Feminism in Film
The goal of this subsection of research, femininity in media, is to explore and answer the question of how the concepts of womanhood and femininity have been explored and developed through media such as film and television. From the female portrayal of masculinity to queer and black feminism to the male portrayal of femininity, over time film and television have played a significant and effective role in the changing representations and interpretations of womanhood and femininity. As our core topic encompasses the different approaches, interpretations, and methods of womanhood, I will be using scholarly research on feminist film theory such as Cynthia Freeland’s “Draft for the Encyclopedia of Aesthetics,” Jean-Anne Sutherland and Kathryn M. Feltey’s "Here's Looking at Her: An Intersectional Analysis of Women, Power and Feminism in Film,” and Scott Selisker’s “The Bechdel Test and the Social Form of Character Networks,” to analyze self-proclaimed feminist media . By introducing scholarly research focused on the recognition of feminist entertainment media, this section will dig deeper into how the presence of women and femininity in entertainment media has developed in both positive and negative ways over time. This section will also draw from the public’s interpretation and analysis of different interpretations of womanhood and femininity in film and television. From interest to abhorence , the rest of this research will focus on public opinion, reactions, and analysis of different pieces, as well as the application of the aforementioned theories and research to different examples including The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Matilda (1996), Little Women (2019), and MAID (2021).