Male Gaze, in my own definition, is female stereotypes featured in pop-media in order to attract male audience. Due to its focus on luring men, male gaze has several downfalls. First, they can turn out to be very offensive, to a point of ridiculing female audiences. Secondly, it could serve as a psychological cage which traps women to believe that the media’s portrayal is the best representation of themselves.
The next paragraphs will discuss how male gaze components are shown in action movies featuring Milla Jovovich as a protagonist: Resident Evil and Ultraviolet.
One of the popular subjects in movie industry is zombies. Whether these creatures were created by voodoo rituals or biochemical infection, seeing people blow the crap out of zombie heads with various styles have brought fans the gory and exciting action they wanted. There is always one series that comes to people’s mind when they think of famous zombie movie: Resident Evil.
Resident Evil was actually made from a video game from CAPCOM called “Biohazard”. With its debut to PlayStation II, the game brought a huge success to the company selling more than 40 million copies. Ever since then, the game came out with more series, comic book, novel, and various merchandizes which still intrigue gamers around the world.
(Cover of Biohazard which started the zombie syndrome.)
The first movie of the saga was released to the public on 2002. Director Paul Anderson starred Milla Jovovich as the protagonist, who he later married to on 2009. Playing as Alice, Milla was able to show people the exact reenactment and excitement of the game by demolishing zombie hoardes. Although the movie wins the “thoughtfulness-award” for starring a female as the main character, it still holds few stereotypes and male-gaze components.
(Why does this movie have Milla Jovovich in a dress instead of her photo of blowing zombie heads?)
Main male-gaze components of this movie would be her clothes (which will be mentioned on future blogs as well). Who in the world, in a grave adventurous mission, would even think of wearing tights or dresses that do no purpose but emphasize one’s physical appearance!!?? This is the typical type of male gaze which will appear on numerous media that features woman. If I was Alice I would wear marine-like clothes to get the maximum capability of killing zombies (unless, tights and dresses are source of her power that is...).
(That is definitely too much body-showing for a zombie action movie.)
Above the criticisms however, the movie is a masterpiece. It was able to quench the Zombie maniacs’ thirst for a great zombie action movie. Today, The Biohazard (also known as Resident Evil) game series and the movie saga still bring chills to audiences. The fifth Resident Evil movie is scheduled to be released on September, 2012.
Second movie with Milla Jovovich is called Ultraviolet which features infected-vampire-like men instead of zombie hoards. The film was driven from comic series “UltraViolet” written by Yvonne Navarro. The action scenes from the movie are no different than those of Resident Evil’s for their blood and gore level are almost equal. Directed by Kurt Wimmer, the movie was released on March 3, 2006. Although it was not a huge success, Ultraviolet was a big step for female action movies.
(Original Comic Book Series)
Like, Resident Evil, Ultraviolet shows male gaze components. First component is the clothing of the protagonist. There is one similarity on all the action scenes in Ultraviolet: Milla Jovovich is always wearing a crop-top and leather jacket. If I was a character in a bullet-storming action movies, I would focus wearing clothes that are comfy and cover almost all parts of my body instead showing fit body with crazy abs.
(Almost every scene of the movie, she is wearing a crop-top with tight leather jacket.)
Second male gaze component of the movie comes from the fact that she takes orders from man. Although Milla’s role in the movie is very active and strong, she is shown as a soldier taking orders from higher position. It implies that men are predominant over women and that women can’t accomplish much without orders.
This blog has discussed some of male gaze components from action movies with Milla Jovovich. Although her movies show active female roles, they still hold female stereotypes. Next posts of this blog will discuss more female action movies and their male gaze components.
(Picture of Milla Jovovich, Paul Anderson, and their daughter, Ever)
Your blog post is awesome. It definitely attracts my attention from all the pictures that you have right from the beginning. Great job! You have lots of evidence that is well defended with plot summary and pictures. Make sure you are always relating your paragraphs back to the movie, even if you just mention it once. You don't want to have a hanging paragraph that isn't about the movie. Also, you may want to think about mentioning the movie in one of those first two paragraphs to make sure that readers know your main topic is a specific movie, not the movie industry in general.
ReplyDeleteAlso the only other advice I could give you is to put a little voice into it. It is a very well written post, but add some attitude and emotion and it will be even better. Blog posts are supposed to be fun and entertaining!
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ReplyDeleteThe blog is interesting because although I have never watched a Resident Evil film, this blog quickly and effectively gives me an idea about what the franchise is about. The main idea of the blog is how even though the main character is a female character, there are still many negative stereotypes about women contained in the films.
ReplyDeleteThe main way method of support for the negative stereotypes of women are their clothing, and that they take instructions. It would be helpful if more different approaches were used.
There are 12 paragraphs. Each one focuses on a main idea, and the paragraphs flow in a logical and chronological order. The language in general is directed toward peers. However, I would remove any parts of the paragraph that reference itself - for example, "The next paragraphs will discuss how male gaze components are shown in action movies featuring Milla Jovovich as a protagonist: Resident Evil and Ultraviolet." and "Next posts of this blog will discuss more female action movies and their male gaze components."
The blog is very visually appealing, with a multitude of pictures to support the points.