Tonal – In Scott Pilgrim, a good example of Tonal montage is the scene where Stephan Stills shouts back at Scott as they walk to a party, as well as the scene where he’s dreaming of the desert.

Metric – In Scott Pilgrim, this can be found in the Bass battle Vs the third ex boyfriend, while in Strike, this occurs in the scene where all the workers strike from the factory.

Context is important for both films, to influence how the feminist film theory is represented.

How social context influences the ‘final girl’ characters

Social context differs greatly for both films, and the 40 year age gap between them can suggest why the characters are different. Social reforms, changes or general state of the society differs greatly between the two films, because they have been produced during different time periods, where the society has changed rapidly overt the 40 years.

The impact of other films as inspiration for female character portrayal

Both films are similar in that they cite other films for reference, both in the visual style of the film but also the plot and basic concept. This also can be influenced by the years of which the films were produced and released, because of the film availability. For example, Alien was released at a time where horror was in its ‘golden age’, specifically with the slasher genre. Many of these films began to introduce a change in female characters, stereotypes and tropes which influenced Alien. Whereas Happy Death Day was released much later, at a time where the female character has developed, and arguably evolved. Many female characters after Alien: Sarah Connor (Terminator), Nancy Connor (Nightmare on Elmstreet) and Sidney Prescott (Scream) influence the character of Tree in HDD due to the typical ‘final girl’ traits with subvert the final girl trope by introducing new elements to the character

The changes from 1979-2017 and how the time difference is significant in how females are represented

Second wave feminism was a major driving force for why the final girl character was created, and how females in film (particularly horror) needed to be changed. During the late 1960’s, early 1970’s; female characters in horror were typically seen as victims who were used only to grow the antagonists kill count and appease the male audience. Whereas as feminism grew and became more mainstream, the characters of females began to evolve in horror.

For example the character of Mari Collingwood in the original ‘The Last House on the Left’ (1972, by Wes Craven) can be considered a victim rather than a survivor or final girl. Whereas with the 2009 reincarnation of the film, directed by Dennis Iliadis, the character has changed drastically. Film theorist Alexandra Heller-Nicholas argues that the remake of the film follows a more generic horror structure as it ‘manifests in the “final girl” elements of Mari’s character that are absent in the original’. The character in the original dies, whereas with the remake: Mari was a fast swimmer so could escape after being shot in the shoulder in the lake. This shows how the character of women in horror has changed over time, with the growth of feminism leading to the need for female characters to be strong and determined rather than meek victims to inspire other women rather than being objectified by the typically male audience during the 1960’s

Full Metal Jacket: 

Whiplash: 

Masculinity: 

Masculinity PDF 

Masculinity in Film has been present throughout mediums existence and has had multiple variations in history, one example of this would be in Full Metal Jacket, directed in 1987 by Stanley Kubrick, the story follows Davis, a private in the United States Marine Corps as he goes through basic training and his subsequent deployment to Vietnam during the Vietnam War. One character that shows this trait of masculinity is the character of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, In the movie Hartman is presented as cruel, brute and sadistic. This corroborates with the character of Terrence Fletcher in Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash (2014), where Fletcher is a teacher at a prestige music academy and often torments and frequently pushes them too far. Both characters in their respective movies are used to drive the narrative forward, with Hartman trying to ready the recruits for the harsh reality of Vietnam and Fletcher with his belief that musicians need to be pushed beyond their bounds. Both characters share traits that are considered ‘masculine’ and both of them are in positions of authority, so I decided to ask how much does the authoritarian masculinity of Fletcher from Whiplash and Hartman from Full Metal Jacket to drive the narrative. 

Film Focus: Narrative Theory

Film 1: A New Hope

Film 2: Raiders of the Lost Ark

Topic For Study: How is the hero’s journey shown through Raiders of the Lost Ark and A New Hope?

The most notable example of a feminist film theorist is Carol Clover, who studied the portrayal of females in the horror genre, particularly focusing on the ‘final girl’ and the significance of the idea to the slasher film genre. She argues the necessity of such character to the horror genre, defining them as “the embodiment of what a woman should be”. She justifies the need for protagonists in horror to be female, by suggesting that the surviving character needs to experience abject terror. Therefore the typically male dominated horror audience would reject a horror film showing abject terror as part of a male character.

However, she also argues that the ‘final girl’ isn’t necessarily a true representation of feminism because the characters would becomes masculinized in their final showdown with the antgonist through “phallic appropriation” (taking up a weapon – typically a large knife or chainsaw against their male antagonist).

Retrofitting is when a new film uses aesthetics and tropes that are associated with an earlier era – it is often used to pay homage to films of a certain era. A prime example of retrofitting is the neo – noir movement of the 1970’s and 1980’s because these films were often set during the 70’s and 80’s but they often had an unmistakable 1940’s aesthetic despite being set in later time periods.

Blade Runner was released at the height of the popularity of film noir – it is a prime example of how filmmakers have appropriated the style of the 40’s and used them in other contexts – the film is set in 2019 but the style of the mise en scene is directly inspired by the classic noir films of the 40’s and it can be argued that even the basic plot outline of the film was taken directly from films like The Maltese Falcon , which involved hardboiled detectives solving various crimes , all while their fundamental moral values are thrown into disarray due to the presence of beautiful women who are often duplicitous and they have an underlying reason for the pursuit of the male lead. In Blade Runner , all of the retrofitting is a deliberate homage to the classic noir films of the 1940’s.

Industry:

• Capitalism vs Marxism
• Film industry = extreme capitalism
• Film industry/studios only interested in money
• David Hesmondhalgh – Theories about Media industries
• Commodification in the cultural industries (turning everything into something that can be bought or sold)