Ideology

Reading Summary

The article discusses ideology as a body of ideas reflecting the social needs and aspirations of an individual group, class, or culture. The term is generally associated with politics and party platforms, but it can also mean a given set of values that are implicit just like in filmmaking. Virtually, every movie presents its viewers with role models, ideal ways of behaving, negative traits, and implied morality based on the filmmaker;s sense of right and wrong. Therefore, every movie has a certain ideological perspective. These perspectives are shown to benefit certain characters while it hurts others. The reading explains neutral, implicit and explicit ideological categories. In a neutral category, the social environment is insignificant which allows the story to move on smoothly. The emphasis is on the action and entertainment of the film without any analysis to make. In an implicit category, the protagonists and antagonists represent conflicting value systems but they are not crucial or essential to the film. In implicit films, the viewers are set to construct the characters’ value systems based on what they see. On the other hand, an explicit categories are films like those that include propaganda, which repeatedly advocate a certain point of view.

Outside Example

When reading this article, I began thinking of Disney Princess movies. More specifically, the animated movie of “Cinderella.” This film was produced in the 1950s, so gender roles were strong and alive. The film is about a young girl, Cinderella, who lives with her wicked stepmother after her father passes away. Yet, the life with her stepmother and two stepsisters is very brutal. They are often jealous of Cinderella’s beauty leading them to disrespect her as women and a person. Cinderella is basically seen as the maid of the household who has to endure insults and orders. In the film, there’s a ball but her stepmother prohibits her from attending but a fairy godmother appears that makes Cinderella appear completely different (poor and dirty to looking rich and beautiful). This transformation allows Cinderella to attend the ball, where Prince Charming falls in love with her by just her looks. Cinderella eventually heads back to her house because her transformation would only last until midnight. Once she gets home, she keeps being tortured by her “family” and is even locked up in her room. But at the end of the film, Prince Charming goes door to door looking for the woman he saw at the ball. Cinderella’s stepmother hides Cinderella so he won’t find her but eventually he does and rescues her. This movie shows not only gender roles of a man having to rescue a women but also that women destroy women.

Connection

The film “Cinderella” connects with the reading because it contains an ideology about gender roles just like the reading’s example of “Pretty Woman.” Just like in their example, “Cinderella” shares the idea that a woman’s beauty will lead her to be rescued by a man. When Prince Charming sees Cinderella, he is completely drawn to her by her beauty but they do not seem to have a conversation. He immediately starts dancing with her and little-no conversation is shared between them. This reveals that the movie’s message was that women’s beauty is essential in obtaining attention from anyone. In addition, Cinderella had to transform from looking like a maid to looking beautiful and worthy of a prince in order to be noticed. One is left wondering if the prince would have approached her if she had shown up in her usual “maid like” attire. Moreover, the film also illustrates the ideology of women tearing down women because of jealousy. The female figures that Cinderella has are always tearing her down emotionally and physically. Showing this type of movie to young girls will make them grow out to these perceptions. Watching these movies as a child may lead to unattainable beauty standards, unrealistic need for a man and not supporting women. The reading describes this pattern of individuals looking up to movies as what society should be like. Today’s world would not permit a film like that to come where the only female figures of the main female character are not supporting her. In today’s Disney princess world, women support women or women achieve their own paths.