Adoring Film Stars

Machin Readings due 6/1/09

Chapter 10 responses:

1) A section in Machin describes Stacey's study of women in the 1940's and their experiences with cinema/Hollywood. A part of Stacey's study, when dealing with memories and recollections, described women "losing oneself 9in romance fiction is something the women felt embarrassed about. But this itself could be thought of as patriarchy where women's likes and dislikes are dismissed or trivial," (Machin, 120).

Prior to this specific study, Stacey argued that cinema pictures contained masculine themes which portrayed women as secondary, weak, beautiful, and scenery; for male pleasure.

If women of the 1940's wanted to distinguish themselves as attractive, powerful, glamorous and popular women like in the films they watched, wouldn't admitting to the emotion of embarrassment feed the masculine portrayal of women in cinema? How do women set themselves apart from the stereotype of the time if their recollections of cinema experiences were dismissed and thought of as trivial, and they submissed to males' dominant themes?

2) At the end of this chapter Stacey asks, "How do these (the representations of women in the films Charlie's Angels and Coyote Ugly) fit in with other representations of women in the media and in society in general," (Machin, 122)?

These representations portray women as beautiful, sexy, powerful, independent, smart and adventurous; quite a difference from 60 years ago. With that in mind, when did this turn in cinema representations happen, and what was the male reaction towards losing the stereotype they created? If the male audience was the dominant opinion, how did these representations become and stay popular?