Sofia Costales

COM531M

Mr. Elvin Valerio

11 October 2017

What About Women?

“Feminism isn’t about making women stronger. Women are already strong. 

It’s about changing the way the world perceives that strength.” – G.D Anderson

“To be one’s own woman” is a popular idiomatic expression that means to be free from

restrictions, control, or dictatorial influence (Collins English Dictionary). Synonymously, the term

“woman” has numerous contemporary definitions and phrases, each with its own purpose. Similar

labels such as “female”, “lady”, and “girl” are all identical to the feminine form. As the “standard

feminine parallel to man”, it is generally established that females are considered as male counterparts,

though often viewed as the weaker and more sensitive sex and “portrayed as delicate in the face of

difficult news” (Vest, 2012). Because of these seemingly unfavorable notions, three well-known

feminist theorists – Molly Haskell, Laura Mulvey, and Annette Kuhn – interweave their ideas by

criticizing and questioning the structure on how individual figures of women are being portrayed in

society and how it is being applied and practiced in the media, particularly in film.

Molly Haskell’s essay The Woman’s Film signifies that the woman’s character is led by her

emotional state of mind. She is frequently represented only as a supporting character with minor

significance. However, it is also ironic how women are viewed as both dependent (in terms of well-

being and fulfillment, such as her career) and independent (the verge of becoming a wife or a mother)

at the same time. The woman is bound to undergo this so-called “transition” in life starting from

degrees and professions all the way to marriage and parenthood, which then puts emphasis on the

limited roles of the “mother” or the “housewife”. What is interesting here are the inevitable patterns

identified within a married couple setting, wherein the woman – or wife, for this matter – is “bound to

adhere to a morality which demands her to stifle her own ‘illicit’ creative or sexual urges in support of

a social code… She is encouraged to follow the lead of her romantic dreams, but when they expire she

is stuck” (Haskell, 22). Haskell, who is also an American feminist film critic, divided women’s roles

into three distinct categories, namely: (1) the upper-middle-elite class, (2) the “rest of the world”, and

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(3) the ones who experience the shift from being ordinary to extraordinary. With these brackets, it is

amusing how there is a need for a name or an identity in a fixed social construct.

To relate Molly Haskell’s constructs to Philippine mass media, perhaps we can derive it from

our American-inspired reality television shows: our local versions of The Voice and The X-Factor.

Have we ever paid attention to our female judges’ attire and form of clothing? Sparkly gowns,

bedazzled dresses, glittery accessories, full hair and make-up – with everything perfect and in place,

all they ever need is how to present themselves confidently without stuttering in front of a live

audience. It seems as if they do not have any problem at all. Occasionally, the elite-ness of the judges

are likely viewed as standards of beauty (most female judges are singers, some are mothers, many are

bachelorettes at the “prime” of their lives). These women are viewed as those who “followed their

dream” and became products of success, which gives them a sort of ruling power. The second

classification is the middle class, the “masses”, the rest of the world – however you call it. They are

the audience, specifically very supportive females who are usually seated up front or near the stage,

with their enigmatic faces blurred out during the final cut. And lastly, we have the third category of

those who undergo change: commonly those who compete in the show, more specifically the poor

Filipina singer who comes out as the winner of a certain X-Factor segment, and whose life of

hardship and economic instability is showcased as a montage of positivity for its viewers. She

becomes “extra-ordinary” who rises from the depths of her despair. Independently, and on her own,

she makes herself the hero of her own story. These reality shows are predictably structured in a way to

provoke that there is still hope, but only if you join the competition, which results to monetized

promotional material readily available to use in between commercials, making its us want “more”.

Apart from the three female-specified roles, Haskell defined four important themes in a

woman’s film, which are sacrifice, affliction, choice, and competition. The perfect Tagalog film to

illustrate all four of these themes is The Mistress (2012), directed by successful Filipina television and

film director, Olivia Lamasan. Starring in her film is female lead actress Bea Alonzo, who is confused

and in love with both characters of the “old rich guy” Ronaldo Valdez and his on-screen son John

Lloyd Cruz. As a woman, it is already a great deal of sacrifice when you are in the midst of a choosing

only “one” among the rest. To compete with someone in the same choices, hence, can also inflict pain

to oneself and to another. Molly Haskell’s themes are thus proven to overlap and combine at some

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points in a woman’s film. But why do we call it a “woman’s film”, if the audience can fairly be

anybody? Is the woman’s film intended for male and female spectators alike?

This brings us to Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, an analysis of the

objectification of women in film using the psychoanalytic approach. In this essay, Mulvey argues that,

from a cinematic approach, the audience derives pleasure through voyeurism, revealing the equation

of the somewhat aggressively dominant “active male” and the typically silent “passive female”, who

are constantly viewed as sex objects (until today). Nonetheless, we look at the functions of the female

persona in light of the cinema. She also expresses that women stand “in the patriarchal culture as a

signifier for the male other” and that “we are still separated by a great gap from the important issues

for the female unconscious” (Mulvey, 59). From her western examples, the female produces an image

of “to be looked at-ness”, leaving the male protagonist as the “eye” to the entire film and as the

“bearer” of the look.

One delicately naughty example would be Wonder Woman’s very own Gal Gadot in Fast Five

(2011), the fifth installment in The Fast and Furious franchise where she says, “you don’t send a man

to do a woman’s job” to a colleague. She strips down to her tiny bikini, showing off her beautiful

body and walks toward an elite older man while being stared at by other young-looking men in the

background. She eventually gains the old man’s trust and sits on his lap to obtain his much-needed

fingerprints. With retrospect, the convincing “power” of women specifically through her body can be

used as an advantage and a disadvantage. Mulvey tells us that what matters most, is “what the heroine

provokes” (Mulvey, 63) in the previously-defined “universally accepted existence of social

rules” (Haskell, 26). Women are these influential, powerful, ferocious human beings masked

underneath their soft, gentle and fragile figures.

Mulvey reasons that cinema mirrors a patriarchal community where women are played (or

play by) and controlled from men’s desire and dominance, therefore allowing that sense of pleasure

by seeing female film characters as objects of lasciviousness and a form of craving. One excellent

example would be one of Gerardo Francisco’s choreographies, entitled Palasyo. The piece, which I

myself enjoyed and co-performed with my fellow male dancers in many of our weekend shows of

Ballet Pinoy, involves one female lead originally wearing a pink bikini top paired with a pink mini-

skirt, and six other guys who immediately fall in love with her (“Palasyo: Ballet Pinoy, Star City”).

The lyrics to the song also translate, “bringing the man to her palace” but in the end “it wasn’t truly

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enough” (LyricsMode.com). Palasyo represents the lead female as the center of attraction, which

brings us to Mulvey’s notion of “the male gaze”.

Let us take a look at our Original Pinoy Music (or OPM) for a moment. Remember the song,

“Da Coconut Nut”, written by Ryan Cayabyab? This is a perfect example of what it seems to be a

sexist ballad in a very unique, subtle way – covered by its funky beats and funny, easy-to-memorize

lyrics. Similar to Ballet Manila’s Palasyo choreography, Da Coconut Nut cast involves three

schoolboys, one coconut juice vendor, and one very seductive-looking girl who shows a lot of skin

and mingles with the four men. When you listen to the song closely, and while watching the dancers’

comical routines onstage, the term “coconut” can be closely associated with women’s breasts and/or

bottom, supported by the lyrics “giant nut” and “big, big nut”, all of this simultaneously happening

onstage with the boys wanting to touch the female character’s butt cheeks. From a performing artist’s

perspective, this choreography motivates the audience and makes them burst with laughter as the girl

slaps the boys’ faces. Even in the theater, multiple roles of female characters are objectified, which

agrees with Mulvey’s stand on erotic involvement on the male libido. In relation to Haskell’s

categories, a woman’s character is patterned over man’s behavior, where the woman becomes the prey

and the man as the predator.

With regards to audiences, Annette Kuhn’s concerns mainly rely on the context and setting of

a woman’s film, as reflected on Women’s Genres: Melodrama, Soap Opera, and Theory. She

examines the relationship between the text and the spectator and asks, “what does she want?” For

Kuhn, historic and cultural specificity are important aspects of feminist theoretical frameworks. On

her opposition to Mulvey’s scope of psychoanalysis (no historical relevance), women’s “stolen”

dignity, and with society so patriarchal – do women even have a voice to begin with?

Kuhn points out the difference of an audience from the spectator, but her caution to

materialize film criticism becomes a vague standard (Levitin, 30). She tries to fill in the gaps from

both Haskell and Mulvey’s theories and explains that in taking part of the social act of consuming

representations, a group of spectators becomes a social audience. Annette Kuhn examines genres

which are popular and in particular with women, and that in order to achieve audience satisfaction,

films follow codes which define masculinity as culturally domineering figures and femininity as

ideally unconscious desires. This divergence on the question of gendered spectatorship within

feminist theory is significant (Kuhn, 152). To demonstrate Kuhn’s essay, let us dive into the

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interrelated world of commercials and afternoon soap operas and prime-time telenovelas. If we think

about it, our media circulates within the context of gender-specific roles, targeting the female group

who watches television every day. Think about the local Downy fabric conditioners and Maggi Magic

Sarap flavor enhancers aired in between afternoon television soaps. Or even the short ads before the

movie house lights finally start to dim. Everything, on television and in cinema, has its own category,

– each spaced out within a given time period to capture a certain person or group’s undivided

attention. It just so happened that women, in majority, are more inclined to watch these programs,

because they usually stay at home, or in the kitchen, and basically have “nothing else to do”.

Feminist film theorists progressively continue to share their concerns of role representations

and subjectivity that are chiefly influenced by mass culture. What people forget is that women, too,

can write. And when they do, they take action. Feminism is an open book that still has blank pages for

even more women (and men) to write on. Feminists recognize the both equality and humanity of

women and men. Together with filmmaking and storytelling as the new means to express what is

hidden, stereotyped and “unexpressed”, the woman’s ever-changing and preconceived notions of

beauty and value must be read, written, spoken, and remembered in various mediums such as books,

magazines, publications, films, television shows, commercials, ad campaigns, slogans, and other

projects that could help mold a better understanding of what women are really capable of.

So what’s a queen without her king? 


Well, historically speaking, more powerful.

List of Works Cited:

“woman”. Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. 10 Oct. 2017. <dictionary.com http://www.dictionary.com/browse/woman>.

Vest, Lamar. “Putting an End to the Myth of the Weaker Sex.” Fox News, FOX News Network, 8 Mar. 2012, www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/03/08/putting-end-to-myth-weaker-sex.html.

Haskell, Molly. “The Woman’s Film.” Feminist Film Theory. Ed. Sue Thornham. Edinburgh University Press, 1999. pp. 20-30. Print.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Feminist Film Theory. Ed. Sue Thornham. Edinburgh University Press, 1999. pp. 58-69. Print.

Kuhn, Annette. “Women’s Genres: Melodrama, Soap Opera and Theory.” Feminist Film Theory. Ed. Sue Thornham. Edinburgh University Press, 1999. pp. 146-156. Print.

Levitin, Jacqueline. “Women’s Pictures: Guidelines for Feminist Criticism.” Jump Cut: A Review of Contemporary Media, 29 Feb. 1984, pp. 29-30.

“Fast Five (4/10) Movie CLIP - A Woman’s Job (2011) HD.” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w0F9xVXn_E&t=59s. 15 Jan. 2015. Web. Accessed 10 Oct. 2017.

“THE MISTRESS (A four-sided love story).” YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE-EGqNl1JA. 31 Aug. 2012. Web. Accessed 10 Oct. 2017.

“Regine Velasquez – Dadalhin Lyrics.” Edited by Victor Flores, LyricsMode.com, www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/r/regine_velasquez/dadalhin.html.

Coronacion, E. “Smokey Mountain – Da Coconut Nut Lyrics.” Edited by Harrison Wang, LyricsMode.com, www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/s/smokey_mountain/da_coconut_nut.html.

Costales, Sofia. “Palasyo: Ballet Pinoy, Star City.” Instagram. https://www.instagram.com/p/2KtyYIrr_3/?taken-by=sufeyyya. 2 May 2015. Web. Accessed 10 Oct. 2017.

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