Gender in film

FLM 5410 Gender in Film MIDTERM PART ONE Summer 2018

Instructions: Write a 800-1000 word essay and hand this in (paper copy) on the day of your in-class midterm, Friday June 8 at 1:30. You must also post it on Blackboard. Late assignments will be penalized (re University’s Late Submission Policy )

Choose ONE of the following:

1. Choose any one of the ‘chick flicks’ from the list below (from the past 10 years) and identify the postfeminist elements that the film celebrates. Do you think there are any contradictions in the film that basically reinscribe traditional attitudes for women?

How to Be Single (2016)

Girls Trip (2017)

27 Dresses (2008)

Bridesmaids (2011)

Friends with Benefits (2011)

The Proposal (2009)

He’s Just Not That Into You (2009)

Sex and The City (2008)

2. Choose any one of the films from the list below that self-consciously explores “masculinity in crisis”. What is the film saying about violence and/or consumerism? How does the film not glorify hegemonic masculinity? Does it imply there are any resolutions to the dilemmas the film poses about renegotiating masculinity in today’s society?

Drive (2011)

The Wrestler (2008)

American Beauty (1999)

Don Juan (2013)

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

Shame (2011)

The Hurt Locker (2009)

Hell or Highwater (2016)

The In-Class Midterm (Part Two) (Friday 8 June at 1:30; 50 minutes)

There will be 3 questions that you must answer, writing 2 paragraphs for each question:

1) a question on Gone Girl and femme fatales;

2) a question on Pretty Woman and postfeminism;

3) a question on masculinities drawing on either Fight Club or The Full Monty