Representation of Women - James Jones

How are women represented in the films that you have studied for this topic?

James Jones

The film that we studied was Get Carter (1971) and women are represented in the way that they were within the 1970s in the northeast. The film shows that women were used as objects and as tools to be used by males, for both business and sexual needs. This film is based in post 1960’s, which is often referred to as the “Swinging Sixties”. This time period is often seen as a time for women’s equal rights, and saw the rise of things such as the contraceptive pill which gave women a sense of freedom as they now had more control over their sex lives and had little fear of becoming pregnant. This however is not shown in the film Get Carter as women are still used and have little freedom within the film, and the film also shows how society is still a patriarchal one.  One way of the film represents women is how they’re always positioned. They are always within the house and are very rarely seen outside, showing that they were seen as mostly domestic objects.

An example of how women are represented in the film is the three characters that I am going to analyse, being the characters Glenda whom is used by Kinnear and Carter, Edna who represents the domestic women within the house, and Anna who is used as a sexual pleasure for Carter.  The way in which I am going to analyse them is with the use of Laura Mulvey’s belief that women are often seen as erotic objects for the characters and the spectators within the audience. This belief she named “The Male Gaze”. She also said that males in both film and literature, which could also mean in society in general, dominate women. Her belief is that society is patriarchal and that women play a “passive” role to the males. This theory can be applied to all three characters, and this shows how Get Carter represented women of the 1970s and also how the “Swinging Sixties” had little or very slow change for women.

The first example that I am going to use would be Glenda. Within the film, Glenda plays the biggest part out of all the women in terms of her function in the film. Carter uses her for sexual pleasure, but this then reveals the truth to Carter about what his brother had been doing along with his niece. However, within the film she is often shown to be the passive woman who is used by the males around her, both for business and sexual pleasures. For example, the part were Kinnear is gambling and Glenda is talking to Carter shows how women were used.  When she is first introduced, she is seen as an object that belongs to Kinnear, and she is used in an attempt to try and seduce Carter. Kinnear often uses her as a tool for his own needs, and she is often used to please men, such as trying to seduce Carter, as this is what Kinnear wanted, and Carter also uses her to please himself by sleeping with her. Another thing is that in each frame she within the gambling part she is always surrounded by men, and is often told what to do. She is also ignored when she is not doing her bidding for the men, and the men around her always drown her voice out. The fact that her voice is drowned out signifies her as a lower status and importance to the men, which is used to represent women, as this is how they were seen back in the 1970s. The male gaze applies to Glenda as well as she is used as an erotic object for both the spectator within the audience and the character of Carter, as Carter sleeps with her. The audience see her as an erotic object as well as she is shown naked within the bath, giving the impression to the audience that she is a sexual object.

The second example would be Edna. Within the film, Edna is used to represent women within the household, and women as a domestic object to be used by men. Her function within the film is to simply provide Carter with shelter and with food. She also never leaves the house, showing how domestic she is, and she fails on several occasions to assert her authority over Carter within her own house. Carter simply pushes this aside, telling her to “Make us a nice cup of tea” and then even rewarding her for her obedience as Carter says “I might even let you watch.” This shows how Carter is fully dominant, even within Edna’s house. She serves little purpose to Carter and to men, and is simply a domestic object for making food and temporarily providing sexual pleasure for men. Edna is simply used as a representation of how many men within the 1970s saw the role of women in society. The male gaze can still be applied to Edna, but mostly as an erotic object to Carter rather than the spectator, as Carter sleeps with her within the film.

The third example is Anna. She is the perfect example for the male gaze as within the film she is only used very briefly, but acts as an erotic object to both the spectator and for Carter. Carter uses her for his own sexual pleasures, even though he doesn’t actually see her while this happens as it is over the phone. Carter uses her to demonstrate his power over her, and also his masculinity, as he had managed to pleasure her using only his voice. The gaze still applies to Carter as he is imaging her at the time, and is still being used as an erotic object. As for the audience she is used as an erotic object from the moment she appears on screen, as she is seen taking her shirt off.