“The Hollywood film industry itself has been (and continues to be to a large extent) male-dominated. Hence, male directors, producers, writers, and cinematographers all use the camera as an instrument to look at women. †(Benshoff, pg. 235) Gender also plays a large responsibility in the film industry when pertaining to what females can and can not do in films. Male characters are usually main characters and “in charge†within films, whereas the female characters are usually limited to just looking pretty while still remaining passive and somewhat outside of all the action within the story. Women today feel a large amount of pressure to look and behave like these female actresses portrayed on the big screen. With the preparation of these films women usually take a very long time in hair and make-up for the sole purpose of looking attractive and gaining more male attention in the films. Many females fail to realize how much time and preparation really goes into the looks and costume designs of the characters that are being portrayed within the film industry. In today’s society female’s feel as though they have to be beautiful and live up to a certain stereotype and “look†that is extremely unrealistic. Related essay: Pestle Analysis for Odeon Cinema Real Women Have Curves (2002)†was a film directed by Patricia Cardoso that challenges the representation of all women in society. Although the film is about a first generation Mexican-American female struggling with her family’s beliefs, her future, culture, and body, it reaches all female viewers with the same powerful message. The message is that all females can be empowered and should be proud of who they are and where they come from. Most importantly females should be proud of their bodies and not try to live up to the unlikely images that our American culture has welded for us today. Another film and director that challenged the male dominated movie industry was Susan Seidelman with her 1985 low-budget ($5million) film “Desperately Seeking Susan. †“…Seidelman doesn’t glamorize women at the expense of men. In fact, her strongest affinity is with desperate, aggressive women who never stop hustling. †(Levy, pg. 356) Her film “Desperately Seeking Susan†looks at contemporary issues of fame, self fulfillment, and social relationships, as well as personal identity. The film is about a petite New Jersey housewife named Roberta, who is bored, unsatisfied, and tired of her marriage routine life at home. She then begins to read the personals section of the New York newspaper for vicarious thrills and entertainment. Her favorite classified to read is one that features the romance of Jim who is a struggling musician and Susan who is a free-spirited single woman living her life in Soho New York. Susan had just recently escaped her ex boyfriend who was a mobster and stole a pair of very expensive Egyptian earrings. One bored day when Roberta reads the classified section she sees the ad “Desperately Seeking Susan†and decides to follow Susan and Jim. The reasoning as to why Roberta decided to take this extreme measure is because this was a way for her to escape her daily average life and become someone else for a day. The film then takes an unexpected turn and becomes all about reinvention as the housewife Roberta unknowingly with amnesia transforms herself into the wild and care-free character of Susan. There were a number of different codes within the film “Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)†that made it easier to understand its viewpoint. Some of the cultural codes recognized within the film include cultural, narrative, artistic, cinematic, and intertexual. The film took place during the 1980’s in a small suburban town in New Jersey as well as New York City. The characters of Roberta and Gary Glass are individuals being represented as members of an upper middle class society living in New Jersey. We know that they are upper middle class because of the context clues and dialogue that we see within the movie. We hear Mr. Glass tell his wife “what are we poor? †when he tells her that she bought a used jacket that used to belong to Jimi Hendrix. Roberta is a bored, full-time housewife and he is a hardworking husband. As the film continues we meet the other main character who is a fun loving, care-free, gold digging, woman named Susan from New York. The film is told through the eyes of the main character, which is a repressed and bored housewife named Roberta. The story is also partially told through the eyes of Susan the carefree and stylish woman from New York. The story is also told through the eyes of Roberta’s worried husband Gary and her love interest Dez. The film “Desperately Seeking Susan†was very creative and original. Some of the artistic codes within the film include the music in which is exceedingly upbeat and perfect for the time period of the 80’s. The clothing design within the film is extremely important and relevant to the development of Robert’s character. “Susan’s individualized pyramid jacket signifies her unconventional personal style and her fluency in innovating her own look. The jacket binds the two women together. Susan’s trading of looks shows her competence in putting together an always evolving and eccentric look, while Roberta’s purchase of the (second hand) jacket is part of her adventure and escape. †(Street, pg. 1) The costumes in the film stated the socio-economic status of the main characters and the time period. At the beginning of the film we acknowledge Roberta well dressed with a suburban flare and we also noticed Susan dressed as a stylish, upbeat, rocker. (Complete Opposites! ) The genre of the film “Desperately Seeking Susan†was comedy, drama, and romance because of its portrayal. The film portrays comedic humor with the mistaken identity of two polar opposites Roberta and Susan. Their journey is a comedic mystery and we never know what will happen next as Roberta searches for adventure and Susan hunts for the stolen Egyptian earring. The film also depicts drama with all of the confusion and an intense romance between Roberta and Jim. In conclusion, the film industry is particularly male dominated. However, there are more female directors, producers, etc. like Susan Seidelman and Patricia Cardoso who are making a remarkable change. These females are making films with predominately female casts, and with messages of strength, personal identity, social relationships and self- fulfillment. They’re challenging the film business and changing perceptions of women everywhere.
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1/14/2020 0 Comments The Bible and Catholic Hermeneutics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 wordsThe Bible and Catholic Hermeneutics - Essay Example Catholic hermeneutics might be confused with the theory and practice of Catholic Biblical interpritation. But Catholic hermeneutics marks the appropriation by Catholic theology of philosophic hermeneutics. The latter can be called the study of humanity's participation in the truth and the knowledge mediated by history. So Catholic hermeneutics is the understanding of Cristian truth and knowledge within the Catholic tradition. Catholic hermeneutics is not just a philosophy of interpretation. It is an example of the general philosophical thesis that interpritation always exists within a tradition. The Catholic grasp of Christianity growing out of and expressing a theological tradition examplifies what Heidegger has called the historicality of understanding. The Catholic interpreter, educated within the Church, understands things according to what can only be called a Catholic interpretation of reality. Concrete acts of understanding refine and transmit that interpretation. Thus Catholic hermeneutics is no exception to the universality of hermeneutics, but an illustration of it. Catholic hermeneutics is not thereby curtailed in scientific value. ... It revealed the authoritative role of the magisterium as judge in case of Scriptual and dogmatic dispute, the irreducibility of dogmatic tradition to a historical analysis of first-century documents, and the inadequacy of Scriptural interpretation uninformed by Church tradition. These aspects of the theology of tradition contradict a particular notion of science. According to this notion, the scientific enterprise is wholly emancipated from authority, documentary evidence is the only admissible historical proof of a tradition's anticuity, and independence from tradition is the only guarantor of the truth (i.e., objectivity) of interpritation. If this notion of science were canonical, then Catholic hermeneutics would be unscientific (Hick, 1980). The development of the Catholic hermeneutics clousely connected with the development of historical consciousness. Ancient people didn't have the historical consciousness, because they lived in sincere world and tried to survive in it. Then terrors, death, hunger, destruction and catastrophes made a psychological change in their attitude to the reality. The ancient people really wanted to know about their origin. That's why they appealed to religious myths and legends. Some of them told about a "golden age" when people lived in harmony with each other and nature. The other story showed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Some of legends depicted the relationships with gods and goddesses, which possessed human appearance and characters. According to the myth the gods could fight with each other for love and power and even organize wars. We could see numerous examples in Greek Mythology. When misfortunes, wars and catastrophes happened in reality people thought that gods or supernatural powers were against them.
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