Final Presentation Review

I enjoyed all of my fellow classmates' final presentations, but the topic I enjoyed thinking about the most was the one that Michael Adams presented.  He argued that for in order for a woman to be taken seriously, she must be seen as a man.  The film he discussed in class was G.I. Jane, but I thought of a few other films that show prime examples of woman trading their feminosity for masuclinity.  Though I have not personally seen it, I know the Hilary Swank movie Boys Don't Cry features around a girl cross dressing to get close to the girl she likes.  Also, films such as Disney's Mulan and Victor Victoria with Julie Andrews feature women struggling with their desire to be more masculine.

Also, Michael showed the class a link to a website devoted to the male gaze, so I thought I would put it up on my blog to share with others.

http://www.ltcconline.net/lukas/gender/pages/gaze.htm

   

Final Paper Topic

I have been thinking about doing my final paper topic in my women's film class on indie romance films.  I have chosen to link three movies together that have similar themes.  I am going to start out with Garden State and discuss Natalie Portman's "manic pixie dream girl" character, and from there tie in Paris, Je T'Aime,which features Portman in one of the shorts (the movie is a series of short films about finding love in Paris).  From there, I was going to talk about Amelie with Audrey Tautou.  I thought Paris, Je T'Aime would bridge Garden State and Amelie together, since Paris features Natalie Portman along with Garden State and Amelie is a French film like Paris and all three of them sort of deal with the standards of the "dream girl" and finding love in unexpected places, not to mention they all have an indie vibe to them.