We're looking this week at how women are treated in film. This is an extremely complex subject, and one that I have a tendency in this course to reduce to basic elements for clarity's sake.
Our text, Benshoff and Griffin's America On Film spends one chapter on women in classical Hollywood filmmaking, and then another on how women are framed visually in film. This week's film, Serenity, is a useful tool for talking about how women are treated in modern filmmaking and how action-adventure and science fiction films frame women.
First off, we look at what gender actually is. This is the basic gender studies lecture about how sex and gender are separate. Usually the part about there being more than two possible genetic sexes and more than two genders causes some heads to explode. I use the genderbread person to help explain rudimentary ideas about gender and it's construction.
Then we talk about women in film specifically, using the other selections from this semester and using the Bechdel test to talk about how roles for men and women are treated differently both by Hollywood filmmakers and the viewing audience.
We then talk about Joss Whedon and his self identification as a feminist. What does it mean to have a popular cisgendered heterosexual white male self-define as a feminist filmmaker, and in looking at his work, does this idea pan out?
Then Serenity, which for the filmmaking crowd in the class is a treat visually. I often show the continuous shot inside the ship near the start of the film in my Intro classes as a demonstration of a long tracking shot that works well.
Then discussion, which in this class often goes to where it needs to. I am lucky to have a very diverse class this semester where students are quick to voice their opinions about the films and the subjects that we discuss. I am hoping to push the discussion towards analyzing female characters in the film as well as how Whedon frames/depicts women.
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