Genre Conventions in Cinema and Film

Paper Summary:

The author argues that the inferior societal role of women is still depicted in the way female characters are represented in films and that the male patriarchal dominance is still evident today. The paper focuses on two films: "Letter From an Unknown Women" and "The Piano", which speak for females and about females, and still fall victim to the male-dominated world in order to gain recognition and audience.

From the Paper:

"Sex objects, housewives, heart broken lovers, and caring mothers this are the role of the female in Hollywood cinema and other film forms. The societal role of the women has changed yet social consciousness within the genre conventions of the women's film has remained. The women's film is made to target female viewers, by using topics, which the patriarchal Hollywood society of directors and producers feels are appropriate for the housewives of the post-war era to learn and be entertained about. With the evolution of the women's film, ?women could ruin their lives - get free of everything - down at the movie house for twenty-five cents with butter on their popcorn.? (Basinger, 1993) A women's cinema, is the first movement where women were making films themselves, for and about women. Although the women's movement has been active since before the 1950's when women were told to go back to the home and return to being both as consumers and items for consumption. Film and Cinema has continued to further suppress and enclose women within the male dominated hegemonic world, which continues to exist in the cinema with insignificant change or evolution."

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