FAR 330: Women in Film

Discussions (Weeks 1-8 @ 30 points)

30%

Short Response Assignments (Weeks 1, 2, 5 and 7 @ 60 points)

30%

Film Analysis Paper Proposal (Week 3)

10%

Film Analysis Paper (Week 6)

30%

Total

100%

Week

SLOs

Readings and Exercises

Assignments

1

1, 2,3

Topics: Women and Representation

• Introduction to the course structure & getting to know each other.
• Practicing watching closely, and thinking about what a film shows us about the world around it.
• We will discuss Wendy & Lucy and Maria Full of Grace – choose and watch one
• Readings:
  • Read the attached excerpt from Chapter 2, “How to Watch a Movie” (about 2 pages), in Sharman, R. L. (2020). Moving pictures: An introduction to cinema.
• Films:
  • Wendy & Lucy and/or Maria Full of Grace

• Read the assigned material
• Watch movie
• Participate in the discussions
• Complete short response

2

1,2,3,5

Topics: Visual Pleasure

• How a movie’s camera can invite us to see a woman through a man’s eyes: whose point of view we are given, what the camera does to put us there, and how it feels. Critics call this idea the “male gaze.”
• Short Visual Analysis: the dress scene in Rear Window (the camera moves from the courtyard into Jeff’s apartment and ends when Lisa shows off her dress), or the department store scene in Vertigo.
• Readings:
  • Read the attached excerpt, “The Male Gaze” (about 2 pages). Part 1 is from Sharman, R. L. (2020). Moving pictures: An introduction to cinema. Part 2 is from Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (in Erens).
• Films:
  • View one of these films:
    • Rear Window. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Paramount Pictures, 1954.
    • Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

• Read the assigned material
• Watch movie
• Participate in the discussions
• Complete short response

3

1,2,3,5

Topic: Women as Commodity

• How Hollywood in the 1950s sold women, on screen and at the box office. Who is selling what to whom?
• Readings:
  • Read the attached excerpt, “Women as Commodity?” (about 2 pages). Part 1 is from Sharman, Moving pictures. Part 2 is from Maureen Turim, and Part 3 is from Lucie Arbuthnot and Gail Seneca (both in Erens).
• Films:
  • Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Dir. Howard Hawks. Twentieth Century Fox, 1953.

• Read the assigned material
• Watch movie
• Participate in the discussions
• Submit proposal for film analysis paper

4

1,2,3,5

Topic: Gender Stereotypes

• Gender stereotypes and fabricated identities: playing the part, and what shows when the “mask” slips.
• Readings:
  • Read the attached excerpt, “Film and Femininity as a Mask” (about 2 pages), from Mary Ann Doane, “Film and the Masquerade: Theorizing the Female Spectator” (in Erens, pp. 41-57).
• Films:
  • View one of these films:
    • The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes, 1975)
    • Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998)
    • She’s the Man (Andy Fickman, 2006)

• Read the assigned material
• Watch movie
• Participate in the discussions

5

1,2,3,5

Topics: Motherhood and Sacrifice

• Motherhood and sacrifice in movies, and the kinds of mothers Hollywood likes to show us.
• Readings:
  • Read the attached excerpt, “Mother Types in the Movies” (about 2 pages), from E. Ann Kaplan (in Erens, pp. 126-136).
• Films:
  • View one of these films:
    • Erin Brockovich (Steven Soderbergh, 2000)
    • A Thousand and One (A. V. Rockwell, 2023)
    • Full Time (Éric Gravel, 2021)

• Read the assigned material
• Watch movie
• Participate in the discussions
• Complete short response

6

1,2,3,4,5

Topic: Film Noir

• Film noir and its most famous woman, the femme fatale.
• Readings:
  • Read the attached excerpt, “Film Noir and the Femme Fatale” (about 1 page), from the Film Noir section of Film Appreciation by Moss and Wilson (Chapter 7, Genre).
• Films:
  • View one of these films:
    • Out of the Past (Jacques Tourneur, 1947)
    • Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945)
    • Devil in a Blue Dress (Carl Franklin, 1995)

• Read the assigned material
• Watch movie
• Participate in the discussions
• Submit Film Analysis Paper

7

1,2,3,4,5

Topic: International Cinema: Diversity of Women’s Voices

• Stories of women in films made outside Hollywood, and how they differ from the American Hollywood movies we usually watch.
• Readings:
  • No readings this week
• Films:
  • View one of these films:
    • Two Days, One Night (Dardenne Brothers, Belgium, 2014)
    • The Story of Qiu Ju (Zhang Yimou, China, 1992)

• Read the assigned material
• Watch movie
• Participate in the discussions
• Complete short response

8

1,2,3,4,5

Topic: Women in Horror Films: The Power of the Final Girl

• The role of women in horror films and the purposes of the “Final Girl”
• Readings:
  • Read the attached excerpt, “Horror and the Final Girl” (about 1 page), from the Horror section of Film Appreciation by Moss and Wilson (Chapter 7, Genre).
• Films:
  • View one of these films:
    • Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978)
    • Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)
    • View both Siskel & Ebert videos: Women in Danger, Part 1 and Part 2 (1980)

• Read the assigned material
• Watch movie
• Participate in the discussions
• Complete short response
• Complete Course Evaluation