SSC Film Studies

Get Carter representation of women - Anna

In the film Get Carter, the character of Anna is used for the audiences pleasure, the scene has no relevance to the narrative of the story as Carter is in Newcastle on the end of the phone line and not there with her do we don't need to see her rolling around on the bed. This helps to support Laura Mulvey's theory 'The Male Gaze' because it shows that the females purpose to this narrative is to be an erotic object for the spectator within the audience. She is shot in a very invasive way, close up shots of her body, camera between her legs which is very intimate and this is the audiences point of view, meaning we are forced to view her as nothing more then a sexual object. Moreover, she is being shot like she is being watched, we get a voyeuristic view, she has been fetishised to the fantasy of a heterosexual male.

In this scene, Anna is just doing what Jack tells her to which shows that he is in control of her whether she wants to or not. She is also pretending to get pleasure from it for his benefit to make him feel like more of a man. This shows that Jack lacks interest in her own sexual pleasure, she is passive in this scene while Carter is in control of her pleasure. Furthermore, he is using two women in this scene, whilst on the phone to Anna, Edna is sat in the rocking chair on front of him and listening to the conversation and Jack is staring right at her. This represents the power men still had over women as he is currently in control of two women.

When Jack says "wait till Sunday" he's in control of her sexuality and controlling whether or not she gets fulfillment sexually. As well as Fletcher walking in asking if she had gut trouble when she was on the phone with Jack, because it hadn't even crossed his mind that she could be seeking pleasure elsewhere as he views himself as the only person, even over her who can do that. This all indicates that Jack and Fletcher do not see Anna as having sexual desires of her own suggesting that sexual liberation failed or was not wide spread.

Another indication of the failure of female liberation in the 60's through to the 70's was that fact that Anna just stopped rolling around and talking to Jack on the bed is when Fletcher walks in and she just stops in fear of a man, meaning she believes that if he were to find out, he would possibly become violent towards her which wouldn't have been uncommon as in the 70's, there was a rise in violence towards women as traditional men with unchanged views of women were threatened by the control they were gaining. These traditional men believed that women should not have sexual liberation and should stay at home and be there to serve men. Jack pleasuring Anna with just his voice demonstrating his power and masculinity supports that fact.