Anna - Get Carter

Anna, much like Glenda, is another female character who is used solely for the pleasure of male characters. She receives very scarce presence within the film, and upon her appearance is shown to be used for sexual gratification and nothing more.

The scene Anna makes her significant appearance in is the events that unfold after Carter calls her and talks sexually to her. Carter, over the phone, issues orders like 'take off your bra', to which we see Anna complies. In fact, the entire scene consists of a series of close ups of Anna's body parts, and how she rolls around in her bed in 'pleasure' at what Carter is saying. Interestingly, Anna is framed in a way that would typically insinuate that someone is watching her; the camera is obscured by different body parts coming close to the camera and the movement seems almost life-like. The importance of this is the oxymoron it serves; the entire film is taken from Carter's perspective, except for the fact that he is not even present to witness these actions from Anna. This would imply that the audience is the entity that is watching her. As an audience, we are forced to look upon her voyeuristically and sexually, which cannot be ignored.

The fact that Carter himself does not receive explicit sexual pleasure from these events is also significant. In contrast to his intentions with characters like Glenda, he is not using Anna as a way of receiving sexual gratification, but is using her to establish and maintain his power and control over her. Mulvey's Male Gaze theory isn't necessarily overt in this scene as it is with Glenda, though it is still present. We see Anna in the way that Carter is evidently imagining her (although he is staring intently at Edna whilst he talks), and we, as the audience, are also forced to see her as an erotic object. This scene comments upon the way in which gender roles in the 1970's operated; a masculine and authoritative figure gives orders to a feminine and vulnerable figure and they are expected to obey.

The position of this scene within the film is also of vast significance, in the sense that it effectively pauses the narrative. There are no clear decisions Carter makes on screen before calling Anna, which demonstrates how his need for dominance is impulsive and arguably primal.

Anna also makes an appearance at the start of the film, in which she takes on a fairly similar role. In the opening shot, Anna is seen in the bottom left corner of the screen, whilst Carter is seen in full, standing, making him appear much larger than she is. This acts as a visual signifier of their separate positions on the hierarchy of power - he towers over her, and she submits. The opening scene consists of several visual signifiers such as this. When the group of men talking to Carter are sat looking at pornographic images, we see Anna sat on the lap of another male. The camera pans from her legs to her face, once again fetishising her body rather than focussing on her as an individual (a whole.) She is shot in fragments and never in whole, showing that her importance isn't as a person with thoughts but as a body to be admired and sexualised. It is obvious, however, that Anna is not comfortable with the situation at hand, based on her wincing facial expressions. This is a comment on the idea of female liberation being a false facet