp just how much people felt the need to say things about it. As I researched and read, I noticed a common thread that most wanted to analyze without bias. I noticed the negative comments stemmed fro critics and the audience. I found it difficult to use supported and legitimist website articles but eventually found some moderate opinions. I wanted to be sure that although this topic is something I have thought a lot about and have gathered my own take, I hoped to keep this work as unbiased as possible to allow it to speak for itself. I found it so interesting that when sharing my initial pitch in class and getting the feedback, I said I would initially survey students. One student responded that he hadn't seen the films, so what would happen if many others didn’t see the film? I will say that it was interesting hearing that as my surveys would have been used to show the lack of watchers from feminist films. This is the ultimate issue within films. There is this hesitancy that certain people should watch something because it's too “girly” or “feminist,” but this limits people's knowledge of films. I enjoyed making this project and researching it even deeper in the topic. I do not think there will be answers any time soon, but I also think that some things are best left without a solidified answer.
Bibliography
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