I feel as though the points Mulvey makes in her article, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" while still relevant today, are becoming increasing less so.
Today, I don't think films purposely try to oversexualize females because they see females as less of a person, or the "male other." I think oversexualization is prevalent in films because sex sells. America loves looking at beautiful people, as vulgar as it is to think about.
I think this subject looks mainly back at what we've talked about earlier in class about capitalism. Would Wonder Woman sell as well if she was a chubby girl with acne? No!
Its also important to remember now days this is happening to all people in media. Did Jacob need to be shirtless for the entire Twilight movie? Probably not. Did it encourage more hormonal tween girls to spend 10 dollars on the movie ticket? Of course!
I like to believe that we are past the point of passive female characters who don't move plot along. We can look at Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games, or even the whole cast of Bridesmaids. These movies are making millions and they barely rely on their male characters!
People are still sexualized but in a new way. For example, take the movie The Other Woman. The movie has three female leads. The plot would be literally nothing if you took them away. At the same time, we are still looking at actresses like Kate Upton and Cameron Diaz. Gorgeous women!
I think while we can criticize the way woman are looked at in movies, we sort of lead this double standard. This sounds terrible, but as a whole in our society, we don't want to idolize ugly people. As I said before, sex sells.
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