The Portrayal Of Female Action Heroes And Gender Construction In Films

• What does Elizabeth Hills mean by “the assemblage of women and technology” in her essay on action heroines?

• Using specific screen culture examples, and other readings to elaborate and contextualise your answer, explain what Teresa De Lauretis means by her “four propositions” on the “technology of gender”.

• In what ways are “selfies” (and related self-representational social media) a gendered screen culture?

• “Films have an audience; apps have users. That difference is enough to explain why the critical approaches developed for old media have nothing useful to say about new media.” Make an argument either for or against this position.

Strong female protagonists in action films

The “action heroines” are found to be more robust, smarter and better enhanced with equipment as compared to male counterparts. They have turned to be strong female protagonists in different action films. Here, a critical reason why various action heroines are complicated in order to conceptualize as strong feminine characteristics are seen as a binaristic logic of various theoretical models. Here, for example, feminists are found to be working under a dominant theoretical model of effective psychoanalysis. They have highly limited space under which the transgressive and transformative potential of action heroine is considered.

The study mentions that characterization of a body has been asserting more positive kind of difference which is non-hierarchical in nature. This is on different negatively binary models. It also is shown that as the body is re-conceptualized according to a site of transformation and experimentation, indicates that the body of women can be imagined outside various notions. The assemblage of words like “heroine” and “action” has been changed the different nature of structures. Further, this has been exceeding the limits of the essentializing system of genders. However, contrary to this idea of male-female distinction has been constraining different kinds of multiplicity of difference-making that has led to subjectivity. Moreover, the present study shows that the women body living with its total potential has not been organized as per specific organs. It is seen as a body without organs comprised instead if various independent body parts. This is referred to as “desiring machines: connecting and reconnecting with other objects, elements and devices seen from various frames of references for creating specific kind of assemblages.

The author shows that from a Deleuzian point of view, it has made no sense of reading technology. This can be compared to a gun as a fixed referent for a phallus. Instead, it is also understood that as one of the vital elements of machine, the connection between the hand of a woman forming the assemblage of a gun. However, it has no connection with attempted compensation for the initial lack instead of activity producing a new body. Here, the transformation has taken place while the repetition is replaced through a difference of dynamic assemblage of various forces and elements. Since these assemblages are never restrained through expectations about proper connections and behaviors, they are related to contesting ideas of fixed subjectivity and gendered identity. Thus instead of a situation of mere being, Deleuze has pointed the concept of “becoming” the process of transformation. This is further created as the body that disconnects from various kinds of habituated modes of features of thinking and acting. This is in favor of changing and multiple means of experimentation.

Thus the study highlights those female bodies over the screen can act as compared to action heroes. Apart from seeing the reaction of feminine shape as literal, an action heroine can be interpreted as a visual metaphor for academic and career success. They have taken pleasure to see women to be successful despite any adversity. It has revealed that post-feminist sensibilities have promoted action heroines successful in various intellectual arenas. At the same time, discipline action heroines have rendered them unbelievable as a reliable and physically powerful human (Hills, 1999).

Theoretical models and limitation on transgressive potential

In this article, Teresa de Lauretis has indicated overall four type of propositions. Here, the first proposition states that “gender” is a type of representation. However, it cannot be said that it never had any real and concrete implication in both subjective and social consideration. This is for the material life of individual people. For example, in the image captured in transformative instant in Metropolis, as the metallic robot Maria goy infused with screen format has been small. Further, it was not been based on projection. Thus the deployed interactivity changed to spectator to user (Friedberg, 2010).

The next proposition is that representation of gender can be seen as its construction. At the purest sense, it is said that among every high culture and Western art, this is engraving the history of building. It is a process and product of representation. It has never equated genders with impacts of ideology. It has seemed that singular history of cinema, in spite of any dovetailing constipation like computer, television, radio, telephone has provided a narrowly developed geneology. As the area of “information science” is considered, and never been the part of understanding visual culture, the history of computer and telephone has turned into notable tributaries at converging stream of media. Thus, analytical engine of Charles Babbage has been seen as the notable remaking of visual imagery. This is a mechanical precursor onwards modern day digital computing to store numbers, retrieving that, change that and store in other location. Besides, phenakistiscope of Plateau, any optical toy regarded as primary pre-cinematic tools has demonstrated the way in which movements are examined to those static elements. This has been seen as a moving image while seen through slits of any spinning disk.

Again, the third proposition indicates that gender construction has been going on busily. Since the subject of studying movies is found to redefine itself, they have been revising the internal historical accounts and creating the area to evolving multiplicities of visual and cultural studies. Here, most of work has been coincident with campaign for academic legitimacy of researching movies. This has been as a republic separate from the initial disciplinary overlords.

Lastly, the fourth proposition reveals that gender construction has been impacted because of deconstruction, paradoxically (De Lauretis, 1987). The subject of film studies has found to redefine itself. This has been revising their internal historical accounts and then open up the area to rise in multiplicity o. However as latest technologies has been creating future of film reception and cinematic production, it has required to assert their individual historicity. As some indicators of where latest technologies would take genders discrimination, there is still no clear idea of what would be the sustainable innovation are market terms. As the present display media and storage is seen as a transitional technology, films and other visual materials has been moving on line. Hence this the more apparent that with the quickness of radical and rapid transformations, the technological scenarios are never been theorized conclusively. This idea of film history has re-conceptualized the technology of genders under the light of those changes in technology. Further, assumptions regarding spectatorship has lost their different kinds of theoretical pinions as the screens are found to be changing.

Body as a site of transformation and experimentation

From the analysis of the done from the interpretations of the several literary articles, it has been observed that the social media plays a major role in defining the day to day activities of youth both male and female. References shows that the social media is one of the greatest influencer in the modern days (Abidin, 2016). One of the prime aspects by which the social media is covered up in the present day conditions is the posting of numerous selfies. The selfies act as one of the great influencers considering the modern day conditions. The selfies work as one of the greatest influencers in the motivating mass with the support of social media.

It is a matter of great concern that the Influencers often try portray their impact on the common people with their gendered labor for reaping the benefits that are in to their money making abilities and self actualization. Evidences show that although there are is a generic bypassing of the frivolous approaches, the gendered labor of the Influencers is facilitated with several ways by which they are able to depict their affordances on the social media, hopes of female businesspersons, the power of the camera along with the depictions of genuineness (Driscoll & Gregg, 2010).

The social media in the country of Singapore is mostly covered up with Influencers that are mostly micro-celebrities who started as the business oriented bloggers in the online platforms that included LiveJournal, Blogger and the Word Press. The commercial lifestyle bloggers are mostly a group consisting of tender aged females between the age ranges of 18 to 35 years, in which the Influencer Labor is a self-developed process. The followers of these bloggers are mainly young people among which 70% are female and 30% are male followers. This is in evidence to the fact that the fan following of these bloggers has risen recently as the micro-celebrities played the role of an Influencer with their posting of the selfies. These selfies happens to be the greatest motivators of all time among the young generation of male and female (Chua & Chang, 2016).

The selfies are considered as the gendered screen culture because it influences both the masses of men and women through a collection of several entities. The urge of clicking the selfies and simply posting them on social networking websites such as Instagram and Facebook is mostly governed by several factors such as self-curation, perceived expectations, audience assessments and apparent authenticity. The selfies are generally taken for the purpose of authentic self-branding. As the selfies are one of the greatest influencers, the selfies of several micro celebrities are considered as the ideal status of mark (Murray, 2015). The Instagram is one of the greatest platform for the representation of the selfies by the Influencers. It helps the people to meet the purpose according to structure of demands. Although several selfies in Instagram often prove to be a sense of conflicting representations that are mostly known for the separation of the brands.

Desiring machines and assemblages of words

Digital technology has developed over the years for quite a couple of years. As the science and the technology is getting advanced, more number of technologies are being developed and the human lives are being benefitted from the results of these technologies. The development of new ideas has garnered a sense of desire of gaining new knowledge among the people of different cultures (Dalmasso et al., 2013). The new technologies have been able to deliver the needs of the human beings considering their present needs. This is the reason that the human lives haven facilitated to a greater extent with the involvement of new technologies in the market. The people are relying on the new advancements to meet their objectives so that the integrity of the knowledge about the scientific methods can be kept intact.

On number of occasions it has been seen that the internet and the mobile applications play vital role in setting up the frame of mind of the individuals. As the thought processes are contradictory for different individuals, the mobile applications are designed in such a manner that are able to meet the needs of the human beings with the requirement of a minimum effort. The human interfaces of the applications are designed with in the context of the involvement of ideologies of average human beings (Hoehle & Venkatesh, 2015). The applications are user oriented for which they are able to deliver with the requirements of the users with the use of slightest of interactions. The media delivered through the help of the modern day mobile applications are designated towards serving every need of a user within the same domain. This is the region that highly contradicts to the media that was delivered to the users of the traditional period.

In the traditional days the technology was not developed to this extent. This is the reason for which the devices involving human persona were usually imperative in nature. The devices used in the traditional days served only the single purpose of the users (Crawford, Lingel & Karppi, 2015). This is the same reason for which the older day media were unable to serve the audiences with the necessities. The present day mobile applications serves every need of the users with a various range of information.

One of such evidences include the weighing machine of the traditional and the modern media. In previous days, there was only the existence of the analogous weighing instrument that was helpful in the measurement of weight. However, with the modern day applications relating to measurement of weights, the applications serves with information in addition to the methods of measurement. Modern day applications are specific and not generic in delivering the approaches. Besides measuring weight, it acts as a weight tracking device and also helps in providing guidance through which the weight can be easily tracked thereby providing a great source of information (Schüll, 2016). This shows that the developed critical approaches for the older media has become ineffective and to provide any sort of assistance to the new media thus becoming obsolete with the passage of time.

References

Hills, E. (1999). From ‘figurative males’ to action heroines: Further thoughts on active women in the cinema. Screen, 40(1), 38-50.

Abidin, C. (2016). “Aren’t these just young, rich women doing vain things online?”: Influencer selfies as subversive frivolity. Social Media+ Society, 2(2), 2056305116641342.

Chua, T. H. H., & Chang, L. (2016). Follow me and like my beautiful selfies: Singapore teenage girls’ engagement in self-presentation and peer comparison on social media. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 190-197.

De Lauretis, T. (1987). The technology of gender. In Technologies of gender (pp. 1-30). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Driscoll, C., & Gregg, M. (2010). My profile: The ethics of virtual ethnography. Emotion, Space and Society, 3(1), 15-20.

Friedberg, A. (2010). The end of cinema: multimedia and technological change.

Murray, D. C. (2015). Notes to self: the visual culture of selfies in the age of social media. Consumption Markets & Culture, 18(6), 490-516.

Abidin, C. (2016). “Aren’t these just young, rich women doing vain things online?”: Influencer selfies as subversive frivolity. Social Media+ Society, 2(2), 2056305116641342.

Driscoll, C., & Gregg, M. (2010). My profile: The ethics of virtual ethnography. Emotion, Space and Society, 3(1), 15-20.

Chua, T. H. H., & Chang, L. (2016). Follow me and like my beautiful selfies: Singapore teenage girls’ engagement in self-presentation and peer comparison on social media. Computers in Human Behavior, 55, 190-197.

Murray, D. C. (2015). Notes to self: the visual culture of selfies in the age of social media. Consumption Markets & Culture, 18(6), 490-516.

Dalmasso, I., Datta, S. K., Bonnet, C., & Nikaein, N. (2013, July). Survey, comparison and evaluation of cross platform mobile application development tools. In Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC), 2013 9th International (pp. 323-328). IEEE.

Hoehle, H., & Venkatesh, V. (2015). Mobile Application Usability: Conceptualization and Instrument Development. Mis Quarterly, 39(2).

Crawford, K., Lingel, J., & Karppi, T. (2015). Our metrics, ourselves: A hundred years of self-tracking from the weight scale to the wrist wearable device. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 18(4-5), 479-496.

Schüll, N. D. (2016). Data for life: Wearable technology and the design of self-care. BioSocieties, 11(3), 317-333.