How Gender is Represented in "Vertigo" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"

Vertigo

The first representation in vertigo is that Scottie, the male character loses his strength and power as he becomes more obsessed with the female. As the film goes on Scottie falls in love with the woman he is investigating, this is shown and comes to its climax when Scottie meets Judy, the actress who played Madeleine in the murder and Scottie notices she looks similar and professes his love for her very quickly and promises to look after her, he then forcefully makes her change her appearance as he's completely obsessed with Madeleine.
Another representation is that the suggestion of a passive female is challenged by the secondary female character. Madeleine is very passive as she doesn't actively do anything for Scottie to fall in love with and Scottie doesn't treat her as an equal however Midge is very active as she's part of the reason Scottie finds out about Carlotta due to her introducing him to the book keeper, Scottie also treats her as an equal because he simply isn't sexually attracted to her as he is Madeleine.
The last representation in Vertigo is that due to the placing of much of the camerawork from the male's point of view serves to make the audience identify with the male and therefore sympathise with his sexist viewpoint. Throughout the film, especially when Scottie is following her, the audience sees how Scottie sees her as a sex symbol and the audience understand he's chasing this woman he's become obsessed with whilst working. This helps reinforces the stereotypes of this time as women were seen as objects especially in film and Kim Novak who played Madeleine/Judy would have been a huge pulling force for men to watch Vertigo.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The first representation in One Flew Over is that the film is way ahead of its time of the way it represents femininity. Throughout the film nurse Ratched is authoritative and she's admirable due to how strong she is, she runs a ward full of men, men that shout abuse at her and disagree with nearly everything she says but regardless she stays firm and doesn't crack. This massively subverts the stereotypes of women at the time as she isn't portrayed as weak or as a sex symbol she's portrayed as a hard working, domineering woman and regardless of her flaws and failures she is to be admired because of the job she does.
Another representation from the film is that female characters in the film are represent both sexual repression and sexual liberation. Whereas nurse Ratched is very effeminate and she's strong and powerful, she controls all these men, she isn't represented as a sexual symbol at all through the the film meaning she represents very well sexual repression. However Candy is the opposite and she really fulfils the stereotypes of a working woman in the 1970's, she sells her body and likes to wear a lot of makeup and wear little clothes so she represents sexual liberation very well as Candy and nurse Ratched are polar opposites of each other.  


Comments

  1. A Bateman17 December 2017 at 04:27

    Again Kameron, don't forget your capital letters for the first letters of a name.

    Your essay content is good though and has shown clear understanding of the main gender representations points we discussed in class, but it need to be structured much more like an essay, no subheadings but an introduction, main body and then a conclusion in which you reflect back upon the points you have made.

    In terms f content, there are good references to the representations of gender and good use of film language (camerawork, editing and the like) to establish how these representations are created but more contextualisation is needed which will allow for a discussion about how the films are affected by the times they were made and the differing attitudes towards gender in these times. This would help to elevate your answer up to a higher score.

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