Hi,
This week I would like you to read the example essay I have put below. It is based on the two films we have watched. You will have to write something similar for your controlled assessment, based on the two media texts you chose last week.
Compare and
contrast the representation of gender in the films Sherlock Holmes and Slumdog
Millionaire
Over the years, the portrayal
of gender in the world of film has changed. In the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, it was
common for women to be portrayed as the weaker sex, represented as housewives,
secretaries, or modern representations of the helpless fairy-tale princess,
imprisoned, waiting to be rescued by a handsome prince. It was also common for
women to be portrayed as sex objects, whose main purpose was to be the object
of men’s desire. By contrast, men, whether they were heroes or villains, tended
to be shown as physically strong, mentally superior and not afraid to put women
in their place. One example of this is in the James Bond film Goldfinger, in which Bond pats a girl on
the backside, telling her to leave him and another male character alone for ‘man talk’. In a later Bond film, The Man With the Golden Gun, he has to
rescue his colleague, Goodnight, from the clutches of the evil Scaramanga.
Although Goodnight is actually a secret agent herself, she is still very much
the stereotypical helpless female: blonde, physically attractive, not
especially bright and in need of saving by a male.
Whilst the portrayal of men
has stayed largely the same in the twenty-first century (Daniel Craig’s Bond is
as stereotypically macho as ever and Sylvester Stallone’s interpretation of
male heroes in The Expendables franchise
plays on eighties ideas of muscle-bound masculinity), women have gradually
begun to take control of their own destinies. Perhaps the best examples of this
are in the Lara Croft Tomb Raider films,
in which Angelina Jolie essentially portrays a female version of Indiana Jones
and in the Hunger Games films, where
Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss has to survive in an arena of death and bloodshed.
This essay will focus on the
representation of gender in the films Sherlock
Holmes (2009) and Slumdog Millionaire
(2008). Although both are contemporary films, the male characters in Slumdog Millionaire have very old
fashioned attitudes towards the main female character, Latika, whereas Irene in
Sherlock Holmes, is an altogether
more independent and physically able character.
In Sherlock Holmes, there are
three main male characters, Holmes, Watson and Lord Blackwood and one main
female character, Irene. In some ways, Holmes and Watson are very stereotypical
male characters: they are both white, roughly in their thirties or forties and
are both physically attractive with full heads of hair, even features, and in
good shape. They are played by Robert Downey Junior and Jude Law respectively,
who are both considered to be Hollywood sex symbols and were both cast probably
because they were likely to attract as many female viewers as male. Holmes also
has something in common with the eighties macho stereotype in that he likes to
fight. In an early scene, we see him, shirt off, engaging in a fist fight with
another man. He does not rely merely on brute force, however, to defeat his
opponent, but rather, thinks about every move before he makes it. In this way,
he is both upholding and subverting ideas of masculinity all in one go.
Another way in which Holmes
subverts ideas of masculinity is through his relationship with Watson. Their
relationship is slightly different from that of stereotypical male characters,
particularly in eighties action films such as Predator or Rambo. In these
movies, the male characters think of themselves as brothers who look out for
each other, often giving each other high fives and rarely showing any emotion
other than anger or satisfaction at a job well done, whereas Holmes and Watson,
with their constant bickering, are more like an old married couple. There is
even the possibility that Holmes might actually be attracted to Watson, hence
the difficulty he has dealing with the idea of Watson getting married and
spending less time with him, and this certainly challenges the conventions of
gender and sexuality in Hollywood.
Unlike the stereotypical fairy-tale
princess, Irene is a strong character, both physically and intellectually, who
quite often takes control of situations. Her physical strength is highlighted
in a scene early on in the film where two men attempt to attack her, but she
uses her physical prowess to overpower them. There is another scene later on
where she asserts her control over Holmes using both her brains and her body.
The scene begins with her discovering him hiding in a cupboard in her room,
then tricking him into drinking some wine which she has drugged. She interrupts
her chain of thought by stripping naked in front of him before disappearing
behind a screen, then re-emerging. Holmes is actually there to warn her of an
impending danger and that she should leave London, but she refuses, claiming
that she can look after herself. The framing of some of the shots is
significant in this scene because they show the shift in power; there is a shot
in the middle of the scene which features the two characters, with Holmes
physically higher than Irene because he is taller, but by the end of the scene he
has drunk the poison and collapsed into her arms.
Despite Irene’s early
successes, the climactic scene towards the end of the film in which Holmes
finally defeats the evil Lord Blackwood reverts to a very stereotypical
portrayal of gender. She is knocked off the top of Tower Bridge by Blackwood,
leaving him to fight Holmes, only to be defeated. Holmes then discovers Irene
lying on a platform we did not originally see, and she comes to with her head
on his lap in a complete reversal of the earlier scene in which she poisons
him.
The representation of gender
in Slumdog Millionaire is in some
ways different from Sherlock Holmes, but
also in some ways similar. The
protagonist, Jamal, is very much a subversion of more traditional ideas of
masculinity: he is relatively young, very scrawny, and has to use his brain to
navigate his way through a quiz and win the heart of Latika, the girl he loves.
In this regard, there is a parallel to be drawn between himself and Holmes, who
also uses his intellect to save the day, but Jamal possesses none of his
Victorian counterpart’s physical attributes. At the start of the film he also
finds himself being held for questioning by police who can’t believe that
someone from the slums could have got as far as he did on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and is completely unable to
overpower his captors and escape. Like most of the other male characters in the
movie, however, his older brother, Salim, is more of a stereotype: he is a
gangster who dies in a gunfight after setting the captive Latika free.
In one respect, Latika, the
female love interest in the story, is similar to Irene: she is young,
attractive, and we get the sense that, if she were given the chance, she could
make something of her life. Unfortunately for her, however, she never gets the
chance as, at no point in the film does she have any control over her own
destiny and is completely at the mercy of the men in the film. In one scene,
Jamal and Salim have to rescue her from a brothel where she is being made to
dance for men, and in a later scene she finds herself ticking all the boxes of
the female stereotype: she is held captive in the house of the gang leader who
has taken a liking to her, and when he comes home from work and demands a
sandwich, she has to go into the kitchen and make it for him. Here she is both
the fairy-tale princess waiting for her handsome prince to come and rescue her,
and the 1960s housewife as portrayed in Mad
Men, staying in, waiting for her male partner to come home.
In conclusion, the two films
represent gender in ways which are both similar and different. Holmes and Jamal
are both smart, but one is physically strong, the other weak. Irene and Latika
are both attractive and the object of men’s desires, but while one is feisty
and independent, the other never has the opportunity to be anything other than
completely dependent on the men around her.
Due: Friday, 10th October
