Gendered Gaze: A Study On Women's Image In American Films, 1990s

Gender, as a ubiquitous phenomenon in everyday life and the most fundamental ideology of the Western thoughts, shapes the way people read, think, talk and live. It divides classes, allocates powers, embodies and reinforces cultures. In aligning gender with the film, this thesis aims to study women's image in American films in the 1990s through women's relations with those from the opposite sex as well as with those from within the same sex. The methodology to be applied majorly draws on the psychoanalytic theories deriving from Sigmund Freud and the feminist film theories originating from Laura Mulvey.This thesis looks at up to fifty popular and influential American films in the 1990s, most of which are mainstream award-winning Hollywood movies with a few independent productions. Whether in the woman's film or in other film genres, a persistent Hollywood ideology of filmmaking is found predominant in the portrayal of its female characters when probing into the woman herself, the world she lives in, the themes in which she is obsessively dealt with, and the way her body is gazed. Despite the diversity and changeability of the 90s onscreen women's image, this ideology worked to keep women in certain roles, territories and concerns.The women's image in 1990s American films may not outride the grandeur of that in the Golden Years (1933-1955), during which both the woman's film and the female character abounded. However it is still a dazzling finale of the twentieth century. Ambivalent as it always is, it also composes a prelude to a promising future.