OCB: One Classy Broad

Movies for my Lights, Camera, Gender course

Lights, Camera, Gender (from the syllabus: “The films we will examine are situated in relation to three historical periods in relation to American feminism: pre-Second Wave [post-WWII through the 1950s]; second-Wave era & backlash (1970s and 80s); and contemporary [1990s-present]). We’re reading texts from Feminism at the Movies and texts that my professor will be uploading for us. Apparently after she got the text she realized that a lot of the essays and movies the text focuses on lack diversity and focus heavily on White movies and characters [partially due in part to the book discussing many mainstream films which we all know struggle with the concept of diversity], so she decided that she’d find a bulk of the texts we’re going to work with elsewhere. 

We have a 15-20 page research essay due at the end of the semester and it’s giving us the “opportunity to find out more about a particularly film genre, a film era, film tropes, or a dimension of feminist film theory”. I think I’m going to do blaxploitation films.

Films (I’ll break it down like the syllabus does):

1. Adam’s Rib
2. The Woman’s Film:Hitchcock’s Rebecca
3. Theorizing “The Gaze”:Some Like it Hot
4. Masculinity and The West I:Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
5. Masculinity and the West II :Brokeback Mountain
6. On the Road I:Fandango
7. On the Road II:Thelma and Louise
8. Queering the Screen I:Orlando
9. Queering the Screen II:Transmerica
10. Feminism and Backlash:Mona Lisa Smile
11. Postfeminism:Enchanted
12. Neofeminism???????:Sex and the City: The Movie (oh dear)
13. Women, Race, and Class:The Help

And the readings, in the same order as above (posted down here in case there were those who were interested in what movies we’re watching and not what the readings are. Understandably because some of the essays may not be readily accessible outside of the text we’re using. Maybe some can be found on ebscohost or Jstor, though). I think some of the texts we’re reading will make some of the film choices make more sense.

1. No text for Adam’s Rib as it was the first day
2. Doane, “Caught and Rebecca”
3. Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”
4. no text for Butch Cassidy because an essay is due
5. no text for Brokeback Mountain
6. Hansen-Miller and Gill, “Lad Flicks: Discursive Reconstructions of Masculinity”
7. Mulvey, “Afterthoughts on ‘Visual Pleasure’…”
8. de Lauretis, “Oedipus Interruptus”
9. Needham, “the Road to the Multiplex after New Queer Cinema”
10. No text
11. Schaap, “No Country for Old Women”; Tasker “Enchanted by Postfeminism”
12. Stapleton, “Music and the Woman’s Film”; Kaasabian, excerpt from Hearing Film; Gledhill, “Pleasurable Negotiations”
13. Gaines, “White Privilege and Looking Relations”; hooks “The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators”

I’m excited. I have this professor for two other courses (Intro to Feminist Inquiry and Feminist Theory I). I also had my Women, Crime, and Justice class today. Tomorrow I have my Gender and Society course (3 hours and 50 mins! Only one that fit my schedule, unfortunately). Tomorrow or Thursday I’ll post the readings for my Fem Inquiry and Theory class. I need to hit the hay soon.

17 credits this semester plus 2 jobs. I am going to be a very tired lady!