Secondary research from text books

Using the text book Film Studies- Critical Approaches, edited by John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson , I found some really useful information on the roles and power of women within film. Molly Haskell looked like a really good case study, and her opinions strong. Haskell assumes that film 'reflects' social reality, that depictions of women in film mirror how society treats women. She believes that the effects of mainstream media advetise womens body images, giving them sex roles and showing violence against women. "An array of virgins, vamps, victims, suffering mothers, child women, and sex kittens."
'(Haskell) diagnoses violence against, and marginalise of, women in acclaimed 'New Hollywood' films, as reactions to the emergence of feminism and the threat posed by women's autonomy.'
She also comments on the 'womans' picture- or 'weepie' (such as The Notebook, or one of my case studies Bridget Jones)- a production category denigrated by the industry and most critics, which suggests that such films actually did represent the contradictions of womens lives.
Molly Haskells theory is interesting to me and my research. The two parts that i have highlighted in red suggest that she believes that films are a reflection on a womans real life. I had never considered this before. I think i might post a question online and see if, when brought to the attention, other people share this view, as i think its a valid point to consider.

Laura Mulvey is another women from this text book and i was intrigued by some of her arguments. She argued that 'the institution of cinema is charactersied by a sexual imbalance of power' and that women are somewhat defined as "to-be-looked-at-ness". Mulvey wrote an essay that explored the relationship between the image of women on screen and the "musculinization" or the spectator position.
Laura clearly believes that women and men are not equal on screen, and that women are created as sex objects to be looked at and desired on the screen. This agrees and supports a lot of research i have done already for this topic.
Overall these two women have provided me with useful insight and more importantly, their theories are more recent and relevant to Propps', as his were about folk tales whereas these women are refering directly to the roles of women on the screen.

Secondary research on box office statistics

I decided that i wanted to find out what the top 10 films in the box office were in 1985 and then compare them with the top 10 films in 2005 (20 years on) and see if the majority of them had males or females as leads. This would then show me that either the public prefers films that have mainly men/women, that men/women are more successful in the film industry in comparison to the other, or show me that times have changed over the last 20 years in terms of the types of actors cast and how successful they are.

1985:
The top 10 films of the box office in 1985 were (in order of 1- 10): Back to the future, Rambo:First Blood Part two, Rocky IV, The Color Purple, Out of Africa, Cocoon, The Jewel Of the Nile, Witness, The Goonies and Spies Like Us. Out of these, i used the Internet Movie Database (www.IMDB.com) to research the leading roles in each film. I discovered that 9 out of the 10 films were male dominated roles, and that one can be argued as a female role (Out of Africa staring Meryl Streep). Sylvester Stallone was popular, having been the male lead in the 2nd and 3rd most popular film at box office, as well as Michael J. Fox and Michael Douglas staring in lead roles. The genres of this films seem more for males, and not as versitile as some of the genres we know today. A lot of them were to do with gadgets, fighting and detective work, unlike the fun comedy and 'girly' films we know of today.

2005:
The top 10 films of the box office in 2005 were: Star Wars three, The Chronicals of Narnia, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, War of the Worlds, King Kong, Wedding Crashers, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Batman begins, Madagascar and Mr and Mrs Smith. Already, you can see a much more diverse genre here, in comparison to 1985. I would say that 5 films have a male lead role, and that the other 5 of them both have a lead male and a lead female, which could show a slight improvement of women in film now in comparison to 20 years ago. The most obvious example from the title of this film would probably be Mr and Mrs Smith, as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie star alongside eachother, and the woman gets to do as much shooting as the man does! Also, King Kong was shared between Hollywood stars Jack Black and Naomi Watts, although could be deemed as a sterotypical portrayal of women, much like Star Wars, where even though Natalie Portman stars as one of the main characters, a lot of the fighting is left up to the male characters, i.e. Ewan McGregor. Most of these films seem to come from books/comics (Harry potter, Chronicals of Narnia, Batman and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.)

Overall, I have found out that in 1985, the box office was slightly overtaken by the male actors overulling the females, however, in 2005 it is not that much different, however, females have been cast along side males in slighty more films 20 years on. I think that cinema still think that its the mens job to do all the fighting in films and become the hero, however, even though 2005 was mainly a year for Johnny Depp, Daniel Radcliff, and Tom Cruise, it was still a year for Angelina Jolie alongside Mr and Mrs Smith, and Natalie Portman alongside Ewan McGregor.
These figures prove that male leads are popular with audiences, or make a movie seem better in some way and therefore gain a lot of viewers, and that women have risen up in 20 years to claim some of the fame alongside male actors, making them more well known and successful too, in comparison to 1985, where the genres were not as broad and the female actrises not as well known.
I wil next do some institutional detailed research on the studios that created the top 10 films.

The validity of my research so far . . .

The secondary research that I did on the two articles at the start of my blog (one written by a girl and one by a boy) was no where near as reliable as i would have liked it to have been...as it literally is just their own opinion on the roles of women in films, however, i found it interesting that the boy was agreeing with the girl in terms of that there is a place for women to play bigger roles on screen. I wanted to make this research become more accurate and reliable, so i decided to do a quick verbal servey on 20 women (aged 17-30) and 20 men (aged 17-30) on what their own opinion on the roles of women on the screen is, if they should change, and then see if their opinions were the same as those who wrote the 2 articles. From the women, 17 of them believed that women had gone on to take greater leading roles in films more recently, and when i asked for examples of films i got charles angels, scream, bend it like beckham, and tomb raider. However, the remaining 3 of them said that they feel that women are portrayed as sex symbols more than having leading powerful roles, in films such as American Pie and Van Wilder. This shows me that the article written by the woman is now more reliable, as the women I asked repeated what she had basically said, which is that women are still used sexually to promote films, but that more and more women are taking the lead in a lot of films out there today.The mens response was a lot more varied i think, and didnt support the male article as much as it could have done. Although 14 men agreed that women had taken greater roles over time, they also said that they were still being used as sex symbols. Three of them gave the example of charlies angels, and that even though women play the lead they are still being promoted as sex symbols. The other 6 men (which were between 17 and 22) said that women were just used purly in films as sex symbols, and that men remain the main characters, such as James Bond and Indiana Jones.I believe that i have chosen the right films for my case studies too... As i wanted to close in on the question "the roles of women in films" I decided to chose 4 films from the 80's and 4 films from now (2000's) and explore how the roles would have changed over a period of 20 years. From the 80's i decided to look at Beaches as the main characters are two women...who are not portrayed as sex symbols throughout, An officer and a gentlemen as its about male pilots, and the women in it could be seen stereotypically (factory working) and then the terminator, which is a massive 'action man' role at that time taken up by a male actor, and Alien, which has exactly the same concept as the terminator, but has a lead female role doing all the fighting. I am then going to compare these films to more recent ones. Charlies Angels, as they are three lead women who go on missions and fight, (som might say only men are capable of this role) Brigit jones, which portrays a women in a sterotypical light which is a good/bad thing, and the lead of it is a woman. The 40 year old virgin, as its not a typical role that a male would lead in, as its not to do with war or guns, and Agent Cody Banks, as its like a younger version of james bond, where the lead is a male secret agent.Propps theory is valid to my research, as i want to compare his theory on folk tales and try to adapt it to the films ive chosen and see if it still applies today. I also looked at two other websites which had the same information on propps theory, so i know my research is a bit more reliable now.I will now continue with more research.