Hollywood’s Postwar Feminine Masquerades

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Megan Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Gender Representations ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
Gender Categories ◽  
Representations Of Women ◽  
Calamity Jane

This chapter examines representations of women and issues of femininity and feminine performance with respect to anxieties about authenticity and passing. A number of Hollywood films featured masculine women who played with categories of masculinity, such as Calamity Jane, Johnny Guitar, Touch of Evil, and Sayonara. Other films, like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Peyton Place, and All about Eve, implied that women were performing femininity or raised the issue of “passing for normal.” The chapter considers how idealized, overly constructed gender representations in Hollywood films reinforced rather than negated the ambiguity of gender and how femininity itself was suggestively constructed as a passing performance. It explains how Hollywood's images of feminine masculinity lent credence to perceptions that gender categories were breaking down and how representations of ambiguous women in Hollywood films refused to focus on anxiety.

scholarly journals „Kopciuszek”, „Amant”, „Brzydkie kaczątko”. Reprezentacje płci w telenowelach latynoskich

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1(9)) ◽  
pp. 105-128
Author(s):  
Grzegorz Wójtowicz
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Local Culture ◽  
Poor Woman ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Male Role ◽  
Gender Representations ◽  
Femininity And Masculinity ◽  
Ugly Duckling ◽  
Representations Of Women

„Cinderella", „The Cupid", „The Ugly Ducking". Gender Representations in Latin American Telenovelas The aim of the article is to present typical representations of women and men in Latin American telenovelas, shaped on the basis of images of femininity and masculinity in the local culture. A standard scheme of a poor woman and a wealthy man is presented, with strongly exposed ideological elements of marianismo, machismo and malinchismo. A typology of characters has been proposed in relation to the character and conduct of the screen characters. The female characters discussed are: „Cinderella”, „The Ugly Duckling”, and in the male case, „The Amant”. This categorization is subjective in nature, and its purpose is to draw the reader’s attention to the way in which female and male role models and their attributes have been culturally represented in the twenty years, 1997–2017.

“Both Body and Meaning Can Do a Cartwheel”1

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Megan Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Method Acting ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
Crisis Of Masculinity ◽  
Gender Categories ◽  
Stable Categories

This chapter examines the crisis of masculinity as represented in Hollywood and on film. Evolving representations of masculinity were framed by the psychoanalytic turn in Hollywood, the objectification and eroticization of male bodies, the dominance of method acting, and questions about the nature of identity. These images uncoupled the stable categories of gender and sexuality, giving rise to more nuanced and anxiety-ridden representations of masculinity. The chapter considers how postwar Hollywood films charted a perceived breakdown of secure gender categories and by implication, a breakdown of sexuality. It discusses how “crisis of masculinity” films produced ambiguous masculine ideals, epitomized by the postwar “sigh guys.” Films that explore the passing guises of masculinity, such as The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Rebel without a Cause, Vertigo, and Some Like It Hot, are analyzed.

On the Semantic Content of Grammatical Gender and Its Impact on the Representation of Human Referents

2010 ◽  
Vol 57 (5) ◽  
pp. 367-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Irmen ◽  
Julia Kurovskaja
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Content ◽  
Grammatical Gender ◽  
Differential Effects ◽  
Gender Information ◽  
Masculine Role ◽  
Feminine Role ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender Categories ◽  
Open Question

Grammatical gender has been shown to provide natural gender information about human referents. However, due to formal and conceptual differences between masculine and feminine forms, it remains an open question whether these gender categories influence the processing of person information to the same degree. Experiment 1 compared the semantic content of masculine and feminine grammatical gender by combining masculine and feminine role names with either gender congruent or incongruent referents (e.g., Dieser Lehrer [masc.]/Diese Lehrerin [fem.] ist mein Mann/meine Frau; This teacher is my husband/my wife). Participants rated sentences in terms of correctness and customariness. In Experiment 2, in addition to ratings reading times were recorded to assess processing more directly. Both experiments were run in German. Sentences with grammatically feminine role names and gender incongruent referents were rated as less correct and less customary than those with masculine forms and incongruent referents. Combining a masculine role name with an incongruent referent slowed down reading to a greater extent than combining a feminine role name with an incongruent referent. Results thus specify the differential effects of masculine and feminine grammatical gender in denoting human referents.

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