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- All Subjects: feminism
- Creators: Department of English
- Creators: Dove-Viebahn, Aviva
Description
Fairy tale retellings have permeated literature, film, and media ever since the original stories emerged. New adaptations are constantly being released, and therefore new research must constantly be published. In this study, I analyze "Aschenputtel" by the Brothers Grimm, as well as various retellings of "Cinderella," including Andy Tennant's Ever After (1998), Mark Rosman's A Cinderella Story (2004), and Marissa Meyer's Cinder (2012). This selection includes a live-action historical film, a live-action contemporary film, and a science fiction novel, all with an intended audience of young adults. While the Brothers Grimm story and Ever After have already been analyzed in the context of gender representation (Zipes, Bottigheimer, Williams), prior academic research fails to adequately address the gender issues in A Cinderella Story and Cinder. Because Ever After, A Cinderella Story, and Cinder are more contemporary than the Grimms' "Aschenputtel," they are often thought to be more progressive (Gruner, Vera, Travers). However, I propose that they still have problematic implications, despite their publication in contemporary society. Jack Zipes, an acclaimed fairy tale scholar, argues that, "For the most part, the transformations [of contemporary Cinderella retellings] tend to be modern remakes with a faux feminist touch" ("The Triumph" 361). Similar to Zipes, I argue that, although the texts initially appear progressive and "feminist," they ultimately support problematic ideals related to gender. All three contemporary texts seem to ally themselves with an ethos of female empowerment through their protagonists' rejection of traditional femininity, but the inclusion of gender policing and the characters' eventual acceptance of hyperfemininity undermine this characterization, as does the ultimate heteronormative "happily ever after." Additionally, the use of competition (between Cinderella and her stepfamily, as well as new female characters) pits women against each other, often because of a man, which generally prevents the development of female camaraderie, other than with the fairy godmother. Further, rather than allying herself with female power (i.e. the mother), the protagonists in both Ever After and A Cinderella Story are defined by their relationship with the father, which minimizes their agency as it suggests a transfer of ownership from the father to the husband/prince. This framing of the protagonist by the father and prince (specifically as she works to "perfect" the prince) seems to relegate the female characters to a supplementary role, simply acting as a tool for the male characters' development.
ContributorsBrown, Nichol R. (Author) / Barca, Lisa (Thesis director) / Alcantara, Christiane Fontinha de (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
This paper looks at the impact sorority life has on the collegiate women at Arizona State University. Much of the content widely available regarding members of the Greek community is relatively negative and describes these organizations through a critical lens. Finding this content to be contrary to that of my own experience, I sought to analyze the effects the community had, specifically the effects of the sororities and sorority women at Arizona State University. The analysis began with a thorough review of the history of fraternities and sororities, as well as a short overview of the history of feminism. Through the examination of this data, it becomes clear that the foundations of sororities are directly correlated with feminist aims and the feminist movement. After completing a review of their foundation, a trifold analysis of today's sororities was conducted. First, eight studies on the impact of the fraternal and sororal organizations on their members were reviewed, compared, contrasted. Next, a comprehensive survey was sent out to the Arizona State sorority members receiving 273 responses that were analyzed both holistically and from specific angles. Lastly, a brief follow-up interview of 25 of those 273 women was done in order to get more in depth responses and opinions from the women in this community. Combining the knowledge and results garnered from the literature review, survey, and interviews, it can be concluded that contrary to popular media, sorority life, for the most part, does in fact empower the women within it and provide a beneficial impact to both the member and the community at large.
ContributorsGolisch, Allison (Author) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Thesis director) / Burke, Alison (Committee member) / W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Insect Girls is a chapbook-length collection of poems exploring the human inclination toward, and desire for, violence. Using insects and other bugs as motifs to show how people can often be treated like insects, these 25 poems complicate the relationships between violent people and their victims. The collection specifically focuses on women's issues such as domestic violence and female sexuality. The speakers range from a prostitute waiting in the rain, to a submissive girl at a fetish party, to a housewife with a werewolf for a husband. Violence and sex are depicted as inherently intertwined. Because of this, many characters in the book show a connection between desire and violence, how cruelty can have a kind of sex appeal. This is explored in the collection with depictions of sadomasochism and BDSM, where power dynamics can be at certain times problematic, and at others, beautiful. In writing these poems, I was inspired by the fact that upon seeing a harmless bug, so many people's first instinct is to crush it, for no reason at all except because they can. Bug imagery appears throughout the collection, illustrating the dehumanizing aspect of cruelty. The capture of a butterfly serves as a metaphor for sexual assault, and elsewhere bee wings show a desire for escape. Imagery as a whole is important to the collection because it illustrates not only the physical scars that result from violent actions, but also the strength and loveliness within the survivors. In Insect Girls, I didn't want to hide away ugliness, but I didn't want to hide away beauty either.
ContributorsPrice, Emily Kay (Author) / Ball, Sally (Thesis director) / Giner, Oscar (Committee member) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
A study on the power inequity between men and women in inter-gender conversations, how it manifests linguistically, and the social ramifications thereafter. Conversations from the game show Cash Cab are used to this point.
ContributorsPirotte, Adeline Rose (Author) / Adams, Karen (Thesis director) / Bryant, Jason (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
Feminism has been the focus of many writers throughout the decades but has recently gained momentum in the eyes of the general public thanks to works like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Feminist figure Hélène Cixous encourages women to empower themselves by applying feminist ideas to their writing, rather than remaining complacent in an oppressive society. Avalon strives to portray some of these ideas through the lens of Arthurian Legend. A feminist story set in an epic fantasy world, Avalon shows the struggle of marginalized groups in a patriarchal, discriminatory, and dystopian society.
The main character, Princess Alexandria, must navigate a world where the all magic is controlled by a power-hungry ruler, King Mordred. After he decides to pursue the Ruins of Kronos in order to gain control over time itself, the princess decides to intervene. Alexandria escapes the palace with her childhood best friend James, to stop him, nearly dying in the process, and finds a group of fairies who have lost their wings. The fairies help her discover the true origins and capabilities of magic, making her realize that she must restore it to the realm in order to stop King Mordred. Alexandria disguises herself as a man and joins the King’s Knights, befriending a rebel in disguise named Keith along the way, as she discovers her brother Noah may be on the King’s side. Together, they work to liberate lands oppressed by King Mordred’s rule, and by the Black Plague that Morgana has set upon them, all while uncovering the corruption present in their society.
The main character, Princess Alexandria, must navigate a world where the all magic is controlled by a power-hungry ruler, King Mordred. After he decides to pursue the Ruins of Kronos in order to gain control over time itself, the princess decides to intervene. Alexandria escapes the palace with her childhood best friend James, to stop him, nearly dying in the process, and finds a group of fairies who have lost their wings. The fairies help her discover the true origins and capabilities of magic, making her realize that she must restore it to the realm in order to stop King Mordred. Alexandria disguises herself as a man and joins the King’s Knights, befriending a rebel in disguise named Keith along the way, as she discovers her brother Noah may be on the King’s side. Together, they work to liberate lands oppressed by King Mordred’s rule, and by the Black Plague that Morgana has set upon them, all while uncovering the corruption present in their society.
ContributorsMucino-Martinez, Gwendolyn (Author) / Moran, Stacey (Thesis director) / Sturges, Robert (Committee member) / Dean, The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
A posthuman figure like the female cyborg challenges traditional humanist feminism in ways that make room for theorizing new subjectivities and feminist epistemologies. Rather than support a traditional feminism that assumes common experiences within patriarchal society and erases differences among women, cyborg feminism moves beyond naturalism and essentialism to acknowledge complex, individual, and ever-changing identity. Three films, Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), and Alex Garland’s Ex Machina (2015), all offer such a vision of the female cyborg. In these films, the cyborg subject is a composite of machine and human—sometimes physical, dependent on the corporal mixing of flesh and machine, but just as often mental. Human sentiment, human memories, and human emotion merge with mechanical frames and electronic codes/coding to produce cyborgs. Importantly, every main cyborg in these films is coded as female. For each cyborg, a female body hosts preprogrammed sexuality and the emotions each creator thinks a woman should have, whether those are empathy, compassion, or submissiveness.
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.
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.
ContributorsMargolis, Madison Lawry (Author) / Dove-Viebahn, Aviva (Thesis director) / Miller, April (Committee member) / Department of English (Contributor, Contributor) / School of Film, Dance and Theatre (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05