Filtering by
- All Subjects: Gender
There exists a gendered difference in how sports films portray female protagonist athletes. This creative project closely examines scenes from four films, Bend It Like Beckham, Million Dollar Baby, Girlfight and Whip It, that collectively represent four gendered themes that are present within the female protagonist sport film subgenre. Each film provides representative examples for themes of exceptionalism, the explicit presence of gender or sexuality, paternal or romantic relationships with male characters, and the punishment or containment of the female athlete. These themes are then analyzed for their presence and meaning in the film genre, including how existing heteronormative film structures are present in female protagonist sport films and how such ideas are reflections of wider societal values. This exposes how the continued use of such heteronormative themes perpetuates stereotypes of female athleticism. After understanding how these themes take shape and what they mean for the genre, this paper then highlights examples of an emergent more feminist genre, promotes alternative filmmaking methods and progressive change to the portrayal of female athletes in sport film.
The cyborgs in these films, however, refuse to let categorizations like female, or even their status as human, alive, or real, restrict them so easily. As human-robot hybrids, cyborgs bridge identities that are assumed to be separate and often oppositional or mutually exclusive. Cyborgs reveal the structures and expectations reified in gender to suggest that something constructed can as easily be deconstructed. In doing so, they create loose ends that leave space for new understandings of both gender and technology. By viewing these films alongside critical theory, we can understand their cyborgs as subversive, hybrid characters. Accordingly, the cyborg as a figure subverts and fragments the coherency of narratives that present gender, technology, and identity in monolithic terms, not only helping us envision new possibilities but giving us the faculties to imagine them at all.