Useful Article: Kill Bill Vol.2...

Here is a article i found from Jatinder’s blog [Thank You!] on Kill Bill Volume Two. I found this article very useful because it talks a lot about the audience,Tarantino and also Beatrix:

‘Beatrix is essentially tortured in each instance. The Madsen sequence is the most horrific. Beatrix is shot in the chest with a shotgun blast of rock salt, left to writhe in pain, tied up with belts and ropes, dragged across the desert floor, threatened with having her eyeballs burnt out with Mace and finally buried alive in a pine coffin. Budd leers and gloats over her the while, deriving great pleasure from her agony. What is one to make of this?’

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jun2004/kill-j25.shtml

However, it also tells us how Tarantino is ‘merely reflecting the violence in the society around him...’. The article also tells us how the audience found Kill Bill ‘entertaining and amusing’. [It talks about Killl Bill in more depth]

This article will help me because it is the other side of my agruement on how women are being underrepresented as it reinforces the ‘misogynistic’ as well as ‘patriarchal’ attitudes because Bill brutally murders his lover [Beatrix Kiddo]. Moreover, Kill Bill does challenge and break the tradiotnal roles of the male being the heroic/domainant chracter and women being the passive/ damsel in distress character.

Task Eleven: 'Mini Essay'...

Women usually tend to be represented as emotional, sexual, beautiful and size/physique. However, in Kill Bill, Uma Thurman [Beatrix Kiddo/The Bride (Black Mamba)] is represented as a strong, dominant and in control.

Kill Bill challenges the patriarchy society, as a male is not the protagonist/dominant character in Kill Bill, and this also occurs in many other films such as' Charlies Angels' and ‘Tomb Raider’. Men are shown to have less control compared to other actions films, Such as ‘The Terminater’, where you would expect to see the man as the main character. Women prove that they can do just as much as men. As Kill Bill breaks the tradition of having a male as a dominant and heroic character, however Kill Bill doesn’t show any misogyny, hatred towards women because women are represented as dominant and in control, as we tend to see a male taking up the heroic and dominant roles. However, Bill did brutally murders his lover [Beatrix], which reinforces the misogynistic as well as patriarchal attitudes.

Furthermore, Uma Thurman is being represented as dominant and in control, but however to an extent can we say she is being represented fairly: as Kill Bill is directed by a male director. Women directors and male directors portray women in different ways even though male directors try to portray women as fairly as possible. So the audience is seeing everything from a male prospective. However, to an extent we can say that Uma Thurman is being objectified but however she isn’t because she is dominant and portrayed as powerful and controlling. Uma Thurman doesn’t follow the passive role and instead breaks the usual convention of women being passive by taking an active role. Additionally, the male gaze is used in the film but to a certain extent because ‘The Bride’ wore tight and attractive outfits: as men gaze upon her this also objectifies her. On the other hand, even though Uma Thurman is represented as powerful and dominant, men are still getting their voyeuristic pleasures by watching Uma on her Killing rampage as her outfit is tight fitted which makes her attractive to look at the same time. The male audience may feel a little anxiues by watching a powerful and dominant women shown in control by using many phalic objects.

However, Tarantino does not follow the traditional narrative cinema, so to some extent we can agrue it does not follow the issues Mulvey raises: as women in Kill Bill are active and not passive, and controlling in comparison to the male actors. Also, the samuri sword "the bride" uses can bee seen as a phallic symbol and fetish object.

Moreover, a different viewpoint can be taken showing that Tarantino is showing a positive role for women in this film. For example, Thurman's character, single handly killed ‘The Crazy 88’ (who were all men) and the ring leader of the ‘Deadly Vipers’, Bill. In conclusion, Tarantino shows how women are becoming more independent and dominant within the media as well as society.

Laura Mulvey...

Her theory is that women and men both gaze upon each other in sexual context. What May attract the men is Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, as some men might find it attractive to have a controling and attractive female protagonist in a film.

Hollwood female characters of the 1950s and 60s were, according to Mulvey, coded with "to-be-looked-at-ness." Mulvey suggests that there were two distinct modes of the male gaze of this era: "voyeuristic" (i.e. seeing women as 'madonnas') and "fetishistic" (i.e. seeing women as 'whores').

To an certain extent i do agree with Mulvey's theory, women today are still objectified and in other media text aswell, such as magazines. However, the audience are forced to see women through a males prospective becasue majority of the directors are male. On the other hand, women are not the only sex that are gazed upon, women also gaze upon men just aswell: even though women are gazed upon much more than men. So in the end both sexes gaze upon eachother.

Book Research...

1] Mckee, Alan (3003): Textual Ananlysis a beginner's guide. London, Thousand Oaks & New Delhi: SAGE Publications Ltd.

2] Hartley, John (2002): Communication, Cultural and Media Studies The Key Concepts. London, USA & Canad: Routledge.

3] Bell, Angela. Joyce, Mark. Rivers, Danny (199): 2nd Edition Advanced Level Media. Britian: Hodder & Stoughton.

4] Murphy, Peter F. (2004): Feminims & Masculinities. United States: Oford University.

5]Smith,Jim (2005): Tarantino. Great Britain:Virgin Books Ltd.

6] Lovell, Alan & Sergi, Gianluca (2005): Making Films In Comtempopary Hollywood. Great Britan, Hodder Education.

7] Cosslett, Tess; Easton, Alison & Summerfield, Penny (1996): Women, Power And Resistance. Great Britian.

8] Clark, Vivienne; Baker, James & Lewis, Eileen (2002): Key Concepts And Media Skills For Media Studies. Great Britain, Hodder & Stoughton.

9] Bennett, Jacqueline; Jones, Tanya & McDougall, Julian (2002): A2 Media Studies For OCR. Great Britian, Hodder & Stoughton.

10] Rance, PTJ (2005): Martial Arts. Great Britain, Viring Books Ltd.

11] Welldon, Estela V. (1988): Mother Madonna Whore. United Staes of America, The Guilford Press.

Women In Adverts

1] Objectified Women -

because they mainly show women shaking their ass.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=W_XjBxRWCyg

2] Traditional Role Of Women -

because women are usually stereotyped to be in the kitchen doing the cooking.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=QMaI0NxSOtw

3] Progessive Women -

because the women is represented as dominant and in control and typically a man would be associated with a car advert.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdT9oURGtTc