☆ Features of Women’s Cinema: why intersectional female representation
is critical and a discussion of feminism in Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird ☆
Traditionally, “Women's films” have been films directed and written by males, yet for women (Butler 25). Narratively, these films follow a woman as the main character with “a concern for specifically feminine” problems. Today, women's cinema embraces all films made by women. Key features of women’s cinema are women behind the camera, women in front of the camera, and a narrative that investigates gender or feminism. Lady Bird (2017), directed by Greta Gerwig, is an intricate coming-of-age film about mother-daughter relationships and the anxiety of separation, told through a stunning lens of the female gaze. Lady Bird strikingly demonstrates the culmination and intersection of these elements of women’s cinema reflecting the importance of these features in both cinema overall, and society. However, Lady Bird lacks exploration of the coming-of-age experience, beyond that of the white female. The film’s success mirrors Hollywood’s necessity for more representation in order to tell authentic stories that truly represent the world we live in. Ultimately this essay contends that the label of “women’s cinema” is problematic and that intersectional feminism, through representation of all women on screen and behind the camera, is critical in achieving parity.
The most elemental feature of contemporary women’s cinema is a woman behind the camera – a female director or cinematographer. As men continue to dominate Hollywood’s executive roles (Lauzen), male directors and their “gaze” (Mulvey 7) remain the norm. This has structured how society sees and understands women and normalises men as maintaining the dominant positions on a film set. Women directors are therefore seen as novelties imposing in a masculinised sphere (Smith 3). The absence of female filmmakers in Hollywood, in comparison to the immense market of female filmgoers, previously meant men were the creators of women’s films, capitalising on this female audience (White). The stereotypical women’s film operated within a “paradox: it both held women in social bondage and released them into a dream of potency and freedom” (Butler 28). Feminist film theory coins “the male gaze” as the filmic structure of women as the object and men as the subject of desire – a symptom of imbalanced social power, between the man who looks and the woman who is looked at (Mulvey 8). It is a (sub)conscious societal endeavour to promote gender disparity fostering the structure of patriarchy and nurturing sexual hierarchy. The male gaze bestows connotations on women derivative of another (masculine) interpretation of the feminine physical text – the female body is fetishised as an object of desire. In this way, the woman on- screen possesses little agency – a direct, deliberate, and inescapable outcome of the patriarchal structures of power (Bigio and Vogelstein 137). The “female gaze” is a counter to the male gaze – it denotes a female filmmaker's point of view, a way of “feeling seeing" (Soloway). It has been considered a “subjective camera” attempting to "get inside" the protagonist (Soloway), showing the female as a diegetic storyteller rather than that of a voyeuristic spectacle. Abstractly explained by April Mullen, the female gaze is pellucid – the “veil between” spectators and filmmakers “is thin”, and this “allows people in more.”
Greta Gerwig captures Lady Bird through a women-centric, female-driven lens, the female gaze, constructing a cinematic universe where Christine's (Saoirse Ronan) voice, motivations, and aspirations take prominence. Christine renames herself "Lady Bird" and colours her hair pink, solely to be different – “to live through something” (Lady Bird 0:02:40-45) – constantly rejecting passivity and reflecting her desire for autonomy. Lady Bird is the driving force of the story, although her visuality is never the focus of the camera. Gerwig’s shots do not slow to gaze at Lady Bird but unfailingly draw attention to the protagonist’s dynamic presence with her strident dialogue and grand ambitions. Lady Bird is rebellious, fierce, and stunning, but the camera never frames her in a sexual display. The sex scene of Lady Bird in bed with Kyle (Timothée Chalamet), depicting the gauzy dividing line between girlhood and womanhood, observes the boy in fact as the object of Lady Bird’s gaze. Lady Bird is not topless, her expression never seductive, there is a complete absence of slow motion, freeze-frames, or close-up views of her figure that expose her to sexualised “to-be-looked-at-ness” (Mulvey 12). Instead, the scene is awkward and “un-special” (Lady Bird 0:59:25-30) reflecting the reality of many girls’ ‘first times.’ However, through Kyle’s indifference, and violation of Lady Bird’s trust, Gerwig simultaneously writes a scene that is unremarkable and yet exposes the heartbreaking sexual power constantly at play in a patriarchal world. Despite Gerwig, through her camerawork, giving Lady Bird full control over her own “deflower[ing]” scene (0:56:20 – 0:58:17), Lady Bird exhorts that there is only so much power a woman can have and, with Kyle’s revelation of not being a virgin, Lady Bird’s agency is revoked. While her titular status, coupled with Gerwig’s female direction, allows Lady Bird to transform the traditional male desire into female desire, granting her the possession of power and the gaze, Gerwig demonstrates how Lady Bird will learn to navigate her body as a woman in a male-dominated world, because this is the reality of America. Thus, Gerwig directs a film through the female gaze that not only views women as people, without objectification but provides discourse on the problem with the patriarchy.
Furthermore, women in front of the camera – actresses playing female characters – is an important feature of ‘women’s cinema.’ By having female characters shot and directed by female crew members, women’s cinema has revealed the significance of representation in media. Many filmmakers, such as Gerwig, are overturning society’s patriarchal codes and structures. However, outside this limited scope, “women are still less visible than men” on screen, treated as a novelty, and often represented in stereotypically sexualised, and gendered frames in cinema (Smith 7). Lack of rounded, well-written female representation in film contributes to a narrative that women are objects existing only to satisfy the male gaze. When “forms of female agency and desire” that expose themselves in film to be dissimilar to the “romanticised emotional passivity,” they are “disapproved of” by audiences (Wallace 184). Deconstructing the Hollywood film and investigating the dichotomy which separates women from “heroic” roles (Thornham 12), Sally Potter (Thriller, 1979) plots how a simple gender reversal of the classic Oedipus trajectory narrative – hero to heroine, male activity to passivity, subject to object – simply “does not work” and seems “absurd” to the common audience (Thornham 4). Potter’s piece makes clear the narrative structures on which these oppositions are based are fundamental to one’s sense of identity. As Heilbrun (144) asserts, “we live our lives through texts” and whatever their medium, these stories “form us.” Thus, to expand the contours of female subjectivity, cinema must cease representing women as victims and instead as empowered – the “heroes” (Thornman 129).
At the forefront of Lady Bird’s narrative is the portrayal of Lady Bird’s relationship with her mother. Lady Bird is fiercely independent, her own ‘saviour’ and never the ‘girl that needs saving.’ Gerwig portrays the female coming-of-age experience with a brutal honesty. Lady Bird finds her mother, Marion (Laurie Metcalf), overbearing and judgemental - constantly asking her to hang her clothes up and criticising her choices through quips – “is it too pink?” and “I suggested you not have that second helping of pasta,” (Lady Bird 1:05:20-48) – or even a single look – for example, when Lady Bird questions, “what if this is the best version [of myself]?” and Marion glances to her sceptically, saying more in an expression than any piece of dialogue could (1:06:23-36). It had better not be, Marion seems to reply. Marion straddles the narrow line separating critique and helpfulness. For Lady Bird though, each comment asserts an attack on her individuality. Both characters are flawed, and this dynamic relationship is the true achievement of Gerwig’s script; female characters are allowed to be impaired without being stereotypical and the viewer losing affection for them. Thus, the film celebrates women, their complexity, imperfections, autonomy, and the connections they share with one another. Moreover, this burdensome attention Marion continues to give Lady Bird, audiences come to realise, is a form of love, with Sister Sarah Joan (Lois Smith) asking, are they not “the same thing, love and attention?” (1:04:30-47) Lady Bird encapsulates, sensitively and honestly, the overbearing, burdensome, fighting, yet intensely connected and rich relationship between a mother and a daughter. This realistic portrayal of parenthood and children’s naivety – not understanding that parenting can be quantified by a monetary “number” (0:54:00-20) – and Lady Bird’s free-spirit, constant striving to be “true” (0:15:50-55), represents women as multi- faceted, agentic, and empowered. This representation dismantles the patriarchal narrative that has previously shaped perceptions of women. As Marion Write Edelman holds, one “cannot be” what one “cannot see.”
While female-driven cinema is indispensable in confronting the colossal problem of sexism in the film industry, equally, this feminism must be intersectional if cinema is to move our culture forward to be inclusive. Lady Bird’s success highlights the growing recognition for white female filmmakers. However, the film’s patent whiteness demonstrates the problematic nature of Hollywood. The popularity and acceptance white feminism finds in Hollywood today, seemingly fails to recognise the importance of representation outside a white, heteronormative sphere. This lack of diversity reflects the ideals that permeate the entirety of Hollywood and America itself. By labelling this film as “truly feminist” (Williams), the underlying implication is that feminism is young, straight, and white – a concept that excludes so many people and stories. Other marginalised communities need to be recognised as requiring representation and needing to be “seen” (Edelman) to the same extent. To critique Lady Bird for its lack of exploration outside the white, heteronormative sphere, and to place this burden of representation on Gerwig alone though, is unfair. No filmic endeavour can seek to represent every person and every community accurately and equitably. Furthermore – just as any artist creating art – being a white woman, Gerwig’s experience reflects those of a white woman. Thus, her capacity to represent anyone but herself on screen is limited. De Lauretis (159-60) holds that the importance of cinema is not just “what is shown” but “how it is shown.” Arguably therefore, for Gerwig to write and direct a story that is not her own, she could easily misrepresent the people of these different communities, doing more harm than good (Green 34). Interestingly, white female filmmakers creating consumable feminist content that represents young women – a demographic still grossly underrepresented compared to its male counterpart – as strong and multifaceted, receive such backlash for their lack of representation, while filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese (Fraiman) and Quinton Tarantino (McCarty-Simas) (Tapia) – to name only two directors that “represent false images of women, stereotypes that damage women’s self-perceptions, and limit their social roles” (Thornham 213) – are white, straight men creating films with, and about, white, straight men – do not receive the same critique to the same extent. In this way, it is evident that the patriarchal structures and gendered double standards of western society still tower over Hollywood and America. While it can be argued that these men also would be disingenuous to represent characters that are not a reflection of themselves, it appears the problem with Hollywood is its extreme structural barriers in place, that disallows filmmakers of all races, genders, sexual orientations, and abilities, to work behind the camera, which in turn denies well-versed representation of this diversity on-screen. Thus, while Lady Bird is a wanted and needed piece of cinema in Hollywood – its overwhelming success and acclaimed reception mirrors the inequity directors of colour and other marginalised filmmakers face in having their voices heard.
Furthermore, the very designation of a ‘Women’s Cinema’ genre, requests that this cinema obeys a defined style, or “thematic mark” in order to indicate the presence of women behind the camera (de Lauretis 158). In doing so, this label simplifies and “universalises” the “look and sound” of female-identifying filmmakers (158). Patricia White’s study speaks to “women’s cinema as art cinema” which infers women filmmakers' films are a subsection of cinema and therefore "novel," "foreign," and and this limits female director’s “role in the public sphere” (Smith, 5). Hollywood’s configuration currently reflects the patriarchal structures of western culture (Lauzen). To that end, directors lacking “cultural capital,” as White (123) coins, cannot harness power within the industry to create their films, highlighting the serious systemic issue Hollywood, and therefore the western world, faces. This perpetuates a self-fulfilling prophecy – that for people of colour, the initial challenge is simply “being seen” (Edelman). This surrendering to a ‘subsection’ definition tolerates “hidden agendas of a [patriarchal] culture” that desperately needs to change (de Lauretis 158). Ultimately, categorising a “feminine or female aesthetic” delineates female directors into a fixed edifice and culture, and prohibits development and experiment separate to this strict categorisation (154). Classifying ‘women’s cinema’ as a genre is to tolerate confinement within the patriarchal conventions of Hollywood and western culture – it is to tolerate being seen as ‘other’.
To define women’s cinema would be to deem a type of “minor cinema” that exists inside other cinemas (White 51). While White argues this allows women to transform and challenge the conventions, codes, and systems of the larger filmic traditions from within, ultimately the “master’s tools” cannot “dismantle the master’s house” (Lorde 1). While there is an emerging acknowledgement for white female filmmakers, the industry needs broader diversity in the film industry itself - more non-white, non-binary, non-heterosexual filmmakers - to ensure more depiction of minorities on-screen and will provide a genuine perspective which audiences around the world desperately crave. There is no denying there is a serious necessity for more feminist films to be made to challenge and oppose the issue of sexual discrimination in the film industry. Female-centric films are saluted and appreciated – however, this feminism needs to acknowledge the interconnected nature of all social categorisations, not only that of gender, that currently work as systems of discrimination and disadvantage.
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Anna Champion | Tutor: Suzannah Henty
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