Welcome to my film blog for English 230. This blog utilizes a critical lens to evaluate the contributions of various films and their importance in the study of women in film. The films I will be evaluating are primarily by female directors, and I will employ them as a framework to evaluate both the significance of a presence of female directors and criticism of their contribution to the study of women in film.The following films I will evaluate are Rear Window by Alfred Hitchcock , Stella Dallas by King Vidor, The Piano By Jane Campion, The Watermelon Woman by Cheryl Dunye, and The Beguiled by Sofia Coppola. I will also be identifying tht commonalities between all the aforementioned films and create a cohesive analysis of their utility in the English 230 course.
“The Watermelon Woman”
“The Watermelon Woman” Directed by Cheryl Dunye follows a young Black lesbian aspiring filmmaker (Cheryl), who probes into the life of Fae also known as The Watermelon Woman, a black actress active in the 1930s. Through the protagonist’s research about the beautiful black actress Fae, Cheryl begins to learn more about their identity as well. The film “The Watermelon Woman” was a complex and reflective film, which leaves the viewer pondering the deeper questions embedded in the film. The director Cheryl Dunye utilizes an autofiction approach to present the complex mirrored journey of self-discovery of queer Black women in film. The director utilizes various frames to signal a shift from fiction to constructed reality. In addition, While the director Dunye constructs this auto reality throughout the film paralleling the experiences of the protagonist Cheryl and her researcher subject Fae throughout the film, Dunye chooses to deconstruct the constructed reality created to pose an insightful question regarding representation, race, and gender to the viewer. At the end of the film, Dunye informs the viewer that a watermelon woman doesn’t exist. The director created this fictional reality to stress the importance of history and creating art reflective of ourselves. Sometimes you have to create your history. The Watermelon Woman is Fiction. (Cheryl Dunye, 1996)”. Oftentimes people use the limitations of historical research of marginalized groups as a scapegoat to exclude their narrative from the film. While black women are highly misrepresented, and excluded from history, that doesn’t excuse the absence of Black Women’s stories in cinema. Dunye stresses that marginalized communities don’t have the same liberties as our oppressors to simply capture related with the camera due to the exclusion of our realities. The marginalized have to construct their realities in the absence of reality. It was a powerful decision by Dunye to create“The Watermelon Woman” to illuminate the powerful stories of Black Women that have been omitted from history but also how imperative it is for us to actively pursue and recover these stories. In modern times there are few works that actively attempt to construct relatives reflective of the experiences of marginalized peoples that have often been omitted or erased.
In addition to the film’s focus on history, the film also interrogates race and sexuality, and class through the relationships between Cheryl and Diana and the Watermelon Woman and her White female film director. The audience is introduced to Diana, around the same time we are made aware of the relationship between the watermelon woman and her female director. The interactions between both Cheryl and her white love interest and the watermelon woman and her love interest are utilized to illustrate to the audience the role that class and race plays within both relationships. Both the Watermelon Woman and the Cheryl are Black queer women in the film industry attempting to find a place for themselves in the film industry. Both the character’s relationships with the white female counterparts serve to illustrate the role that race and class play in finding success and work within the industry. For the Watermelon Woman because she was a black actress during the ’30s the roles afforded to her were very limited. While Cheryl initially presumed that the film director and fae had a relationship, we become aware that fae worked closely with the film director in degrading rose to reach acclaim that was out of her reach due to both her race and gender. Cheryl’s interactions with Diana show her how both class and race enabled Diana to open doors that aren’t accessible to Cheryl without assistance.
In conclusion “The Watermelon Woman” poses a powerful question regarding whom we are forgetting? This question’s significance illustrates why “the Watermelon Woman” is such a resounding staple in film history.
“The Beguiled”
“The Beguiled ” directed by Sofia Coppola set in the confederate south follows a wounded Union soldier who is taken in by an all-female boarding school. This historical drama is adapted from a 1966 novel of the same name by Thomas P. Cullinan, and the 1977 film adaptation by Don Siegel. Sofia Coppola takes on this story and infuses it with the perspective of a female director unlike that of the two previous adaptations. “The Beguiled explores the gendered power dynamics at play during the civil war and successfully employs the female gaze within the film. In my essay, I will utilize the films “Rear Window”, “The Watermelon Woman” “The Piano” and “Stella Dallas” to subvert the male gaze, interrogate gender dynamics and reinforce the exclusion of marginalized narratives within film.
In the film “Rear Window” directed by Alfred Hitchcock, L.B. Jeffries, a news photographer, has a wounded leg and is bedridden for the duration of the film. Due to the male protagonist sustaining injury he utilizes the assistance of his girlfriend (Lisa) and his nurse (Stella) to serve as his helping hands while injured himself he seeks the aid of his two female companions to snoop into the lives of his neighbors. The male protagonist chooses to fill his time by prying into the lives of his neighbors and witnesses a murder. In the film, L.B. Jeffries’ injury serves as castration of his manhood. To compensate for his lost manhood he enlists the help of his two female companions to do his bidding. The “Rear Window” also utilizes the male gaze to objectify the female character present within the film. While both his girlfriend and helper Stella are active forces within the film, they are tools of the male protagonist to accommodate for his mobility rather than fully developed characters with agency. On the other hand in “The Beguiled ” female characters aren’t a tool of their male counterparts bidding, but rather they are a female collective over their male visitor. The beguiled is a “feminist fable” that challenges the gendered power dynamics in the confederate south. John McBurney, the wounded union soldier, is dependent on the women within the all-female boarding school to survive. The female character has agency over their male counterpart unlink in the film “Rear Window” while the protagonist of “rear Window uses his female counterparts to assert his power after his leg injury castrated him of his manhood, John McBurney has also been castrated of his manhood, but he isn’t in control his female counterpart are. When comparing both the “Rear Window” and “The Beguiled”, it is clear that the female director of “The Beguiled” chose to subvert male dominance within the southern social hierarchy rather than reinforcing it.
“The Watermelon Woman” utilizes an auto-reality film approach to present a constructed reality of a young Black lesbian aspiring filmmaker (Cheryl), who probes into the life of Fae also known as The Watermelon Woman, a black actress active in the 1930s. While the audience is made aware towards the end of the film that the research subject the “The Watermelon Woman ” is fictional, the director challenges us to manufacture our own stories. For marginalized people, our histories are often excluded from the narrative. “The Watermelon Woman” attempts to subvert the exclusion of marginalized people’s narratives through the construction of her own. The film’s continued prominence in the study of cinema can be explained by its revolutionary use of reflectivity in cinema. The beguiled on the other hand takes an opposite approach to that of the director of “The Watermelon Woman”. In the beguiled the director Sofia Coppola actively chose to exclude characters of color within the film. Looking historically at the period The beguiled was set, realistically there would have been enslaved persons on the large antebellum-style home that the all-female Southern boarding occupied. The director Sofia Coppola actively chose to exclude black characters from the film to avoid engaging in the topics of race and its implications during the period. Through this exclusion of actors of color with the film, the director constructed a reality reflective of the perspective of White women. The 2017 adaption of the beguiled continues the tradition of excluding the Black character from the film. The previous novel adaptations included that of two Black enslaved characters and the film adaptation produced in 1971 Included only one Black Character. Considering the period in which the 2017 adaptation was created, one would think there would be a reversal of the removal of Black Characters, but this is not the case. While the film attempts to give an explanation for the absence of Black characters within the film by stating “ all the slaves had left at the time”, this excuse of the absence of the slave narratives is an active choice by the director to avoid engaging in a more accurate portrayal of history. While “The Watermelon Woman” challenges us to investigate whom we are forgetting, and to construct ways to include their stories, “The Beguiled” on the other hand leaves other slave narratives within the confederate south. While both films chose to explore the role of gender within their respective films “The Beguiled” excludes the racial context of the southern social hierarchy, while “The Watermelon Woman ” negotiates an inclusion of race, class, and gender within the film.
When comparing the films “Stella Dallas” directed by King Vidor and “The Beguiled” there is a prevalent theme of motherhood and a presence of a male figure disrupting the female dominant sphere. In the film, “Stella Dallas” Stella is a compassionate and attentive mother of her only child laurel. Stella separated from her absent husband and isolated in her apartment, creates a loving female dominant sphere for her and her daughter. The characters Ed and her husband Stephen Dallas disrupt their home life through a dividing of mother and daughter. Her husband’s presence threatens her close-knit connection with her daughter, and the presence of her chaotic friend ed serves to disrupt her marriage and her relationship with her daughter. In “The Beguiled ” the presence of the wounded Union soldier service disrupts the relationships within the all-female boarding school. The Mother figure in “The Beguiled”, Martha Farnsworth, takes upon himself to correct the damage that the presence of the male character has created within the school. The presence of the wounded Union soldier endangers the lives of the female occupants of the boarding school, both out of risk of harboring a Union soldier and the danger that he poses to the female occupants. The 2017 adaptation of “The Beguiled ” serves as an empowering removal of the succubus-like presence of the wounded soldier, while in Stella Dallas, the female protagonist Stella is seemingly stripped of everything meaningful in her life by her male companions.
Similar to both “Stella Dallas” and “The Beguiled” the film “The Piano” follows the female protagonist Ada, a mother who is forced to move to New Zealand to live with her betrothed. Ada is stripped of her agency and her voice (her piano) by her husband and is coerced into an unethical sexual entanglement with the character George Baines. The character Ada is stripped of her agency by male figures within her life but eventually can leave her abusive marriage and be with the character Baines. While the character Baines is a complicated, highly problematic character. It seems as though both Ada and Baines’s relationship has potential for growth despite the unethical origins of their relationship. The character Ada is eventually able to escape the dominant male succubus within her life, her relationship with Baines signals that she has fully been able to subvert the oppressive gender dynamics. While the character Ada seemingly subverts her abusive male captor, she is then entered into a relationship with a man that coerces her for sexual favors. The film the piano is a unique middle ground to the film “Stella Dallas” and “The Beguiled” because the female protagonist Ada isn’t entirely able to subvert the abusive male presence in her life like in “The Beguiled”, she also doesn’t lose her agency to the male figures in her life as seen in “Stella Dallas”.
In conclusion, in the film “The Beguiled” the director Sofia Coppola successfully subverts the male gaze and the gendered power dynamics within the south during the civil war, while also failing to include the narrative of enslaved persons.
“Rear Window“
Much to my surprise, the film “Rear Window ” by Alfred Hitchcock is an intriguing, suspenseful mystery thriller. The film dives into the lives of the neighbors by the view of male protagonist Jeff. The male protagonist Jeff is a travel photographer, who was injured and is now confined to a wheelchair. Jeff gazes upon his neighbor who witnesses a murder of his neighbor. He enlists the help of his girlfriend and companion Stella to serve as his subservient helper in the solving of the murder. Considering the film being produced in 1954, the film still holds significant relevance today for two reasons. Firstly, the film’s prevalence of the male gaze is an exemplary example of the objectification of women in film for the consumption of the male viewer. Secondly, the film’s relevance resonates with the overconsumption of other people’s lives that plagues modern society. The male protagonist stalking this neighbor mirrors that of society’s fascination with the lives of strangers through social media. In addition, the male protagonist’s voyeuristic behavior mirrors that of readily available consumption of voyeuristic viewing in modern society.
The male gaze of the director is heavily prevalent throughout the film. The viewer is constantly subjected to disembodied female characters within the movie into digestible body parts. The male gaze within the film promotes a negative expectation for women to compare themselves to the images of highly sexualized and unrealistic depictions of women. The women in the film are presented to the audience in a very superficial, feminine, and hypersexualized lens. There is very little duality to Grace Kelly’s character in particular. Grace Kelly’s character is shown in an uptight, nurturing, and well put together light. Grace Kelly’s character is presented to the audience through the gaze of her love interest, which constricts the audience from viewing the character separate from how she is viewed by the protagonist. There is much time spent objectifying the female characters robbing the women of agency and prevents the audience from gaining a nuanced understanding of the female character in their entirety. The male gaze of the male protagonist Jeff also serves to disrupt the film, by taking up valuable time digesting the images of women within the film such as Grace Kelly’s character and jeff dancer neighbor that could be used for character development the female character, for the viewer to foster a deeper understanding of the separate from the protagonist view of them.
“The Piano”
“The Piano” directed by Jane Champion in 1993, is a historical drama set in the 19th century that follows a mute widow as she and her daughter are sent to New Zealand in an arranged marriage. The protagonist, Ada, has been mute ever since the age of six. She has chosen her piano as the vessel for her voice, to communicate her innermost feelings. In addition to her piano, her daughter Flora serves as her trusted companion, translating her thoughts to those who can’t understand her. Upon the mother-daughter duo’s arrival to New Zealand to meet the wealthy colonialist the protagonist Ada is married and they are promptly stripped of their agency. Throughout the film, the female protagonist Ada’s agency is constantly being ignored by both her husband and her love interest Baines who coerces her into sexual favors for her piano. “The Piano” interrogates and attempts to subvert oppressive gender dynamics While reinforcing an exploration of the female protagonist through her relationship with her male love interest Baines. Even though “The Piano” women is widely acclaimed it is imperative to integrate its contributions to the study of women in the film regarding the film’s focus on sexuality, gender, and colonialism.
In addition, I appreciated how “The Piano” consistently tied together both the themes of silence and the ocean. I think that the director made very powerful choices in the film by placing the piano by or in the ocean creating various scenes to show the relationship of the main character and her dependence on the piano. In addition, I thought it was interesting how in both scenes where the main character is by the ocean with her piano, the piano is left, but for varying reasons. When she first arrives at the beach her husband instructs that the piano is left because he thinks it isn’t as valuable as her other belongings and isn’t worth bringing. In a sense, he is leaving here a voice behind to become consumed by the powerful wave. On the other hand when she eventually leaves she willingly chooses to leave the piano and separate herself from this coffin-like instrument which was literally and figuratively dragging her down. Also, silence is a constant recurring throughout the duration of the film. When Ada discusses her relationship with her former husband while speaking to her daughter about her father, silence is what drove them apart. She says that her former husband became quiet and stopped listening to her. Her former husband became silent and was unable to interpret her silence anymore. Silence ruined her former relationship and silence was the issue with the current marriage. Her colonialist husband Alisdair doesn’t hear her and constantly refuses to acknowledge her wishes and agency. Unlike her prior husband, once her husband stops speaking to her, and starts listening to her inner voice piercing through the silence he can truly hear and understand her.
“Stella Dallas”
“Stella Dallas” directed by King Vidor, is a devastating Academy Award-winning film that follows the relationship between the female protagonist Stella, and her daughter Laurel. This Barbara Stanwyck classic performance invokes an immediate cognitive reaction by the viewer. This motherly melodrama explores the complexities and the sacrifices of motherhood. The main character Stella Dallas is a resilient and spunky woman, who resists changing her way of life and her view of the world. After Stella Dallas married Mr. Dallas she in a sense rejected his way of life and which inevitably drove them apart. Despite her outlook on the world, Stella still desired for her daughter to successfully assimilate into the life she rejected with her husband. Stella understood that to successfully prepare her daughter for the future, she would have to utilize the resources of her father and distance herself from her non-conforming mother.
After Stella walks away from the window and into the night, I speculate that the sacrifice that she made that night was her last. As Stella often mentioned, her daughter was her life, and without the constant presence of her daughter, I feel as though Stella and Ed entered into a self-destructive spiral of despair. While I believe hearing about her daughter’s life would bring her much joy with her decision, her inability to take part in it would inevitably crush her. The ending scene was both a goodbye to her daughter and a goodbye to her will to live.
Work Cited:
Bronson. The Watermelon Woman. New York, NY: First-Run Features, 1997.
Goldwyn, Samuel, Sarah Y. Mason, Victor Heerman, King Vidor, Barbara Stanwyck, John Boles, Anne Shirley, Barbara O’Neil, Alan Hale, Rudolph Maté, Harry W. Gribble, Gertrude Purcell, and Olive H. Prouty. Stella Dallas
Hayes, and Cornell Woolrich. Rear Window. Los Angeles, CA: Patron, Inc, 1954.
Herring, Gina. “‘The Beguiled’: Misogynist Myth or Feminist Fable?” Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 26, no. 3, 1998, pp. 214–219. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43796852. Accessed 2 July 2021.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”Film Theory and Criticism :
Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP,
1999: 833-44.Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.”Film Theory and Criticism :
Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP,
1999: 833-44.
Rao, Sonia. “Analysis | Sofia Coppola’s ‘The Beguiled’ Criticized for Leaving out a Slave Narrative from the Confederate South.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 21 Apr. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/06/22/sofia-coppolas-the-beguiled-criticized-for-leaving-out-a-slave-narrative-from-the-confederate-south/.
Sofia coppola. The Beguiled: American Zoetrope; Napoleonville, Louisiana FR Productions, 2017.
Staff, Harrison Tunggal | Senior, and Harrison Tunggal. “’The Beguiled’ Subverts Male Gaze under Coppola’s Powerhouse Direction.” The Daily Californian, 1 July 2017, www.dailycal.org/2017/06/29/beguiled-sofia-coppola-nicole-kidman-colin-farrell/.
Stella Dallas. Santa Monica, CA: MGM Home Entertainment, 2005.
The Piano: A Jane Campion Film. Toronto, Ont: Columbia Tristar Home Video, 1993.
Zimmer, Catherine. “Histories of The Watermelon Woman: Reflexivity between Race and Gender.” Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture, and Media Studies, vol. 23, no. 2, 2008, pp. 41–66., doi:10.1215/02705346-2008-002.
