How do the representations of women in Get Carter reflect the time it was made in?

Get Carter is a British film set in early 70s, which comments on the effect of the "Swinging Sixties." The Swinging Sixties was the name for a cultural change where women where supposedly liberated thanks to fashion and culture changes like the introduction of the Contraceptive Pill. This film makes comment on this and through the way that it represents women, suggests that the Swinging Sixties were a mythology and not as liberated as the Swinging Sixties suggests.

The film starts with a shot of Jack Carter, the protagonist, who is framed in the centre of the shot. There is a woman in the scene, but she is positioned at the bottom left of the screen. This presents Carter as central and important to the film and top of the hierarchy in the shot, with women at the bottom of the hierarchy connoting a lesser importance. Carter is also standing up on his own, connoting his independence, with the woman sat of a chair, dependent on it for support. This suggests that the Swinging Sixties was more mythological than reality as she is not presented as an independent character, unlike the man who is, and also reinforces the idea of a patriarchal society with men at the top.

The next scene is of a room of men watching porn. Above the projector, is a painting of a naked woman, and the projection shows women pleasuring men. This mise-en-scene quite literally portrays women as objects of desire for men. Anna is the wife of one of the men and is the only woman in the scene and is outnumbered by man. The men are wearing suits where she is wearing a revealing outfit. When she is in the scene, she is only an erotic object for her husband, who is stroking and petting her like you would a cat. This dehumanises her as she is compared a simple animal unlike an intelligent and valued human. There is a long tracking shot which tracks up her body up, but quickly cuts away when it reaches her head, connoting that her body is the only reason that she is in the shot, which is reinforced as the men start discussing 'business' and then she is obscured by Carter's head, suggesting she is invisible and that her opinions are devalued. When we do see her face, she looks visibly distressed - but has no voice to express this. This suggests that when man is in the room, she is denied an opinion and an identity.

When Carter arrives in the North, he phones Anna and instigates phone sex with her. He tells her to remove her bra, which she refuses to - suggesting that she is liberated and in control of her body, but ultimately she complies with Carter's command. Even at a distance, Carter has control of Anna's body, which suggests that again women do not have the ability to disobey men. Anna takes off her bra and naked, but Carter cannot see this. This makes her an erotic object for the spectator, which is one of the two purposes of women in the film according to Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory.

• Close ups of body parts
• Camera between her legs

• Control of independent woman - Edna
• Glenda and the emotionless disposal of her.