Comparing Our Trailer to Media Theories

Feminist Theory/Theorists

Initial attempts in the United States in the early 1970s were generally based on sociological theory and focused on the function of women characters in particular film narratvies or genres and of stereotypes as a reflection of a society's view of women. Works such as Marjorie Rosen’s Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies, and the American Dream (1973) and Molly Haskell's From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in Movies (1974) analyze how the women portrayed in film related to the broader historical context, the stereotypes depicted, the extent to which the women were shown as active or passive, and the amount of screen time given to women. - Information courtesy of Wikipedia.org

Laura Mulvey - The 'Male Gaze'

The Male Gaze is a theory that argues that alot of films are usually viewed and presented from and by a male perspective.

In cinema theory, Laura Mulvey identifies the male gaze, in sympathy with the Lacanian statement that "Woman is a symptom of man." This means that femininity is a social construct, and that the feminine object the object petit, or the object of desire, is what constitutes the male lack, and thus his positive identity.

In film, the male gaze occurs when the audience is put into the perspective of a heterosexual man. A scene may linger on the curves of a woman's body, for instance. Mulvey argues that in mainstream cimena, the male gaze typically takes precedence over the female gaze.- Information courtesy of Wikipedia.org

How does this relate to our own film? There are often a few shots in our teaser trailer that show the woman on the floor with a high angles shot successfully dominating the woman. This implies that she is a victim and is inferior and therefore hints at the narrative.

Carol .J. Clover - The 'Final Girl' The 'final girl' is a horror film trope that specifically refers to the last woman or girl alive to confront the killer, ostensibly the one left to tell the story. Althought our film is not a horror, we are able to relate to the particular ideology of having the woman being victimised in a film. Clover argues that for a film to be successful, although the Final Girl is masculinized, it is necessary for this surviving character to be female, because she must experience abject terror, and many viewers would reject a film that showed abject terror on the part of a male. - Information courtesy of Wikipedia.org

How does this relate to our own film? This shows that audiences can in some ways, relate to a stereotypical way of viewing males to be more superior and stronger than women. If our piece was in actual fact a real film, we would most likely show a scene that had our main character portrayed as a 'final girl', because she would be threatened and would have to come up against her violent husband.