Feminist or Housewife? The Negotiation of Gender Roles and Stereotypes in Two Contemporary British Films About Feminist Icons
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2016-07-01
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en
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This thesis examines how two films about feminist icons, The Iron Lady and Suffragette, negotiate between conventional and feminist ideas and structures. The research question this thesis answers is: In what ways do two contemporary British films about feminist icons negotiate between conventional and feminist views on gender roles and power relations? The theory derives from Marxist and Gramscian theory that explain that popular culture is the site of a negotiation between dominating and subversive ideologies and cultural values. This concept is also applied to gender issues and feminism, which are part of a social conflict. Films, as expressions of popular culture, are media of this negotiation. This thesis consists of two chapters. These chapters contain a visual and a narrative analysis respectively. The visual analysis explains how in the visuals of the films these films show a negotiation between conventional and feminist ideas on gender roles. The theory is based on Laura Mulvey’s influential essay on psychoanalysis and feminist film theory. The narrative analysis does the same but looks at the narrative of the films. This chapter looks at conventional and feminist narrative structures, patriarchy, and stereotypes. The theory in this chapter is based on Lehman and Luhr’s chapter on narrative structures in films. This thesis concludes that in the visuals the films express more conventional ideas rather than feminist ideas, but the narrative seems to be more of a struggle between both.
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Faculteit der Letteren