Gender and sexuality on screen

Growing up, the films I consumed during the 2000’s were littered with exaggerated feminine and queer stereotyping. Films such as Enchanted (2007) or 22 Jump Street (2014) enforced gender stereo typing portraying the idea that women need men for strength and guidance. There were also and still are a number of films that felt to me to reflect outdated ideologies subtly. When I was a child, it was difficult to understand why I felt uncomfortable with certain dynamics portrayed in seemingly innocent films. such as Narnia (2005). Why was it that only the brothers and not the sisters fought in the battles? Now, with a clearer depth of knowledge surrounding the topic of gender and queerness, I know that feeling has merit and reflects feminist and queer film theory. Feminist Film theory analyses the representation of women in cinema, exploring ideas such as, performativity, identity and sexuality, while challenging patriarchal ideologies in film. Film often envisions women stereotypically as ‘good’ mothers or ‘bad’ hysterical careerists. (Humm:1997 ch1, pg 3 ) Mulvey’s essay ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ reveals the ‘socially established’ ‘sexual difference’ (Mulvey : 1975 pg 6) displayed in film. Mulvey begins the essay by stating how films perpetuate ‘pre-existing patterns of fascination already at work within the individual subject’ (Mulvey: 1975 pg 6)   arguing that the positioning of women in cinema is problematic because it often plays in to hegemonic sexist tropes. This blog post will explore this by linking it to the works of Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin.  

In The Second Sex (1949), Simone De Beauvoir argues that womanhood is not defined by biology but rather formed through socialized and lived experience. Central to her book is the distinction between sex and gender. Women are characterized as the ‘other’, defined exclusively in opposition to men. Film is a medium through which this ‘othering’ is visualised. Cinema often places women as passive objects of the male gaze. Portraying female characters as existing primarily for the salvation, pleasure or downfall of male protagonists. Films such as Superbad (2007) and A Rainy Day in New York (2019) demonstrate this. Female characters such as Jules and Ashleigh Enright are not presented as fully developed characters. Instead, their roles in these films are to provide the male characters with a sexual fantasy or simply used to portray how a women ‘should’ be in supporting a man. In sum their identity is shaped in how men perceive them, resonating with de Beauvoir’s proposal that women are often socialised as the inferior sex. A film that aims to oppose this is A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (2014). The film is about a female vampire that hunts men that are guilty of gender-based violence. (Cakir) The films central character is a women with power over men subverting the stereotype of weak women characters in film and affirming De Beauvoir’s ideas about gender based inferiority and superiority.

Judith Butler’s Book Gender Trouble (1990) builds on and Simone de Beauvoir’s notion of becoming. Butler’s concept of performativity challenges the binary of sex and gender. Performativity can be defined as acts, gestures, and discourses that are repeated- essentially as scripted role that is played in everyday life. Film as a medium is inherently based on performance and so reflects this idea of performativity and is the perfect source for examining how gender is expressed through media. Characters don’t just reflect societal gender norms-they perform them, often reinforcing the gender binary. However, there are films that subvert these binary gender roles. The documentary Paris is Burning (1990) shows an important part of African American and Latino gay and transgender life in New York in the 1980’s ballroom culture. (Leopold 2015) The ballroom as a setting highlights the performance of gender and is a space for the queens to dismantle the dominant gender norms (Cicchilli 2022) showing how gender can be exaggerated, stylized, and made visible as a performance- a living example of Butler’s theory. Their performances start a process of denaturalisation (Butler 1996). Judith Butler also presented the idea of speech act theory which is best explained by theorist JL Austin. Speech act theory divides common statements into two different categories: constatives and performatives. Constatives are declarations of fact while performatives are language-based changes of affairs, like officiating a wedding. The words spoken make people married, but only in specific circumstances. Gender performativity is deeply intertwined with feminist political philosophy, emphasising gender as a socially constructed phenomenon influenced by political interests. Gender is not a static identity but an ongoing performance. Performance and film go hand in hand, and so as a medium film has the scope to reflect these ideas cleverly.

Rubin discusses the ‘sexual division of labour’ as an important part of the sex/gender system, arguing that women’s subordination is enforced by economic structures that confine them to specific roles. Film narratives often reflect this division. For example, romantic comedies frequently centre around women’s labour in the home or their search for romantic fulfilment. For example, the Film ‘Crazy, Stupid Love’(2011) treats women as conquests. The women in this film are desired for their domesticity and motherly role while the men are rewarded and desired for no longer using and playing women. The film perpetuates the stereotypes in the division of labour as Cal the protagonist is forgiven by his wife Emily when called to fix one housekeeping crisis, as if a man helping a woman in the home makes him especially good. The film also only reflects heterosexual relationships. Rubin critiques binary oppositions that dominate societal views on homosexuality and coined the phrase ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ in 1975. This is the view that heterosexuality is enforced upon us by a heteronormative society. Its interesting to reflect and question whether heteronormativity in film has influenced self-identity throughout our lives?

Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler and Gayle Rubin offer essential insights for analysing film to construct and deconstruct our view on gender and sexuality. Their work has helped to create a foundation of feminism. This foundation allows for us to incorporate the ideas that strive for equality into everyday thought.

Bibliography –

Adamson, Andrew (Director) (2005) The chronicles of Narnia, The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe (Film). Walt Disney Pictures.

Allen, Woody (Director) (2019) A Rainy Day In New York (Film). Gravier Productions.

Amirpour , Ana Lily (Director) (2014) A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night (Film). SpectreVision.

Çakır, Deniz. ““A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” Is the Feminist Horror Movie of Our Dreams. Literally.” Medium, 25 Feb. 2018, medium.com/@breavous/a-girl-walks-home-alone-at-night-is-the-feminist-horror-movie-of-our-dreams-literally-b9d589a1475f.

Cicchilli, Francesca . Paris Is Burning and the Performance of Gender: Subversion or Reinscription? March 2022

Ficarra, Glenn and Requa, John (Directors) (2011) Crazy Stupid Love (film). Carousel Productions.  

Humm, Maggie. Feminism and Film. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1997.

Lambert, Léopold. “PARIS IS BURNING: GENDER, SEXUALITY, and RACE’S PERFORMATIVITY.” The Funambulist Pamphlets 11, Punctum Books, 2015, pp. 17–21. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/jj.2353907.5.

Livingston, Jennie (Director)(1990) Paris Is Burning (Film). Academy Entertainment

mena. “Identity and Feminism in a Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.” TCD MENA Review, 8 July 2022, tcdmenareview.com/identity-and-feminism-in-a-girl-walks-home-alone-at-night/.

Mottola, Gregg (Director) (2007) Superbad (Film). Columbia Pictures.

Mulvey, Laura. Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (2016) Afterall Books.

Lima, Kevin (Director) (2007) Enchanted (Film). Walt Disney Pictures.

Lord, Phil. Miller, Christopher (2014) 22 Jump Street (Film). Columbia Pictures.