Femenist Theory Jags

Feminist Theory

Feminism could be seen as a revolution that includes women and men who wish the world can be equal without boundaries. Feminists can be anyone in the population, men, women, girls or boys. Feminist film theory focuses on the function of female characters of society's view of women.These female characters are the stereotypical characters of women we expect to see in film.

So a stereotypical woman in a horror movie would be a dumb blonde. An example of a dumb blonde would be Drew Barrymore’s character in “Scream” where she talks to a complete stranger on her home phone and eventually gets killed by her not being able to answer questions regarding horror films (her favourite movie genre) in order to save her boyfriend and herself. Other stereotypical characters are damsels, housewife, cheerleader, the sexual object, the princess ect.

Feminist theorists believe and argue that mainstream cinema was organised around a series of gazes constructed for male pleasure. This is called Scophilia. Scophillia is basically where the male character gazes when women are presented as an image, whilst the man is the bearer of the look.
Most directors uses the camera shots to show the gaze of the male viewer looking at the female, often in a sexual way so feminist film theory argue women are added for visual pleasure.

A “Femme Fatale” character are women who use their sexual power to trap male characters. Femme fatale characters are popular with film noir genre. She tends to draw the male character into the schemes of the plot and controls his action. Male characters that are manipulated by femme fatale characters and are always often end up in bad scenarios.

An example of this would be in "Transformers" when Sam Wikwiki (Shia Le Bouf) stares at Mackala (Megan Fox) when she is observing his engine. The camera tilts up and down her body to give the impression that basically all the guys are watching fix up the car.