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.