Feminist Film Theory: An Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of feminist film theory. Feminist film studies, or ‘gendered film studies’, is intended to explore the ways in which women (and men) are represented by visual media, and film in particular. Feminists argue that media representations of gender perpetuate and reinforce the values of patriarchal society. Men tend to be cast in strong, active roles while women are shown as passive and merely ‘pretty’. ‘Woman’ comes to represent not one person of the female sex, but a stereotype, a category defined by men and in opposition to men. Stereotyping is not always negative, but it tends to preserve and perpetuate power relations in society. Even today, women have a relatively small role in constructing public images of ‘womanhood’. The chapter then looks at the contributions of two influential authors whose seminal texts have fostered new understanding of gender representation in the visual media: John Berger and Laura Mulvey.