Female Director Takes Hollywood by Storm: Is She a Beauty or a Visionary?

Other Media

https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/context/honors_theses/article/1106/filename/0/type/additional/viewcontent/RichardsonCourtney_2016_PPT.pptx

Title

Female Director Takes Hollywood by Storm: Is She a Beauty or a Visionary?

Author

Courtney Richardson

Faculty Sponsor

Shaun Huston

Gavin Keulks

Date

6/1/2016

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to understand how gender affects perceptions of film director Kathryn Bigelow and her work. It is no secret that there are not many female directors in Hollywood and more often than not female directors are associated with romantic comedies and other “women’s” films. What makes Kathryn Bigelow unique among her demographic is that she makes action movies and war films which are typically considered to be men’s genres. As a female lover of film it is interesting to me to look at how Ms. Bigelow and her work are received and how that may differ from how male directors who operate within the same genre are viewed. Award-winning film-director Kathryn Bigelow is unique as a focus for a study on gender affected perceptions because she is a very prominent figurehead in the directorial industry, an industry that is almost entirely male. I have chosen Kathryn Bigelow as the focus for this among the few other successful female directors because she is arguably the most successful female director (being the only won to win both best director and best picture) and because she makes action films unlike the majority of her counterparts. By looking at a few of her films in addition to articles, interviews, reviews, and other media, I hope to find the various ways in which how she is viewed by society is gendered. In my research I will be looking for things such as: industries not accepting her ideas because she is a woman and questions and comments about her appearance rather than her films or ideas.

Type

Text

Honors Thesis

Department

Honors Program

Language

eng

Rights

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Identifier

honors_theses/107