Early Hollywood Cinema
The patriarchal society of the late nineteenth century saw men as competitive and aggressive, thus were popular in the working class. On the contrary, society viewed women as more emotional and less productive believing that “women should belong at home because of their natural focus on relationships, children and an ethic of care.” Therefore women were marginalized for their choices in careers; jobs that only required domestic duties, such as teaching, nursing, secretarial work etc. With this strict definition of gender roles, and the belief that “women should stay at home”, they became less financially and politically valuable than men.
The implications for the beginning stage of cinema were severe. Hollywood was constructed according to this unconscious patriarchy. In the early times of Hollywood, men were dominant in the work force and they controlled the film fantasy, reflecting it as an image of power on screen. On the other hand, women almost had no opportunities behind the camera, except for being an actress and editor. Thus male fantasies usually followed the pattern that people called “Damsels in Distress”. This narrative archetype is usually about young and beautiful women who get trapped in dangerous places by villains; they are powerless. The male heroes are usually tall and masculine with square jaw. The climax of the story ends with huge fights between heroes and villains, and eventually our damsels get rescued, thus becoming the lovers of the heroes. Women in film, therefore, were not constructed as a real woman, who should have complex personalities and desires of their own. Instead, she was built into a sign that represents something that only exists in the male’s fantasy. Although arguably from a business perspective, during the early period of cinema, the audience had much more difficulty in deciphering information that appeared on the screen, and this fixed stereotype was introduced to help with the audience to comprehend the narrative better. (Claire Johnston, “Women’s Cinema As Counter-Cinema” from Feminism and Film E.Ann Kaplan)
The image of the man underwent rapid differentiation, at the same time, the primitive stereotyping of women in cinema only had a little change. During 1940s and 50s, in post World War two period, film noir became more popular. The female roles in film noir were simplified into two archetypes, a caring and loving woman, or femme fatale. Probably due to the male’s fear of the female liberation and independence during wartime, the femme fatale was the female role who would love you but will kill you. She was physically attractive, sweet outside with an unloving heart covered inside, she would use her sexuality as a weapon to manipulate men in order to gain power or money; to fulfil her desire. This character type was created as a negative image of mainstream women, and usually the male characters had to make a choice between these two archetypes and eventually he fell into the trap of femme fatale and ended with self-destruction. Although the representation of women in film noir was negative, it shows how women were still restricted in the male dominated society; their struggle was the response for the men on top of them.
Hollywood’s Mechanism
With the impact of feminism on film theory, female roles in cinema were no longer judged as “positive” or “negative”, and feminists started to look at cinema not merely as an mirror which reflects the society or “the imitation” of experience, but as a “constructed” art form, and using psychoanalysis influenced by Sigmund Freud and Simon de Beauvoir to analyse the representation of women in cinema. According to E. Ann Kaplan in her essay “ Is the male gaze?”, Hollywood adopted the basic Freudian concepts of Voyeurism to construct the male spectator in order to satisfy the male audience unconsciously. (E. Ann Kaplan, “Is The Male Gaze” from Feminism and Film E.Ann Kaplan)
Voyeurism came from the French word “voyeur” which means “one who looks”, it is an instinct of spying on other’s engagement on intimate behaviours, it is also the reason that causes little boy to peek through keyhole of his parents’ bedroom to observe their sexual activity. This human instinct became the mechanism of Hollywood, as the audience are put in the position of voyeur in a dark environment, looking through the “keyhole” duplicated by the camera and projector, when female characters were sexualized, the male spectators would get satisfaction.
Laura Mulvey is a British filmmaker and one of the prominent feminist film theorists, and she has argued that there are three specifically male looks or gaze when the eroticization of women showed up on screen:
“there is the look of the camera in the situation where events are being filmed while technically neutral, this look, as we have seen, is inherently voyeuristic and usually the “male” in the sense of a man doing the filming; there is the look of the men within the narrative, which is structured so as to make women objects of their gaze; and finally there is the look of the male spectator that imitates (or is necessarily in the same position as) the first two looks.” (Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” from Feminism and Film E.Ann Kaplan)
This erotic pleasure that Hollywood is using has resulted the image of women on screen been objectified and sexualized, and women are judged by their appearances.
Dominance and submission is a set of behaviors, which relates to the power of control in sex activities or lifestyle by one individual to another individual. It is a significant power structure in male and female relationship. By comparing with males and females in the spectrum from submissive to dominant, the study has shown that males are more flexible in the spectrum. It is also reflected when comparing male’s fantasies and female’s fantasies, in a sense, females are far less willing to choose to be completely dominant.
Traditional male heroes are usually dominant and assertive; they builds up their power by conquering and eliminating enemy and do not necessarily attach with their looks. These “male figures” were popular among male audience because they represent their ego ideals. When the male characters are diversifying, sometimes we could see male heroes become far away from the traditional dominant archetype, for example the character of Tony Stark in Ironman who abandoned the traits like tall and muscular. As a result, it lost a few male audiences but gained the popularity among female audiences.
In the power structure, masculine and feminine are beyond gender difference. When the male character is lacking of dominance, the female characters are allowed to step in, and flip the conventional settings. Strong female character has lost her traditional feminine characteristics like passive or emotional, however she still keeps the physical attractiveness. She could be cold, ambitious and controlling, at the same time with the feminine traits still remained like kindness, humanness and motherliness, as long as to keep the power structure integrated.
Ridley Scott and rise of female spectators
Ridley Scott is an English film director best known for his works in science fiction genre, he is also famous for being a feminist and portraying strong female characters in his film. In 1991, Ridley Scott made Thelma and Louise, nothing like his previous films, which relied on special effects and art direction, but is totally character-driven.
Thelma and Louise are best friends living in a small town in Arkansas, which is a small state in the Southern part of the United States. Both seem to be living somewhat depressing working class lives; Thelma is the unloved housewife of a sexist and obnoxious husband, and Louise is a struggling waitress whose boyfriend has commitment issue. One day, these two women decide to leave town for a weekend vacation together in order to get away from their unhappy lives. While on the road, they stop in a small town to get some drinks at a local bar. Thelma decides to dance with a man who is flirting with her and later tries to rape her in the parking lot. Accidentally Louise ends up shooting this man, so they head out on the road, far from their hometown, and hopefully, keep away from the police. They soon decide to drive to Mexico, but on the way, they continue to dig themselves deeper into trouble with laws, and at the end, they both realize that they could never go back to the lives they had before.
Thelma and Louise is a buddy film road movie released in 1991, road movie genre is not appealing for the female audience due to the lack of attention of female characters in those movies, women are marginalized as either burdens or sex objects, considering the fact that road movie genre is constructed as a male escapist fantasy, with masculinity, individualism, and aggression inherited from Western genre. Just like the similar pattern in Alien, directed by Ridley Scott in 1979, the beginning of the film looks like a science fiction film, all the sudden when the chest burst, it turns into a horror film; Ridley Scott used the same formula in the first act of Thelma and Louise, it is like a road comedy, after Louise kills the man tries to rape Thelma, the story gradually turns into a tragedy.
In this film, instead of using male protagonists, Ridley Scott turned the focus on working class women in the United States. There is no male protagonist, and Louise is the dominant character, the main drive for the plot at first half. Thelma is very submissive in front of her husband but becomes more natural when she is with Louise, the power structure remains intact when the balance shifted and their characters are merging. This film has two women characters, and made for women audience. The Bechdel Test was developed to assess a movie’s treatment of its female character, which require: (1) at least two women in it, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something other than a man or men. Most of the films did not pass this test, but this one did. However, the film also received significant criticism for its "male-bashing" and “man-hating". The best male character detective Hal is ineffective to stop the tragedy and J.D (Brad Pit) is handsome and attractive but is a thief who has broken parole, after Thelma rejects his proposal for marriage, he steals their life savings.
This movie could be seen as a reflection of the feminist movement, a rebellion against male dominated society. Just like Ridley Scott mentioned: “Major studios often shy away from so-called ‘women’s picture’, because they don't make as much money as films aim at young men, I don't think there is any difficulty in Hollywood looking at female-driven script. I think its just that there aren’t any. People haven't sat down and dealt with it.” (Ridley Scott’s Interview edited by Laurence F. Knapp and Andrea F. Kulas 2005) Thelma and Louise is revolutionary because it turned women as their spectator, women could just like men; carry out the masculine job like driving or running away from the police. The film ending is still debatable as the car is driving off the cliff but without showing the live or death of Thelma and Louise. However it sends a subliminal message for the women who want to break out from traditional social norm, that their defiant journey could be self-destruction.
The screenwriter of Thelma and Louise is Callie Knouri, she was a first time writer when she wrote this story. Before she became a screenwriter, she had done some acting, what she realized is the definition of women as presented in films and plays were so narrow, so limiting. “I noticed that when I was acting: How many times did I play a prostitute? Dramatically, it seems one out of every four women is a prostitute.” Therefore the idea of presenting two real normal women on screen came up, she was not trying to be a sexist but to say no to gender stereotype. The character of Louise was in fact based on Callie’s own experience several years ago when she was working as a waitress, at that time she was sexually harassed by a old man, she was so furious that she wanted to shoot that old man. “There are thousands and thousands of women walking around that have something in their past we don’t know about, and they deserve to be treated with respect, whether we had anything to do with it or not.”
This film became a critical and commercial success, receiving six Academy Award nominations and winning one for Best Original Screenplay (Callie Khouri). Both Sarandon and Davis were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
James Cameron and the idea of Motherhood
James Cameron is another director who has feminist ideas. Back to 1980s, female characters in commercial films were still largely considered as a vehicle for the hero’s development, examples like Return of the Jedi, Lethal Weapon, or Die Hard.
“I tend to like strong female characters. It just interests me dramatically. A strong male character isn't interesting because it has been done and it's so clichéd. A weak male character is interesting: somebody else hasn't done it a hundred times. A strong female character is still interesting to me because it hasn't been done all that much, finding the balance of femininity and strength.”( Rebecca Keegan, “The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron” P 44 )
Started from the first Alien movie in 1979, Ellen Ripley played by Sigourney Weaver was already a revolutionary character, because the audience watched a horror film that the younger female character who was not a victim but a heroine. Picking up Alien where Ridley Scott left, the new sequel was named Aliens in 1984, the story follows the last episode, when Ripley survives but still haunts by the nightmare happens before, her life has been torn apart by Xenomorph, she is assigned as an adviser with an tactical team to rescue the inhabitants left on that alienate planet, however the mission goes wrong and she has to fight as a warrior to save a young girl, Newt. James Cameron had added more layers for this character to be more three-dimensional, established not only her masculine side as the heroine, but also her feminine side of motherhood from the relationship of Ripley and Newt.
At the beginning of the film, there is the shot of Ripley’s closed up face who is sleeping in the chamber, and it fades into a shot of Earth, this cut established the tone of motherhood. In act one, Ripley is upset and tired as she is only an adviser, the troops are full of fighting spirit but sarcastically lead by an inexperienced leader. She demonstrates her potential when she is trained to hold a gun, which could be interpreted as doing a man’s job, with a heroine shot of her holding a futuristic riffle. Just like what traditional male character did, Ripley gradually gains her respect and charisma by establishing her power in the team, when the whole team is facing severe threats and she shows up her leadership and making correct commands. At the same time, she also reveals her feminine side as a caring and nurturing “mother” with little Newt; a small girl who has trauma lived under those Aliens for weeks. During the last scene, when Ripley manipulates a robot to fight with the queen, which I felt hard to judge, because they both followed their instincts of being a mother, to protect their beloved ones.
After the release of Aliens in 1984, it received high claims from critics and. James Cameron started to work on a sequel of his original project, Terminator 2. It followed the story in Terminator 1, Skynet sent an assassin robot T-1000 back in time to kill John Connor when he is young, in order to prevent him becoming human resistance leader in the future. In this story, Sarah Connor is the legendary mother who protects the future human resistant leader, and it is very interesting to analyze how James Cameron built up Sarah Connor as a strong female character through two Terminator movies.
In the first Terminator in 1984, James Cameron described young Sarah Connor to be:
“19, small and delicate features. Pretty in a flawed, accessible way. She doesn’t stop the party when she walks in, but you’d like to get to know her. Her vulnerable quality masks a strength even she doesn’t know exists.”
Sarah Connor at the beginning was a normal sweet-looking waitress, unnoticeable by the public.
Just like what James had done in Aliens, this time, Sarah Connor completely changed to be a masculine mother. The treatment for Ripley and Sarah are slightly different, Ripley is set in future and has a great leadership quality; Sarah has a different growing path as she was an ordinary girl at the beginning in the first Terminator, but in T2, she knows the truth about the future but nobody believes it, even her own son. The male nurse in mental hospital has constantly bullied her, and the medicine they are using on her also causes her behaviors slightly abnormal. There is a strong will that holds her together, not letting her collapse in front of tortures. I think that was the mother nature of her, all her actions comes into one purpose, to get back with John Connor and protect him, even when she is badly injured.
Sarah Connor from Terminator 2 and Ripley from Aliens have a common feature; their characters were deeply bonded with motherhood. In the case of Sarah and her son John, she uses single hand to shot the antagonist T-1000 to make him stay away from her son; Ripley burns down the entire base of the Alien queen to rescue Newt. This idea of motherhood in a strong female character developed the female roles further in cinema. Simone de Beauvior’s concept on basic dualism is about human consciousness between the idea of “Self” and “Other”, it is the same way as human classify the world into “Us” and “Them”. The concept of motherhood had been considered not only an narcissistic relationship between the mother and son, but also mother sees the child as part of “self”, and an extension of self-ego. Especially for single mothers, who are forced to make themselves as a core in relation to their children; and the role of female combined with masculinity where the male role is absent. (E. Ann Kaplan, “Is The Male Gaze” from Feminism and Film E.Ann Kaplan, P134)
Critical success in the new era
It is an interesting observation of recent movie box office that women’s genre has gaining a lot of popularity. In 2014, Frozen became the fifth biggest film in box office history, and won two Academic Awards. Frozen is a Disney princess movie, a story about two sisters, Anna and Elsa, Elsa has the power to freeze anything, but one day, she loses control and puts the whole kingdom into eternal winter, her sister Anna has to go on a quest to save Elsa, and finally Elsa is saved though the true love of her sister Anna.
The Disney princess like Snow White, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty has become very popular and adored by many young girls. However, gender stereotype is central in Hollywood, and Disney really loves the story pattern of “Damsels in Distress”, which the classic princess believes “one day my prince will come”, and waits to be rescued by a young and handsome prince and lives happily forever, for example Snow White and Aurora both spend their climax in the story sleeping. This fairy tale story pattern is barely evolved in decades; it takes almost half a century for Disney to create something different, as in The Little Mermaid‘s Ariel, a defiant princess who is less passive, but still gives up her beautiful voice for a pair of legs in order to be with a man, who, of course, is a prince who rescues her in the end.
Disney has received many critics from parents and feminists about the portraits of women in their shows over years, and finally decided to re-invent the story. And in Frozen, although the princess are still “super slim”, and we still find the trace of “Damsels in Distress” when Anna is taught to hide her powers and emotions for entire life, which has driven her to complete isolation from which she needs to be rescued, our princess is not saved by men but themselves. If we use Bechdel test for Frozen, there are two female characters: Anna and Elsa; they talk about a lot of things other than boys; these two leads have a good and complex relationship, it passed. Other movies like Brave also has central women character who is strong and rebellious comparing with traditional princess. Feminist ideas in animation has a longer influence because the main audience are young girls, the future generation, and the idea of finding true love though a passive way probably would been soon abandoned.
Conclusion
There are many cases when writers are trying to create “strong female character” for the sake of satisfying male audience. They only emphasize on physical attributes, beautiful face with a nice body but with more strength like driving, smoking drinking, and firing a gun. A good example would be Wonder Women; she was initially created in 1942 as a balance force for the male-dominated super hero comics like Superman and Batman, Wonder Women has both strength and femininity. However, she became a fetish obsession by the male fans later because they love the plots involves different tortures on her. Whereas, no matter how strong they were, the strong woman would still end up in a trap and wait to be rescued by a male hero. And she would still be treated as a trophy for the male hero, the only difference is, all the strength she had made her become a better price for the hero at the end. It could be successful, perhaps in terms of box office, for example Transformer, which is visual-effect driven, not character-driven, but this kind of characterization will lead to one dimensional character for women and stays away the female audience.
Every time when I watch a film or television, I would like to observe how characters have been changed through time. And I would show particular interest for female roles that undergoes this kind of change. Regardless of the gender issue of either hero or heroine, in a sense, it is difficult to see a drama if there is a flawless character inside. ‘Super strong female character’ that has the best look and top brain created a distance between her role and the audience. Good characters, male or female, they all have desires, and they all have flaws, but the great ones are always associated with love, like Ripley from Aliens, her instinct comes from the maternal love that she wants to save Newt, the little girl, which became the reason she operates the machine and fought against the Alien queen in the last scene.
And what could be the next step for a strong female character? We are slowly seeing complex female characters are presented on screen, like Juno, the character of a young teenage girl who got pregnant, or Little Miss Sunshine, the character of a strong mother who holds the family together, but those are still minority. Hopefully in the future we could see more diversified female roles, strong or weak, good or bad, shy or silver tone, shrewd or humorous, which would be a true reflection of how real women look like today.
