Critical Investigation

Essay

Investigation into the Representation and Stereotypical Media views of Women in Sport/Martial Arts films.


I will be analyzing two texts, of which consist of two trailers from two Martial Arts/Sport movies. One of which are ‘Dead or Alive’, the movie adaption of the best video game series Dead or Alive, and ‘Million Dollar Baby’ A winner of 4 Oscars. I will be critically viewing differences in how the representations of women are portrayed in these two trailers and the impact the media creates to represent the ideology and view of women. I will also look at the changing roles of women and the way they are newly represented as protagonists in Sport/Martial Arts films. Both narratives in the films of these trailers are different and portray women in different ways.

For the Dead or Alive trailer, the miss-en-scene starts off with a close up shot of a attractive looking woman’s face with the décor being at a well lit, fancy hotel room, The shot changes into her sitting on a swing chair seductively looking at a man in a suit. She slowly pulls on her underwear, with an extreme close up focusing on her upper thighs connoting some sexual desire and lust, a clear tactic to acquire some attention preferably from a male audience; pertaining to ‘The Male Gaze’. According to (Mulvey), she states’’ the camera lingers on the curves of the female body and events which occur to women are presented largely in the context of a man’s reaction to those events’’. This relegates women to the status of objects, the female viewer must experience the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male. The film also being an adaption of the bestselling video game series completes the needs of a male audience.
The camera cuts into a long shot view as words are spoken between the two and we are immediately thrown a jolt of excitement as the woman pulls out a gun aiming at the well dressed man. The camera then changes into a high level shot, where the woman performs a fancy fly kick, caused by the force of the woman’s attack the camera angle changes into a bird’s eye view of the business man flown into mid air. Immediately, The woman insists that the man to ‘do up her bra strap’, slaving to her demand, the defenceless man does what he is told and is then attacked again by the woman single handily along with another fellow business man. This connotes a sense of power and freedom towards the woman’s representation having total control over not just a man, but two men. This notion of feminine dominance over males isn’t just represented in this film but also in others; such as in many films by Cynthia Rothrock, quoted by the media as ‘The Queen of Martial Arts movies’ where she is portrayed as a protagonist in most of her movies. Her latest martial arts movie Sci-Fighter 2004 and earliest movie being made in 1985 denotes that the roles of women being represented as heroines were valid even 25 years ago. This would also comply with the concept of Mulvey’s feminist theory; ‘’the concepts of women as objects in media and men as subjects contested in some modern films/adverts today’’. Dead or Alive, released in 2006, and being a ‘modern film’ clearly portrays its women’s roles as being subjects and also objects. Throughout the trailer we see women fighting vigorously against each other and against males, denoting that they are independent and dominant. However their clothing being very revealing and exposing, throughout the whole trailer makes them appear as subjects, and figures of the ‘Male Gaze’.

Arguably to Mulvey’s notion the ‘Gaze’ can also be directed members of the same gender for several reasons, not all of which are sexual such as in comparison of body or image or clothing.

The film being adapted by the best selling video game series, in the rest of the trailer we are shown the obvious, allot of violent, feral and energetic Eastern form of fighting which appears quite fictitious and fantasized, and sometimes imitated by young people today and done harm. Influenced by the video game, this could signify violence and apprehension towards its viewers, exceptionally the secondary female audience liking to a moral panic. According to an article by The Mail Online May 2006, ‘The Feral Sex: The terrifying rise of violent girl gangs’ says; ‘’ Such girls, according to a study to be published by the Centre for Policy Studies next month, routinely carry knives and” are prepared to use them".” And, ‘’She was skilled in martial arts and her CV included robbery and threatening and abusive behavior’’. Could this be an influential notion from violent films, or an act of self defense? Either way the fear that violent movies are corrupting females today and creating the violent criminals of tomorrow has captured both the headlines and popular imagination in recent years. Also the social issues of young women in today’s society are a shocking historical change from the behavior of youths 50 or 60 years ago.