School of Culture and Communication - Theses

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Subject: gender × Author: Di Risio, Patricia ×

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    Conduct unbecoming: reconfiguring gender and genre in 1990s Hollywood cinema
    Di Risio, Patricia ( 2017)
    This study identifies an interplay between gender and genre in a 1990s Hollywood production context, and demonstrates how this undermines gender and genre categories. Late twentieth century post-classical Hollywood cinema experienced significant industrial changes which produced a range of different aesthetic practices. This study will demonstrate that the reconfiguration of the representation of women and femininity in this period has resulted in significant changes to Hollywood genre filmmaking practices. This investigation will make an original contribution by arguing that the intervention of female protagonists into conventionally male roles and genres has prompted some important changes and innovations to the codes and conventions of genre. The analysis will demonstrate how an interplay between gender and genre is enunciated through postmodern appropriation and subversion. An increasing use of genre hybridity, allusion, pastiche, parody and intertextuality has frequently relied on a subversive use of gender, in terms of women and femininity, in order to alter genre conventions. This is not viewed as a symptom of a decline in Hollywood filmmaking practices, but rather as a sign of a postmodern Hollywood aesthetic that addresses changing socio-cultural attitudes to women and femininity. The study examines a range of genres traditionally featuring male protagonists. It explores the direct relationship between unconventional female protagonists, playing roles usually reserved for men, and the resulting changes and innovations to genre conventions. Identifying the interplay between gender and genre highlights the interactive nature of the relationship between these elements and foregrounds the importance of understandings of gender on the codes and conventions of genre. As a result of these changes, the notion of gender oriented genre becomes increasingly reconsidered, especially in terms of the positions of identification that are offered to spectators. The study will focus on how these changes have been influenced by feminism and queer theory and are a response to important movements in the historical and socio-political context under investigation.