Traditional Representations
Allthough generaly beloved by most people including myself, the hit british rom com Bridget Jones Diary starts to become more problematic at a second glance when veiwed through the lense of Judith Butlers Queer Theory. The film apears on the surface level to be subverting the tropes of the usual hugh grant lead, Ritchard Curtis british romcom about a slightly insucure yet highly attractive male finding love and growing in confidence because of that. This film instead takes the character who would usualy be played by hugh grant and Gender swaps the roles, casting renne zellwiger as the titular role. However apart from this role reversal the portrayals are still significantly gender normetive. Bridget fits the stereotype of a slightly ditzy blond. Huge Grant this time takes on the role of villain in the form of the infamous Daniel Cleever. He embodies the stereotype of sleezy male media boss who missuses his power and status to advance his sexual apitite when he begins to sexualy harras bridget at work via email. Finaly, the character of Mark Darcy played by colin firth portrays a more posetive depiction of masculinity. Though he begins as snobby he warms to bridget and by the end of the film becomes truly charming. He embodies the traditional traits of wealth and sucsess in his legal career(another male dominated profession). However wear the representation of him becomes slightly problematic is at the beginning of the 3rd act when he and cleever dule for bridgets affection in a hellerious scene set to the tune of the weather girl's "its raining men". This represents a resurgance of base animalistic masculin traits as both men seem to regress to cave men to fight over a woman. Though this is made less problematic when bridget scolds both men for the fight, allowing a small redemption arc for darcy, hugh grants charcater all but dissapeers from the film at this point allowing him no chance to subvert his own negative traits. This is evident in the sequel when cleever returns, demonstrighting the same potentialy problematic characteristics in terms of male representation and stereotyping.
Subversion of typical representation
In The Origional 1966 tv series of Gene Rodembery's star trek, the central character of captain of the USS Enterprise: James T Kirk was portrayed by Willliam Shatner as a typical masculine hero for a tv show at the time, complete with the womanising and episodely fist fights with the villains. This is an anomaly for a show that is as progressive as star trek and whilest I wouldn't say that kirk's masculinity is a negative portrayal (its certainly better tham other characters such as james bond at the time and some of kirks traits such as his strength and confidence in leadership is often something that many including myself look up to) its deffinatly conformetive to the typical arcitypes a man would demonstrait at the time. However, much of this is addressed in the underrated movie masterpiece "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn. In this film kirk's more brash and arrogant traits are critiqued. Kirk is made to acsept his previous arrogance when he must face a no win sanario at tye end of the film when Spock sacrifices himself to save the ship. In the Origional show kirk would have found a way out but now, a more developed and aged kirk comes to terms with the masculine aragance that he previously displayed in both the show and this move when a risky tactik at the beginning of the film results in the deaths of multiple crew members. His masculine aragance clearly has consequence unlike in the show. Another negative masculine trait kirk sheads in this film relates to his previous days as a womaniser. We learn in this film that kirk has an astrainged wife and son who he has abandoned and neglected in favour of adventure and thrill seeking. This is even to the extent that his son does not even recognise him when thet first meet. In this film kirk learns to apriciate his wife and son and be less of a neglectfull father, taking some responsibility for his family by the end.
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