quotes from article and arguement brave and snow white

Tuesday 24th September 2014

'The image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man.'

'The argument returns again to the psychoanalytic background in that woman as representation signifies castration, inducing voyeuristic or fetishistic mechanism to circumvent her threat'.

'It is the place of the look that defines cinema, the possibility of varying it and exposing it'.

'This is what makes cinema quite different in its voyeuristic potential from say, strip-tease, theatre, shows etc. going far beyond highlighting a woman's to-be-looked-at-ness, cinema builds the was she is to be looked at into the spectacle itself.  playing on the tension between film as controlling the dimension of time (editing, narrative) and film as controlling the dimension of space ( changes in distance, editing), cinematic codes create a gaze, a word, and an object, thereby producing an illusion cut to the measure of desire.'

in my opinion disney films used to display woman as more objects, but still playing an important roll in the film taking snow white for example she was a passive character, however she pushed the narrative forward making the male characters continue with the narrative. they move forward because they are chasing her...  However she is shown as domestic. she does the cleaning for the dwarfs, cooks their food etc and she's looking for her one true love, she is a raw material for the male characters she may be the active character but she is supporting and helping the male characters within the film. she is also saved by the dwarfs. creating the fact that she needs men to support her.

however the recent disney films such as brave, Merida is the main character however she isn't a dometic character she is displayed as very manly, and doesn't need men in her life. she is the daughter of the king and doesn't act like it she is expected to act womanly like her mother. she is nothing like snow white she is non- traditional,

however this could link with a more recent  "male gaze" theory. how i see it is that during the time snow white was made the views of woman was very domestic. and they were meant to act a certain way which in film displayed them as passive characters, and most disney films had a love story behind them so the story line linked in. damsel in distress, needs saving, fight of evil character, find true love, live happily ever after etc. but now, in modern day some people still see woman as very domestic and passive, but the majority, see woman as strong and equal and this is reflected within disney films as more equal