My powerpoint presentation for the representation of women in romantic comedies.

The representation of women in romantic comedies by Melissa Cannons

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Breakfast at Tiffany's - Personal Notes

General.

• Arrives in New York in a yellow taxi.  = Traveller?
• Elegantly dressed, black gown & gloves.
• Sunglasses = Mysterious?
• Big dreams = Tiffany's.
• Individual but lonely; as shown by the opening scene when she's walking down NY highstreet.
• She's observant, never misses a thing.
• Visits a mobster in Sing Sing prison >Sally Tomato. > She carries coded messages.
• She's inquisitive. 
• Likes diamonds > idea of perfection.
• Reading about South America being a rich continent. 
• All women in the film are dressed elegantly and glamorously.
• Ends with Holly and Paul kissing in the rain.
  
  Why Holly Golightly is different.
• She keeps her slippers in the fridge.
• Runs to avoid her dates from nights before.
• She uses charm and suggestion to get her own way. 
• Has a cat that she refuses to name because she doesn't feel it belongs to her.
• She sleeps nude.
• Keeps her phone in a suitcase to muffle the noise.
• Really disorganised > unconventional for a woman.
• Whistles like a man for a cab in the street.
• Waters plants with alcohol.
• She cares immensely for her brother, Fred.
• Doesn't save money well.
• Has nightmares about her brother Fred, who is in the army.
• Smokes.
• Party animal.
• Gets arrested by the police.
• She calls her neighbour Paul, 'Fred'. < shows her attachment to her brother and how much she longs to see him.
• She's frequently drunk.
• She marries people for their money.
• Drinks champagne.
• Thrives to do things that she's never done before. 
• She's shy to commitment.
• Devastated at the loss of her brother, she trashes her apartment. 
• After the death of her brother, she took up knitting and dresses casually > no glam.
• Recognises belonging and love at the end > Searches for 'cat' who she chucked out of the taxi and threw on the street.
• Ultimate realisation of love.
  
  Quotes:
• " I hate snoops."
• "She's got a lot of style and class."
• "I need money and I'll do anything to get it."
• "I think it would be tacky to wear diamonds before I'm 40."
• "C'mon don't be a chicken" < encouraging Paul to steal.
• "She's a phoney, a real phoney!"
• "People don't belong to people, I don't wanna be locked in a cage!"
• " I've got to do something about the way I look. I mean a girl just can't go to Sing Sing with a green face."
• "I'm like cat here, a no-name slob. We belong to nobody, and nobody belongs to us. We don't even belong to each other."

Things to include in presentation script.

• The romantic comedy genre has characters which are predominately women.
• Aimed largely at a female audience.
• The target audience has seen little variation.
• Bridget Jones Diary and The Ugly Truth both represent an image that although the women are both socially and financially successful, they seek and gain ultimate happiness when finding their perfect man.
• All films are still reliant on male acceptance and love.
  
                                                      
                                                          ♥

Rep of women - Dumber and dumber?

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1138946/Hollywood-portrays-women-image-obsessed-man-mad-idiots-says-British-academic.html

• In contemporary films, women seem to be shown as being dumber and dumber...
  
• Apparently only concerned by image and men .
  
• The decline in intelligence is seen when comparing Bridget Jones (Rennee Zellwegger) to Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn).
  
• Women's lives are seen to be more oppressive than they were 10 years ago.
  
• In the Golden Era, women played fully formed characters, as well as being funny and entertaining.
  
• Nowadays, women can only be seen as a complex character if she's depressing, tormented and self-sacrificing.
  
• Women only care about weddings and shopping.
  
• Melissa Silverstein, founder of Women & Hollywood claims that the portrayal of dumb women appeals to men > it's linked with the fact that most directors are men, and they're only interested in one thing and present females in a desirable manner.
  
• It is said that  fewer than 10 per cent of Hollywood films were written by women, with less than 6 per cent directed by women.
  .
  
  

Representation of women - Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Source: http://www.akira.ruc.dk/~camelia/Teaching/Autobiography/Breakfast-at-Tiffany-example.pdf

• Holly is seen to wear a long, black dress, elegant black gloves and a cigarette in hand.
• Female protagonist.
• She's a call girl.
• Likes to party.
• The main theme of the film is the celebration of power of romantic love and stability over fluidity and freedom.
• Based on a 19 year old girl making her living in New York.
• She is characterized as being unknowing and mysterious.
• She keeps the details of her personal life hidden.
• She is wild and free.
• She gets a new male neighbour and they build their relationship, which by the end is a romance.
• She has a liberal view on marriage.
• Aims to escape the conventional existence.
• Themes of belonging and freedom. 
  Feminist film theory:
• In the 1970's feminists argued that women were represented stereotypically and their actual lives weren't actually portrayed .
• The main assumption was that films mainly reflected social power structures.
  Susan Douglas:
• The 60's was a decade which 'belonged' to the boys. 
• Decade of 'Rebel without cause'.
• Women played a more trivial part in the 60s: they fainted whilst seeing the beatles, and exposed themselves at Woodstock.
• Emphasis on shortening the generational gap in the 60s.
• Susan Douglas thinks that Holly Golightly is the first hermaphrodite female protagonist in a Hollywood film. 

Orientation:

• Holly herself challenges her orientation in the film, there is real ambiguity. 
• "People couldn’t help but think I must be a bit of a dyke myself. And of course I am. Everyone is: a bit. So what? That never discouraged a man yet, in fact it seems to goad them on."
  
  Her name:
• She made herself: Holly Golightly < a mixture of go & lightly. - It represents her ability to change identity, location and lifestyles without hesitation.
• She's a traveller. - has no real home.
  
  Lifestyle:
• She refuses to have any kind of stability or identity.
• She travels away and refuses to settle down.
• After getting in trouble with the law, Holly leaves the city.
• Paul makes her change her mind and settle down with him. 
• When she finds love, she finds a place that she can call home.
• The film ends with reference to the 1950's belief that women must get married and raise children.
  
  Challenging the 1950s.
• The film is seen to challenge the morals and beliefs of the 1950s.
• Sexual liberation is key - this film shows the advancements in society and represents the image that it's okay to be free and fulfil your desire. 
• Hepburn had a boyish appearance due to her tall, thin appearance but still managed to be attractive to men.
• This showed that the 1950's pin up image wasn't all that was desired and it didn't matter what you looked like anymore as long as you were happy.
  
  How she defyed the stereotype,
• She didn't represent the typical stereotypical persona in the film e.g. the girl next door or the mothering role.
• She slept all day and partied all night.
• Watered her plants with alcohol.
• Kept her slippers in the fridge.
• Slept nude.
• Refused to decorate her apartment. 
• Kept her phone in her suitcase. 
• Whistled like a man when calling for a cab.
• Dined in fancy restaurants.
• Got drunk whenever she wanted.
• She only wanted to get married for the money.
• She represented a 'young, hip modern chick'
• At the same time as rebellion, she accepted the moral idea that you have to settle down with a man which reinforced traditional ideas of womanhood. 
• The representation that is evident here is dominant to that of the 1950s.
• Despite the fact that she settled with Paul by the end, she never paid the price for her sins.

Breakfast at Tiffiiny's -Research :)

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany's_(film)

• Made in 1961.
• Romantic comedy.
• Directed by Blake Edwards.
• Audrey Hepburn's character is presented as being naïve and eccentric. 
• Based on a book of the same name.
• Released on 5th October 1961.
• Budget: $2.5 Million.
• Box office: $14,000,000
  
  Plot:
  
  -Taxi pulls up outside Tiffiny and Co.
  
  
  -Holly Golightly played by Audrey Hepburn emerges.
  
  
  -She goes home and fends of her date from the disastrous night before. (he'd been waiting in the car outside her apartment all night.)
  
  
  -The following day she is woken by her new neighbour 'Paul Varjak'; ringing the doorbell.
  -They chat as she gets dressed to leave for her weekly visit to Sally Tomato; a mobster who's in prison.
  
  
  -She's paid to pass on coded messages for his drug ring but plays dumb during visits.
  
  
  -As she leaves her apartment, she meets Paul's 'decorator'; a wealthy woman - Emily Eustace Failenson.
  
  
  -Holly goes out onto the fire escape that night to escape an O.T.T date.
  
  
  -She goes into Paul's apartment, where she see's Emily kissing him and handing over cash.
  
  
  -After Emily left, Holly went in and found out that Paul is a writer who hasn't had anything published for a while.
  
  
  -Holly explains to him that she is trying to save money to support her brother Fred, for when he gets out of the army.
  
  
  -They both fall asleep on the sofa but are awoken when Holly has a bad dream about her brother and leaves.
  
  
  -She later buys Paul a new typewriter ribbon to apologise & invites him to her house party.
  
  
  -At the party, Paul meets her Hollywood agent O.J. Berman, who describes Holly's transformation from country girl into Manhattan socialite.
  
  
  - He is also introduced to José da Silva Pereira, a rich Brazilian and Rusty Trawler, a rich American.
  
  
  -In subsequent days, Paul and Holly grow closer.
  
  
  -One day, Emily walks into Paul's apartment, thinking that she's being followed.
  
  
  -Paul tells her that he'll investigate and confronts the man who says he's Holly's husband, Doc.
  
  
  - Doc explains that Holly's real name is Lula Mae Barnes, whom he married when she was 14, and that he would like to take her back to Texas.
  
  
  - After Paul reunites Holly and Doc, she tells Paul the marriage was annulled and asks him to accompany her and Doc to the bus station.
  
  
  -There, she tells Doc that she's not going with him - Doc says that he won't support her brother if she doesn't go with him, she still refuses. She tells him that her brother Fred will live with her in New York.
  
  
  -Doc leaves brokenhearted.
  
  
  -After drinking in a club, Paul and Holly return to her apartment, where she drunkenly tells him that she plans to marry Rusty Trawler for his money.
  
  
  - A few days later, Paul learns that one of his short stories has been accepted for publication.
  
  
  - On the way to tell Holly, he sees the newspaper at her door, its headline stating that Trawler has married someone else.
  
  
  - Holly and Paul agree to spend the day together, taking turns doing things that each has never done before.
  
  
  - At Tiffany's, Paul has the ring from Doc Golightly's box of Cracker Jack engraved as a present for Holly.
  
  
  - After spending the night together, he awakens to find that she has returned to her apartment. Soon afterwards, Paul ends his relationship with Emily.
  
  
  - Holly schemes to marry José for his money, which angers Paul who has firmly decided on his love for her.
  
  
  - After Holly and José return to her apartment to find a telegram notifying her of Fred's death, she trashes her apartment in grief, her behavior disturbing José. Months later, Paul has moved out of the building.
  
  
  - He is invited to dinner by Holly, who is leaving the next morning for Brazil. However, they are soon arrested by police in connection with Sally's drug ring and taken to the 19th precinct.
  
  
  - Yunioshi re-introduced the unmentioned theme from the Capote novel and insinuated that they are smoking narcotics when they were arrested.
  
  
  -Holly spends the night in lock-up.
  
  
  - The next morning, Holly is released on bail with help from O.J. and finds Paul waiting in a taxi for her outside.
  
  
  - He has her cat and a letter from José explaining he must end their relationship due to her arrest.
  
  
  - Holly insists she will go to Brazil anyway and releases the cat from the taxi into the rain.
  
  
  - Paul confronts Holly about her behavior and leaves the cab, tossing the ring he had engraved for her into her lap and telling her to examine her life.
  
  
  - She quickly runs after him and together they find the cat, look into each other's eyes and embrace.