Are women manipulative in film?

Are women manipulative in film? 

In my essay I am going to explore film to see if women use there looks or personality to get what the want, here are a list of films I am going to use and a write up on the women. 

 

1. Demi Moore as Meredith Johnson in Disclosure (1994) 

Moore plays Meredith Johnson, a sexy, dangerous corporate executive out to ruin the life of her ex-lover and workplace subordinate, Tom Sanders (Michael Douglas). Johnson uses every devious trick in the sexual harassment book to break apart Sanders’ marriage and destroy his career. This is one bad-ass boss. 

2. Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction (1987) 

Way before the days of Tiger Woods and his harem of side-ladies, Glenn Close stole the show as Alex Forrest, the extraordinarily clingy editor in this scared-straight flick for adulterers. Family man Daniel Gallagher (Michael Douglas again) hooks up with Alex for what he thinks is a weekend fling. Then he stops taking her phone calls, and she boils his wife’s rabbit. Hell hath no fury.  

3. Megan Fox in Jennifer’s Body (2009) 

Perhaps wanting to overcome her reputation as “Angelina Jolie lite,” Megan Fox wrecks shop as Jennifer Check, a really, really mean high-school girl…the type of girl who comes back from the grave to terrorize the Satanist who killed her. And also the type to seduce and brutally murder the school football captain, the emo guy and her best friend’s boyfriend.  

4. Rosario Dawson in Trance (2013) 

In Trance Rosario Dawson uses hypnotizing powers and deceiving looks to steal a painting from the people she works with, she is also the only woman that is featured in the film.    

5. Eva Mendes in Hitch (2005) 

“Dating gurus” are everywhere these days, but Alex “Hitch” Hitchens (Will Smith) was ahead of the curve, teaching losers to Mack on celebrities in this rom-com. A lot of women are sceptical of this sort of thing, and, as gossip columnist Sara Melas, Mendes sees through Hitch’s tactics and slowly dismantles him. To her, he’s just another average, frustrated chump. 

In my essay I'm going to test to see if Laura Mulveys male gaze theory is true, the theory indicates that women are only in films for men so they can look at them, in most films this is true but I am going to challenge this theory to show women in a different light, I'm going to show that women can be manipulative to get the things they want. I have chosen the films above because they all have 'Psycho' women in them, when watching the films I will analyse the characters and see what they're motives are and see why they are the way they are. Mulveys main theory is called 'the male gaze', this was to show that the female actresses in the 50s and 60s were to be looked at. She suggests there are 2 modes of the male gaze of these era, 'voyeuristic', for example seeing women as 'whores' and 'fetishistic' seeing women as Madonnas.  The theory is to show that women were there to be seen and to entice men into the film.  

Marjorie Ferguson has Four main looks which include; the Chocolate Box, Invitational, Super Smiler and Romantic/Sexual, these looks are mainly associated with female models.  Chocolate Box This is a look where a female model shows a slight smile, showing as minimal amount of teeth as possible, the lips tend to be closed and the face isn’t shown full on face forward. Invitational This look which focuses mainly upon the eyes, and mouth which will be closed although the model will be smiling with her head to one side, as if to be looking down upon the invitee. Super Smiler When a model is showing this look she’ll show her full face with a full teeth smile with either her head tilted forwards or backwards. Romantic or Sexual This look includes both a female and a male in the picture, it will seem as if it is a dream and it should be very sexual