By Viv Zauhar
In light of International Women’s day, it only seemed appropriate to take my love for cinema and combine it with my love for women. Western cinema history is just as patriarchal as our current society, subjecting women to the male gaze, which Laura Mulvey explores in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” If you haven’t read it for class yet, I highly encourage you to read this feminist theory alongside one (or all!) of the films listed below.
Baby Face (1933) directed by Alfred E. Green
Stream it on YouTube for $1.99
If you’ve been searching for your classic black and white 1930s film with a beautiful leading lady seducing men with her raspy voice, Baby Face fits all that criteria. Living in Pennsylvania, the daughter of a speakeasy, Lily (Barbara Stanwyck), travels to New York to climb her way to the top through sex and charm. While films like these were mislabeled as “fallen women” films, Baby Face is instead the story of a woman reclaiming her sexuality and using it to smash the patriarchy.
Daughters of the Dust (1991) directed by Julie Dash
Stream it on Kanopy for free with your Pitt login
If you did not have the pleasure of listening to Julie Dash (and Charles Burnett) speak at a virtual event hosted by Pitt last semester, I am truly sorry. Julie Dash is a part of the “L.A. Rebellion,” a group of Black UCLA film students whose work defied Hollywood’s conventional expectations of cinema. This is clear in Daughters of the Dust, a historically accurate narrative following the Peazant family in the early 1900s. Living in the Gullah community off the coast of South Carolina, the matriarch of the family, Nana, watches the rest of her family prepare to migrate North.
Thelma and Louise (1991) directed by Ridley Scott
Stream it on Philo
I encourage you to grab your best friend and enjoy the ride that is Thelma and Louise. Best friends Thelma and Louise are on a road trip turned police hunt when Louise shoots and kills a man attempting to rape Thelma. As the law enforcement tries to persuade the duo to give themselves up, Thelma and Louise put their friendship through the wringer in this revolutionary film that tells the truth about women’s lives.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) directed by Michel Gondry
Stream it on Peacock
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is your romantic sci-fi story that will rattle your brain. In a (dys)(u)topia where individuals can erase memories from their brains, we watch former couple Joe and Clementine slowly depart from their time together, reversing their love story. Clementine has been hailed as the cinematic opposition for the ‘manic-pixie dream girl’ before it even existed. Most men put these women in their films to enlighten the dreary and perpetually pessimistic men to see the beauty in life, but Clementine is real. She has problems just like every other woman, she has bouts of sadness, loneliness, and temptations.
Cameraperson (2016) directed by Kirsten Johnson
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Cameraperson may just be the literal cinematic product of the female gaze. Working as a cinematographer on various documentaries, Johnson pieces her past footage together to create a beautifully depicted memoir of her life through her gaze. Travel with her all over the world through her gaze: a family in Bosnia, her childhood home, a boxing match in Brooklyn.
