I watched 20 minutes of the movie
'Mean girls'. My main purpose was to identify 'Queer' person in those 20
minutes of the movie. By watching 'Mean girls', I found two types of homosexual
one them was Damian and second one was Janis.
Damian I could identify as camp
or queen, because he acts very feminine. First example could be his question
when he saw main protagonist Cady. He asked if her hair colour was natural and
that he would like have that hair colour. Second example could be his voice,
which is higher than heterosexual men have. Third example could be his hand
gestures, when he is talking. He always uses hand gestures, which connects that
person might be homosexual.
Janis I could identify as butch,
because comparing with Damian she is manlier than him. First example, when her
course mate asked her about her wig, she answered quickly and angry to
him.Second example could be how she
introduced Damian to Cady, 'This is Damian he is almost too gay to function'.
Other look comparing them Janis
always wears dark colour clothes, when Damian wears colourful or white colour
clothes. Other clothes comparison could be about their sleeves. Damian wears
shirt with short sleeves, when Janis wears long sleeved shirts, which connect
to manliness. Last comparing about her manliness and Damian's feminine side
would be their conversation about a pink top. In a situation Janis does not
even have a pink top, when Damian proudly said, that he has one and could give
it to Cady.
From these simple old-fashioned
stereotypes I could see, which of the characters in the movie could be gay or
lesbian. However, by watching this movie I could see only one say of the queer
stereotypes, because life changed and these days not all gay people act so
'feminine' or lesbians are so manly.
One of the Queer theorists Judith
Butler suggested that gender is not the result of the nature, but it is
socially constructed. Because male and female behaviour roles are not the
result of biology, but are constructed and reinforced by society mostly through
media and culture. She thinks that you cannot put people into the borders, as
representations of masculinity and femininity, because it causes ''gender
trouble''.
Gender trouble - any behaviour or
representation, that disrupts culturally accepted notions of gender.
In conclusion this movie shows an
old look to the queer people, which has been created a long time ago.
Laura Mulvey in 1975 wrote an
article called 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative cinema'. Mulvey examines a few Hollywood movies, which have been made by Hollywood Cinema
and she made the decision that everything what see in the cinema we see through
Male gaze effect. Mulvey admitted that male gaze was made by narrative cinema
and camera angles. She separated Male Gaze into two factions: one of them is a
sadistic voyeurism - how narrative objectifies a woman and second faction -
fetishist scopophilia - that shows woman's body and its form.
Mostly in horror genre movies,
you could see those factions. Nightmare on Elm Street's story line tells story line
about Freddy Krueger, which was a paedophile and been burned alive. Movie
perfectly shows Mulvey's feminist theory when Krueger kills kids in their
dreams.
The differences in the death
between the males and the females highlight the fetishist way in which the
camera treats the female form, which from another angle looks sadistic to
female characters.
Tina's death
When Tina's nightmare starts, she
leaves the house, while she is walking down the stairs; the camera shows that
she is only wearing a shirt on her naked body. While she is moving to the
backstreet low angles and wide shots show her naked legs and only the shirt on
her body. When she finally reached the backstreet, light behind her creates
even stronger link to her legs.
When filming gets back to the bed
shot, camera always holds a position near her legs and her cheeks, because
there is only one place on her body, where a male could continue to gaze at her
body. That gaze gets even stronger when she lifts her body from the bed, so that
audience could see more. In the end a close up shot shows directly how Tina's
shirt gets ripped off her body directly through chest between her breasts.She could die at the same moment when she got
cut, but the film director wants that Male gaze to last longer so he is trying
to hold her alive until the last scene and shot.
Nancy's death
However, in the end on the movie
camera shows Nancy's
death, which was way different than Tina's. Nancy was fully dressed and did not have any
naked spot on her body. Other aspect would be that her death was quicker than Tina's
was, because Tina was haft naked. That only proves Mulvey's theory about Male
Gaze, which she wanted to discuss through her article.Nancy's death
goes to sadistic voyeurism, because camera only showed how Nancy is stabbed by Krueger and dies while
lying in her friend lap.
Glenn's death
As example could be Glenn's
death, camera only shows close up on his face when he was sleeping. Later he
gets sucked into the bed and camera only shows a huge hole in his bed. Later
camera shows huge blood gazer coming from the depth of bed, which represents
Glenn's death.
These three different deaths
shows, that movie mostly depends on Male Gaze on women. Because mostly biggest
part of the horror movie audience are men, that why a woman’s naked body is emphasized
more than men’s.
'Scream' was created in 1996, and
was directed by film director, Wes Craven, who is known for his work in the
'Scream' saga, as well as 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' and 'The Hills Have
Eyes'.
Poster: Talking about scream
movie poster, first thing you see in it is huge, blue, scared eyes. Eye colour
mixed with grey-black background, which enchants blue colour even more. Blue
colour represents and connects with everything that is cold.Forevermore, that connects to film genre,
which is horror.Other association with
blue and coldness would be death. Death is the main aim of the killers in
horror movies. Therefore, in this poster 'Eyes' would be denotation, because
its represent by what it is. In other hand, it connotes emotional
representation of the woman's feelings.
Other things, which fall in the
eyesight by watching poster is a white face and a palm, covering her mouth.
White is a symbol of the purity and everything clean, but in this poster white
colour has symbolic meaning - it represents pure fear, which you can see in her
face. Other symbol could be haft palm covering her face. Main 'shh' symbol is
one finger near mouth, but in the poster, you can see more than one finger.
That could symbolize huge fear, which leaves her speechless. On the other hand,
it could be an index, which shows palm, but it will be indexical. It will
represent, that person is chased by murder and she covers her mouth, because
she does not want to make any sound and stay alive.
'Scream' title is simple and
edgy, which could symbolize main weapon of the horror movie - knife, secondly,
colour is white, which connects to the women's face colour.
'Someone has taken their love of
scary movies one step too far. Solving this mystery is going to be murder.'
This sentences shows main idea of the movie, that main characters will be
horror movie lovers, which like the feeling that horror movies bring to them. On
the other hand, it would be the main reason why they die.
Title: While 'Scream' movie title
appears in the screen, you could see letters in white colour and hear sound
similar to heart beating. Later when title appears on the screen, you could see
red colour shadow behind the white letter, which pulsing as the heartbeat.
Sound mixed, when title appears on the screen you could hear sound, which
symbolize door slam. After that, you still see red shadow pulsing as heartbeat,
in background you still hear heart-beating sound, that get mixed with a woman’s
scream. Title in the end of the sequence finally turns into bloody red colour
from white combining with a woman’s scream and slicing noise, which connotes,
that she might be dead.
Scene: The main protagonist of
the opening scene in 'SCREAM' is Casey. A close-up show starts to show her
chest and shows what she is wearing as her costume, mis en scene and her facial
expression, while she is talking with the mystery man on the phone. She creates
good look of the potential victim. She has short blonde hair. Blonde-haired
person mostly denotate, that person might be stupid and not smart. She is
always playing with her hair, while she is flirting over the phone with the
mysterious man. She is wearing a long sleeved cardigan, which sleeve covers
some of her hands and we do not see any bright make-up.
The genre of this film is a
horror film. The genre is introduced first, with a wide shot used of the house;
I could understand from it that the house is far away from any other house in
the neighbourhood. While a swing is swinging, I could see house appearance. The
house has many windows, which are not covered by curtains or anything else.
Furthermore, you can understand how easy it is to stalk the main victim Casey,
plus the swings in front of the house are slowly swinging by, denotating that
someone might be already there and stalking Casey.
While Casey is flirting with the
mystery man on the phone she is mostly walking through the isolated house and the
audience by that could get some kind of guidance through the house.
While we had guidance through the
house, we do not see any clocks in there, so we cannot say what time it is now,
but there is popcorn on the heater, which works as a clock and shows how
everything gets intense with the every second.
When popcorn just started to heat
up the conversation between Casey and mystery man is normal just about random
things for example (why is she making popcorn?), but when the talk turns about
her favourite horror movie, while she is talking about 'Halloween' movie, she
grabs biggest kitchen knife in the house, while flirting with the mystery man on
the phone. When she puts down the knife into its place again, I see a shot of
the popcorn on the heater, which is more bloated, than it was in the beginning
of the conversation between them. Bloated popcorn shows how much time passed
while they were talking and its bloat connote that conversation will change
from flirting with him into something more intense.
As I see from their conversation
Casey would like cheat on her boyfriend, because when she is questioned about
it, she said that she doesn’t have one, but when mystery man starts threatening
her, everything turns upside down and she finally says that she has a boyfriend,
who will protect her.
When action reaches its
culmination, I could see the popcorn scene again. In that shot, I see how
popcorn is extremely bloated and explodes in one place, showing, that huge intensity
is coming.
In next shot I could see how
Casey finally got terrified of the mystery man when he said that he is looking
at her now, after that she hung up the phone. After she reached the kitchen
wanting to turn off the heater, but a phone call interferes there, showing that
now nothing can be stopped until it explodes at the right time.
When Casey fails to take over
control, mystery man threatens her that he will cut her like a fish, she starts
run around the house, to lock doors and windows.
She stops near the main door with
the prismatic windows in it, by showing and enchanting how she is isolated in
that house, more than she thinks.
After more threatening words, she
hung up again and the mystery man reaches his max rage level. Main intro begins.
When someone rings the doorbell and Casey asks 'who's there'. Mystery man calls
again and gives a small introduction to Casey, that you can't ask who's there,
because it is an invitation for the murder to come in. After that talk Casey
starts defending and threatens back the mystery man, saying that she has a strong
boyfriend, who plays football. By saying that he plays football it stereotypes
that he is strong and could beat up the mystery man.
However, mystery man breaks her
thoughts from being saved by her boyfriend, when he mentions his name and asks
her to light lighting again.
