Thursday, October 12, 2017
Ringu
Remember how to look at a film through a feminist lens? Choose a five-minute scene in Ringu and examine the role of women and how they are portrayed in your selected scene and in the film as a whole. How does the director show us? Be sure to discuss this topic CINEMATICALLY. Back up all of your statements with evidence from the film. Your response should be 3 well-developed paragraphs. You must reference one of the big names (from feminist film criticism) such as Tania Modleski, Laura Mulvey, and Molly Haskell. You must state the title of the essay and use at least one quote. I have plenty of books in the library to help you with this.
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In a genre monopolized by prominent male leads, Hideo Nakata’s 1998 film “Ringu” tells a refreshing tale in which women manage to take center stage in a Japanese society dominated by men. Japan’s feminist renaissance began in the late 1900’s in the wake of the Vietnam War and Cold War. At this time, women began to emphasize their desire to be more active in Japanese society, contrary to the traditional roles of women in Japan. The role of Reiko and Sadako in the film is one of the most prominent representations of Japan's feminist Renaissance in pop culture.
ReplyDeleteSadako dominates the scene in which she emerges from the TV to kill Ryuji. Sadako is shown much longer in the scene than Ryuji, and is centered in frame for the majority of the scene. Ryuji is primarily placed in the left or right of the frame, being dominated by Sadako throughout. This scene stands out so much because not many scenes in horror films cinematically depict a man being dominated by a woman.
This scene is contradictory to Laura Mulvey’s statement that “the gender power asymmetry is a controlling force in cinema and constructed for the pleasure of the male viewer, which is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideologies and discourses.” In fact, the scene depicts heavy gender power asymmetry in favor of Sadako. Mulvey also suggests that women are not used in film to take control of a scene, which was also contradicted in “Ringu.” It was refreshing to watch a film that breaks free from the popular theme of male domination. Nakata successfully portrayed powerful female characters and was able to cinematically depict their domination over multiple male characters.
Hideo Nakata’s film “Ringu” is a film that attempts to subvert the stereotypes of how women are portrayed in cinema. “Ringu” is a Japanese horror film released in 1998, and it is important to realize that Japan was at its most progressive point socially at the time of the film’s release. The idea that men were superior to women was swiftly falling out of favor, and “Ringu” is an example of this shift occurring in a cinematic environment.
ReplyDeleteLaura Mulvey, in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, discusses how women are typically portrayed in film. One particular point that Mulvey brings up is the usage of scopophilia in film. Scopophilia is the “love of looking”, or sexual pleasure derived from looking at sexually stimulating scenes. Mulvey argues that the portrayal of women in film is often solely for the purpose of scopophilia. Women are often over-sexualized, such that men, both in the world of the film and in the audience, are given sexual pleasure as a result.
Nakata subverts Mulvey’s beliefs regarding scopophilia in film by avoiding the sexualization of the primary female characters throughout the film. Specifically, Sadako, the antagonist of the film, is given no sexual allure in her appearances throughout the film. She is a character that all the other characters fear, and no attention is given to her looks in any way, shape, or form. This is evident in how she is depicted onscreen, or perhaps screens. Female villains are often fetishized, dressed in revealing clothing, and given little sustainable power. Sadako is different in the sense that she is depicted through multiple screens, as she only ever appears on TV screens. This gives her sustainable power, as the primary characters cannot access and/or attack her directly. Furthermore, the video quality of these tapes is such that Sadako’s body is not a prominent feature at all. This, in effect, removes the element of scopophilia and allows the characters and the audience to only focus on the fear that she causes.
ReplyDeleteIn his 1998 horror film, Ringu, Hideo Nakata emerges against the stereotypical and negative portrayal of women in the cinematic world. This Japanese films breaks the mold of females appearing as weak and helpless. Especially with the Japanese progression going on during the time this movie was filmed, the roles and assumed portrayals of women were beginning to change. Compared to the negative and often sexualized portrayal of women in cinema, Nakata diverts from this practice and creates female characters who are null to sexualization. Ringu’s female protagonist is not depicted in a sexual manner and is portrayed as a single mother who is trying to take care of her son. Her role is that of a working class mother and she is not dressed in any scandalous costumes or adorned with extravagant and seductive makeup that entails her objectification. Not only that but the “villain” in this film is a supernatural women by the name of Sadako. Often time female villains are depicted sexually through the manner of their costume, hair, and makeup. However in this case, Nakata does not depict Sadako by a sexual means. When Sadako is shown in her full form at the end, she does not appear to be a typical woman or even a man. Her body is not exposed in a scantily clad manner and the audience cannot even see her face as her long hair conceals her facial features. This signifies how Nakata drew away from sexualizing women in Ringu as opposed to how they usually are depicted in film.
Laura Mulvey in her essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” discusses the feminist film theory. She explains how women are portrayed in film negatively and are depicted to be appealing towards a male audience. Often times these women are dressed in skimpy articles of clothing with a lot of their female assets exposed, their makeup is quite often exaggerated, even the dialogue and characteristics of these female characters are sexualied through a seductive means. All of this is done in order to appeal to the “male gaze” which essentially encompasses a man’s desire to feel sexually awakened visually on screen. She stated that “the magic of the Hollywood style at its best (and of all the cinema which fell within its sphere of influence) arose, not exclusively, but in one important aspect, from its skilled and satisfying manipulation of visual pleasure." (Laura Mulvey, 1975).
When Reiko and Ryuji discover the well, there are several eye level shots of Reiko pulling up the buckets of water. High angle shots of Ryuji in the bottom of the well are also depicted. Reiko is seen as equal to the viewer and Ryuji is seen as the inferior. The high angle shot symbolizes Ryuji’s weakness and vulnerability and almost foreshadows, in a sense, Ryuji’s future fate. A dim light is shone on Reiko that is steady and unchanging. The light on Ryuji at the bottom of the well flickers as it changes intensities based on the movement of the flashlight. When contrasted together, these depict how Reiko, with her calm and steady light, is more controlled and in power of the situation whereas Ryuji, with flickering light, is vulnerable and not ready for what is about to happen to him. By comparing these two, the female (Reiko) is depicted as more powerful and dominant than her male counterpart (Ryuji).
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ReplyDeleteRingu is a 1998 Japanese horror film that was directed by Hideo Nakata. Looking at this film through a feminist lens, Nakata goes against the usual grain when it comes to how women are portrayed in his film. After World War 2, laws were passed to give women equal rights in Japan and ever since, Japan has become more progressive when it comes to how women are treated. This is reflected in Ringu.
ReplyDeleteIn this film, there is a scene where Ryuji and Reiko are both watching a flashback of the past where the origins of Sadako are revealed. They watch Sadako kill a reporter that labels her mother Shizuko a fraud. In film critic Laura Mulvey’s essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, she states, “The scopophilic instinct and in contradistinction, ego libido act as formations, mechanisms,which this cinema has played on. The image of woman as raw material for the gaze of man takes the argument a step further into the structure of representation, adding a further layer demanded by the ideology of the patriarchal order as it is worked out in its favorite cinematic form - illusionistic narrative film.” Mulvey also states that female characters always exist in relation to male characters.
These theories do not apply to Ringu. In the scene where Shizuko is at an ESP exhibition, she is not portrayed in a sexual manner at all and the camera does not take special time out of the scene to focus on her as an erotic object. Rather, the characters around her interact with her due to what she is capable of doing, not because of how she looks. The same could be said for all other women portrayed in this film. Reiko and Sadako also are not sexualized at all. Their presences in the film are not dependant on men at all and they don’t exist to make men feel or act a certain way. Unlike other films, the women in this film are individually important, powerful, and don’t exist solely for interacting with male characters.
(Allowed to write for Baby Face instead of Ringu. Split into two parts because of character maximum.)
ReplyDeleteAlfred Green’s Baby Face from 1933 challenges the common cinematic practice of over-sexualizing women, bringing to light many constricted portrayals of women present in prior films. As Laura Mulvey discusses in her essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” “Pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female” (Section III. A.). The main male character, upon projecting his gaze at the woman, feels threatened by the woman, and so his response is either to save or destroy her in order to reclaim his manhood. However, what Lily Powers does is she draws a man in and then cuts him down, thus lending Baby Face a powerful feminist rhetoric that deliberately opposes Mulvey’s theory.
In the scenes where Lily Powers is just beginning to gain a foothold in the banking company, several cinematic techniques are used to create a desirable mystique about her that the men are attracted to. One of these is how she is framed in relation to the men; throughout this sequence, Lily is rarely absent from the frame. In the scene where she’s initially trying to get a job, the shots start as medium long shots, move to medium shots, and finally to close-ups of her, indicating that Mr. Pratt has been staring at her in an objectifying way. A similar shot progression occurs when Lily is cozying up to Mr. Brody. The medium shot of her as she comes over to Brody and McCoy symbolizes temptation to Brody. The next shot is a long shot where Lily has moved away from Brody, and yet he still looks toward her. Another medium shot of Lily shows her as she returns his male gaze, leading him on. When she finally moves up into his department, a tight close-up of the two right beside each other, obviously sexual, shows Brody’s wandering gaze which also reflects the gaze Laura Mulvey argues a male audience would have in conjunction.
The omnipresence of Lily in these objectifying shot sequences is clearly indicative that she is on the minds of the men she is influencing, whether it is through their direct gaze or by their stolen glances as she creeps into the edge of their vision onscreen. However, unlike the trend in films Mulvey explores, Lily is doing this on purpose. She is making the men believe they have her figured out and that they can save her and thus rid themselves of the woman’s “castration threat by her real absence of a penis” (Section I. A.). But the truth is, as soon as Lily Powers feeds on their power, she leaves the men behind to waste away. This is part of what makes Baby Face such a strong social commentary about feminist film theory and societal standards.
In addition to framing, costuming is also used to make a point about feminist film theory. In the opening scene, Lily wears a modest lacy shirt; a black blazer; a loose, flowing skirt; heels; and a hat that covers her somewhat curly hair. Though pretty, she is not especially striking. The other women waiting for jobs aren’t dressed much differently from Lily. It’s her doe eyes and winning smile that sway the doorman and Mr. Pratt from the personnel department. However, once she lands her first position, Lily’s outfit has changed significantly. Her hair is uncovered and notably more fashionably curled and her dress stands out more with its sharp juxtaposition of pure white with pitch black underneath it (something to be said also of her character). The shiny buttons on her collar glint as she gazes back at Mr. Brody, catching his attention. Once she gets into his department, her hair becomes even more stylishly curled and she now sports a dress with a frilled collar and a string of pearls around her neck, signifying her gains in wealth and status. At this point, Lily has thoroughly caught Mr. Brody’s gaze now. (cont.)
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ReplyDeleteWhat of the other man, Mr. McCoy? Lily Powers has already ditched him, like she ditched her old outfit, having outgrown it. Interestingly, all the men essentially wear the same suit, waistcoat, and tie. Mulvey writes, “As the spectator identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look on to that of his like, his screen surrogate.” (Section III. B.) However, this film challenges Mulvey’s idea of a single man who is immediately identifiable to the audience since Lily moves from man to man as she climbs the social ladder. The point of their nearly identical suits is to reveal that each man is no different from the rest when it comes to his scopophilic ways. Thus, there is no one main male character to identify with; they are all representative of one male archetype—it’s the men’s turn to be dehumanized by cinema now. In these ways and more, Baby Face both exemplifies and counters the feminist theories about the role of women in film.
Hideo Nakata’s 1998 horror film Ringu breaks free from some of the conventions of portraying female characters. During the time period that Ringu was produced, society was becoming more progressive and gender roles had begun to shift. In the film, the main protagonist and antagonist are both women. The protagonist, Reiko is a single mother that struggles to balance her work life and her home life. This portrayal marked a departure from the stereotype that women are financially reliant on men and need saving. The villain is Sadako, a girl with dangerous supernatural powers that was killed at a young age by her father. Because of her abilities, Sadako is seen as more powerful than the rest of the characters.
ReplyDeleteFeminist Film Theory is a collection of ideas that explore the role of females in movies. Laura Mulvey is a well known feminist film critic that focused on the male gaze and scopophilia. In her essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Mulvey explains that, in scenes that include women, the viewer is meant to identify with male characters in the way that they observe the woman. The females are often passive characters, while the men are the active characters that propel the plot forward. As a result, the presence of passive women in film “tends to work against the development of a story line”. According to Mulvey, female characters are often objectified in this way to maximize the viewers feelings of visual pleasure, or scopophilia.
One part of the film that Mulvey’s theory can be applied to is the scene where Sadako climbs out of the TV, scaring Ryuji to death. This scene is interesting to look at through a feminist lens, because the male gaze is still present, but it adds to Sadako’s power rather than detracts from it. The scene cuts between shots of the TV set, with Sadako slowly climbing out of the television screen, and close up shots of Ryuji’s reaction. The shots of Sadako are significantly longer than the shots of Ryuji, and the ominous music begins during these shots. The viewer is not expecting her to reappear, so we are meant to identify with Ryuji in observing Sadako. Although the entire scene revolves around Ryuji gazing at Sadako, she is not sexualized or portrayed as passive. She holds the power in the scene, because being observed is what caused her victims to die. Rather than undermine her abilities, the male gaze actually emphasizes her strength as a character.
In Hideo Nakata’s film “Ringu” (1998), the roles of women seem to be crucial to the telling of the story. At this point in time, when “Ringu” was produced, Japan’s society was in fact becoming more progressive and less suseptible to stereotypical gender roles. When you think about it, if there weren’t any women in “Ringu”, there would be no film. The protagonist is portrayed as a very put together woman, who balances being a single mother and a successful reporter. The antagonist is also a woman, whom everyone fears because she has the power to end their lives. Even the very story of Ringu was introduced to the audience by women; the two teenage girls hanging out in the beginning of the film pretty much provided the foundation for the rest of the film.
ReplyDeleteI would have to say that I think Nakata would agree with Tania Modleski when she states, “Although women have spoken, then, they have not always been heard, and one of the tasks for feminism is continually to insist upon recognition, as well as upon the priority of its work”, in her essay “Femininity As Mas(s)querade: A feminist approach to mass culture” (2001). And that’s exactly what Nakata does in his film. Throughout the film, women are portrayed as either superior or equal to their male counterparts; not once in the entire film was there a woman seen as less than because she was a woman.
At the very end of the film, when Ryuji dies, this is a perfect example of Nakata portray a woman as superior while the man is inferior. This is noticable because when Sadako is on screen she is always centered emphasizing the fact that she is the most important thing in frame. When being compared to Ryuji in this scene, he is always on one side of the frame and never centered, this further emphasizes that Sadako is in control of what’s happening and Ryuji isn’t in control whatsoever. Also when Sadako is in frame, it’s almost always a low angle in the scene compared to Ryuji being seen with a slight high angle, so the audience can see that he is literally cowering in fear and that Sadako has all the power in this situation.
Women take the center roles in Hideo Nakata's 1998 horror film "Ringu", being given narrative importance crucial to the story at stake in an otherwise conservative genre. The roles of women in horror are frequently simplified to easily comprehensible and often reductive archetypes, usually being young or naive and completely unable to cope with their horrific settings for audience enjoyment. In 1998, Japanese culture was becoming more progressive regarding its views on gender roles, and this can be seen how Ringu itself treats its women.
ReplyDeleteIn her essay "Femininity As Mas(s)querade", Tania Modleski writes "Although women have spoken...they have not always been heard, and one of the tasks for feminism is continually to insist upon recognition". In watching Ringu, one can almost see how Hideo Nakata was aware of this phenomenon and incorporated it into his story thematically. After all, Sadako's vengeance only came upon from men refusing to recognize the psychic gifts of her and her mother, and from her father murdering her in cold blood. Reiko, the objective protagonist of the film, breaks stereotype by being a career-driven and proactive single mother, and she remains the primary driving force of the plot even as she works with her ex-husband Ryuji. Even their relationship, though genuine and amicable, holds some pain they both work past to save their lives and the life of their son. Even though Ryuji is intelligent and has psychic abilities that helps them uncover vital clues to the mystery, it's only Reiko's proactiveness and determination to solve her niece's murder and save her son that allows them even the remote chance to end the curse.
Near the end of the movie, as Reiko and Ryuji race against time to uncover Sadako's body in the well, they both share in the toil of draining the water from the well to find the corpse with Ryuji filling the buckets and Reiko pulling them out. Yet even as they both work, Ryuji can't seem to find the body, the lighting and medium shots almost implying that no matter how much water he empties he's not making any progress at all. It's only after they switch places, after Reiko nearly passes out, that the camera changes from montage to chronological and focuses more closely on Reiko. It's noteworthy that, though Ryuji's method cleared out the water, his aggression and single-mindedness kept him from finding the actual body. When Reiko moves in, however, she is slow and cautious, and the camera focuses on her face and mannerisms in closeup as she, finally, discovers the body and apparently saves them both. In the final shot of the scene, she cradles Sadako's body close to her as only a mother can, as if it were here own child.
The women in Hideo Nakata’s Ringu are extremely multifaceted. Throughout the film they are shown from different sides such as weakness, strength, power, and vulnerability. The beginning of the movie represents the stereotype of the woman needing the man every step of the way. But as the film progresses so did Reiko’s abilities. Soon enough she was ready to take on Sadako. This turnaround was shown in the scene starting at 1:01:00, especially through framing and costume.
ReplyDeleteI believe the scene to be of great importance to the film whether from an narrative viewpoint or through the feminist lense. Reiko starts off the scene standing above the two men, one laying on the sand and the other sitting. But soon she starts to faint, and as always Ryuji has to catch her. This seems to symbolize her struggle to become her strongest self and defeat Sadako. The next scene is important because it is a turning point in the movie. It starts off with a medium shot of Reiko on the phone. She is excitedly talking about the new information and gaining a sense of hope and vigor she hadn’t shown before. The camera then pans to the right to reveal Ryuji. Reiko is not only in the foreground but also higher than Ryuji, who is in a hopeless mood. To highlight this Reiko is dressed in bright colors that pop with her surroundings while Ryuji is dressed in a brown shirt that blends in with his surroundings. This implicitly shows the power exchange between them. Until that point Ryuji was the driving force in saving their lives and was always above her at all times and constantly in the foreground of the frame. As they switch positions in the frame they switch roles in the movie.
In “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Laura Melvey says. “The split between spectacle and narrative supports the man's role as the active one of forwarding the story, making things happen. The man controls the film fantasy and also emerges as the representative of power in a further sense.”. While I agree with her ppoint in general Ringu is mostly an exception to the rule. Ringu defies this stereotype by creating the scene I chose and the resulting power change that followed. In the beginning the expected happened where Ryuji was away the one displayed with power and authority. Yet after that scene she defied the stereotype and became the authority of the movie. I agree with her point of movies overall, but in this case the woman prevailed.
In her essay, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” Laura Mulvey says that within a film’s narrative, “Women [are] displayed as a sexual object” and that women are just a projection of the “determining male gaze.” In the japanese horror film, “Ringu” these stereotypes are changed. Three of the films central characters are women and none of them are portrayed as insubordinant to men. Asakawa is a very independent character whose bravery moves the movie’s plot and Sadako and her mother are both eventually shown as feared and misunderstood. Although Sadako’s father are both portrayed as bad people, they do not sexualize or try to overpower women. Asakawa and her ex-husband show that their friendship is strong, but do not become romantically involved. This is important to the film because it makes this movie different from others by not really giving the audience what they want or think will happen.
ReplyDeleteThe scene where Asakawa holds the girl’s skeleton creates an intimate mother/daughter feel to the audience but not intimate in a way where either females are depicted sexually or from the male gaze. As she removes the hair from Sadako’s face, Sadako’s decomposed eyes start to fall to drip downward, as if she is crying. This shows her feeling something beautiful and sad. Her ex- husband is above looking down in an attempt to help them in some way, but is separated from this moment that Asakawa is having with Sadako. This changes the usual role of the man as the hero and places him on the outside of the situation.
Then it cuts to the two sitting there with police officers everywhere and they are both wearing blankets. Usually this scene would be the end of the movie and end in some kind of romantic way for the two characters. One cultural difference shows by how Asakawa is her own character, and that the film does not end here and does not end with her and the ex-husband getting back together. Instead she just asks more questions about Sadako. Then the story continues.