SSC Film Studies

How do women represent the time in “get carter”?

Female characters such as Edna, Glenda and Anna represent women of the 70s as one of two things, either an erotic object or a servant to the male characters.

There are many examples of this through out the film. One example is Glenda. Glenda is used as a sexual object and also and assistant to the male characters both Carter and Kinear. In the first scene she is present, she is made to serve the men drinks and conforms to anything she is told to do. She also flirts with Carter, which makes her a sexual object. Through out the movie Glenda is filmed as a typical parody of a bond girl. she is used by Carter for pleasure, and there are a lot of close ups of her body, to titillate male audience members, also the bath scene is used as a way to entice the male audience. Once Glenda’s duty are fulfilled she is disposed of.

Another female character who was used only to entice the male audience was Anna, in the phone sex scene she is made to be a sexual object, she got naked for carter and we as an audience saw it, this was obviously not for carters pleasure because he couldn’t see it this was purposely to please the audience. This is also shown by the close ups of her body parts.

Edna is a much more interesting character, she had dignity and was an independent woman, this is until Carter enters her home and takes the power away from her. Edna becomes subservient to Carter and a sexual object for carter. She  has moments where she tries to regain power by saying things such as “ill call the police” and carter threatens her by saying “no you wont. Cause I know you wear purple underwear” which implies that he will tell people she slept with him and ruin her reputation as an independent woman who owns her own business. Edna is domesticated by carter he tells her to make him a cup of tea and she complies, he then rewards her for her obedience by letting her stay to watch what he is doing.  Her opinions are not considered due to her being a woman.