Women in Action: Feminism or Fetishism?

Women in Action: Feminism or Fetishism? Alex Gillam

Act 1 (4 Minutes) • This documentary will be edited in a way that mirrors how action films are cut through fast cuts, action music, titles, b-roll, and color-correcting • The beginning of the documentary will start by following someone walking into a movie theater as seen in my opening sequence then sitting down to watch the movie (in this case, my documentary) • *Already filmed and edited, needs to be color-corrected

Act 1 • A-Roll: Interview with Ernestine Hunter from UCF at the women’s studies department about women's roles in society and the steps that we've made since the women’s liberation movement and, gay and lesbian movement. To be filmed at UCF date to be determined. • Brief 8 second montage of females describing women's traits in one word: To be filmed in the R-TV studios on Tuesday at 8:00 pm

Act 2 (7 minutes) • Interview with Dr. Margaret McLaren Professor in the Rollins College Women’s Studies Department in the R-TV studios date to be determined. • A-Roll: Discussion on violence against women. Discussion of protest on campus for v-week and its importance because 1 in 4 women get sexually harassed (B-Roll:Graph of four female characters with one in red). This is the number one crime at Rollins campus even though its not talked about.

A-Roll: Discussion on how rape scenes exist in action films and how this affects audiences. • B-roll: Show scene from Kill Bill where the lead female almost gets raped • Voiceover: Violence against women often occurs in action films causing a normalization of a serious problem within our society.

Inciting Incident • A-Roll: Discussion on how the role has changed to women being the ones who act violently in the media. Aggression is no longer solely for men and because of this people think it means that women are equal to men in the media. Violence is usually gender masculine but we see women more and more women doing it in film now (B-roll footage of Alien, Tomb Raider, Hanna). • Montage of same females as before describing traits of women in action film

Act 2 • Interview with Maggie CassellaComedian, Director, Producer, Background in Women’s Studies • A-Roll: Discussion on the film industry and women in it. The inequalities and discrepancies that exist in roles (pointing out income differences between actresses and actors with graphs as b-roll).

Rising Action • Interview with Stephen SchlowDepartement Chair of Film Major at University of Central Florida • A-Roll: Male perspective. Discussion on how although more and more leading roles have been awarded to women, they are still portrayed as unequal. Females are often sexualized, mentally unstable, or emotionally attached and reliable on anothermale.

Rising ACtion: • B-Roll: Montage of women provocatively dressed from action films (10 seconds maximum)

Voiceover fades in to clip from Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) with the T-X breasts’ growing to match those of the Victoria’s Secret model. State how the film comments on the female T-X being constructed as a sexualized object created to conform to man’s requirements.

Voiceover: “Although movies may revolve around a female character, the plots are often male driven as seen with the film Kill Bill (show clip). These characters often have weaknesses that are associated with the female gender.

A-Roll: Discussion with Maggie Cassella pointing out how these changes in bodies of action film women • Full-figured women in the 50's by 80's and 90's women's bodies started to look more girlish and thin (images of this as b-roll with statistics) • Shift in bodies makes them less threatening and they are literally taking up less space while images of men have gotten bigger, stronger, more muscular over-compensation making up in size (images of this as b-roll)

Voiceover: (Count number of male directors out of all the action films Ianalyzed and note how this is what is going on in their psyche in how they think of women) • Why is it important that we look at how women are portrayed in film? • Because of the fact that there is an audience for these films which shows something about our culture that taps in to anger against women, misogyny etc

Resolution • A-roll: Brief response on whether or not there is a film that portrays women equal to men from each interviewee. • Majority response: no but we have the tools to create one and with the strides that we have made in women’s rights there is no reason why we can’t make strides in the depiction of women in film.

Women in Action: Feminism or Fetishism?