Title: (PDF) Feminist Film Theory | Anneke Smelik - Academia.edu
Headings: Feminist Film Theory
Feminist Film Theory
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Feminist Film Theory

Content: Drawing on Roland Barthes's notion of myth, Johnston investigated the myth of'woman' in classic cinema. The sign 'woman' can be analysed as a structure, a code or convention. It represents the ideological meaning that 'woman' has for men. In relation to herself, she means no-thing  (Johnston, 1991, p. 25): women are negatively represented as 'not-man'. The 'woman-as-woman' is absent from the text of the film (Johnston, 1991, p. 26). The important theoretical shift here is from an understand- ing of cinema as reflecting reality, to a view of cinema as constructing a particular, ideological, view of reality. Classic cinema never shows its means of production and is hence char- acterised by veiling over its ideological construction. Thus, classic film narrative can present the constructed images of 'woman' as natural, realistic and attractive. This is the illusion- ism of classic cinema.