Tuesday, April 17, 2018
A Feminist Farce?
Daisies is the first film we have screened by a female director that focuses on women protagonists. Yet this film is far from an easy film to interpret. Do you see a feminist "message" in the film? Or is this film lampooning such a message? Is this film highlighting and ridiculing sexist views of women? What about the fact that the women protagonists are hardly the paragons of virtue (They have, after all, "gone bad.")? Please enlighten us.
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ReplyDeleteThis film was not a feminist movie. I think that the director might have been trying to get some sort of a feminist view into the movie. However, this by today’s standers is not a feminist movie because the women in the movie are doing things that every other woman might be doing at the time suggesting that there is no real change going on. This film highlighted the stereotypes of women. A few stereotypes that this movie shows are that the women need a man to take care of them and if they do not have a man to take care of them then they are going to go mad and something bad will happen to them. This is clear when the women need a man to take them to dinner. Then after that, the women can be seen as crazy when they are starting to light the streamers on fire inside they’re house showing that the girls need a man in their home to keep them sane. There is also the idea that the women are immature showing that the women should not be on their own and they need someone in their lives to keep them sane and out of trouble and if they don’t find someone then there are only bad things that will happen to them. Because the women are being so immature and they seem to not follow what women should have done at the time they are almost punished. Which promotes the idea that if you are not like a woman at the time then only bad things are going to happen to you. That gives the viewer that you must be what a woman was expected to be or else you will go bad.
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ReplyDeleteThe film, Daisies, isn’t necessarily a feminist film, but rather it highlights stereotypes around women that the director is trying to display how ridiculous they are. The film displays the women going against things that have shadowed them for years, and the director is trying give her opinion on how these stereotypes should no longer be in existence, and that women are way more than them. The saying, “gone bad”, which is directed towards the women after they go through the movie doing uncharacteristic things according to their stereotypes. By the director doing this, such as the girls having a food fight, getting wild at a musical performance, ultimately getting kicked out of the concert, and overall just being very liberated from the norms of past generations, its shows multiple different opinions. In this “gone bad” instance, the director is making fun of these stereotypes by saying that acting different, is for some reason considered going bad, which is completely ridiculous. Overall, I don’t feel the film is a feminist movement because she isn’t necessarily fighting for these stereotypes to leave, but she is rather displaying how ridiculous they are in order to hopefully change the mind of viewers. This is a genius approach because if she aggressively attacked the stereotypes, many viewers would have been turned away because they wouldn’t want to sit through something that will directly want to change their opinions. But rather, the director’s loose, ironic, and overall funny (different) approach allows the idea behind the film to be displayed in a fun way in which the viewer will end up actually thinking about the meaning behind the film, and hopefully realizing the message.
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ReplyDeleteThe film Daisies openly criticizes the “normal” feminine stereotypes making it a feminist film. The film demonstrates these themes through the two women in the film. Often in the film the women are eating food which represents their desire to eat but, arguably, it represents a different sexual desire. Often in society, sexuality in the female community is suppressed and hidden but the film does the opposite. Also, the foods that the women are eating are phallic. They are shown cutting them with scissors, chopping them up, and cooking the food. This represents castration and the destruction of men and their power. Additionally, the women in the film lead on men. Showing their power as women and their ability to influence others. They are shown sitting down at meals with multiple men, taking advantage of their money, and then leaving them. These scenes are very feminist in nature because they show the women as empowered and influential. Lastly, the film criticizes societal norms put on women for them to be “good”. At the beginning of the movie the girls say they will go bad, breaking away from society. For the majority of the film they act “bad”. They have fun on their own, eat, take advantage of men, and mess around at a restaurant. All of these are considered “bad”. When they get hit by the chandelier and fall into the river they cannot get saved because they are bad. In order for them to survive in society they must be “good” girls. In that scene the movie criticizes the societal norms, ultimately making it a feminist film.
First of all this was one of the strangest movies I have ever seen and was quite disturbing at points and kept myself wonder how someone would come up with an idea like this. But I don’t think this is a feminist movement movie based on the ridiculous stereotypes that are at play in this film. I think he was attempting to comment on these unfair stereotypes without coming across as overtly feminist. You can see this at play with how they break away from these stereotypes with the massive food fight being the one I think best exemplifies the idea. They are going bad because they are doing something that is uncharacteristic for a women to do. This is showing that there are definite stereotypes at play in Russia and the director has something to say about them. I think he is trying to show that can’t do anything without being called out by society for being a bad example of what a women should be in their society. This is not a fair representation of women in this time and is inaccurate of all the representation that are shown in the movie. This is a hard idea to wrap around and I think that’s why it was such a weird movie in our minds because we had no idea what he was trying to say at the time. It took us debriefing the movie to understand how everything goes down. I think this is what makes this movie something we watch in class and a movie that has not died over time.
ReplyDeleteI think there is a feminist message in the film Daisies. I think that the film shows that women shouldn't follow the stereotypical views of women and just be who they are. The beginning of the film features the women protagonists acting as dolls. And I think that shows that the mainstream view on women at that time is that they are kind of like an object. And that they are supposed to act like dolls as in they are supposed to try their hardest to look pretty. One way women stereotypically try and stay beautiful is to not eat much food so that they stay skinny and do not get fat. But in the movie instead of not eating much, the women protagonists eat a lot of food. They stuff their faces with a bunch of dessert and food which is not a good way to stay skinny. But they do it because they want to going against stereotypes against women. Another stereotype about women that this movie breaks is that women are supposed to be very polite and nice. But in the movie, the protagonists are constantly making a huge mess. They don't always use utensils to eat their food, and they even throw their food at each other. Also in their room, they constantly are making a huge mess with all the food they eat and cut up just leaving it all over their bed or all over the ground. Because the protagonists go against so many stereotypes of women throughout the film, I feel like there is a feminist message in this film.
ReplyDeleteI think that the film had some feminist messages incorporated into the plot. A major part is showing the women in control of their situations. From the beginning they choose to “go bad” as they move away from the stereotypical view of women. While women were expected to keep themselves slim from dieting, the women that “went bad” instead were able to indulge themselves until they were full. While they were shown to be slobs, this was just an exaggeration and only to continue to ridicule the idea of women being forced to diet for their body shape. When they took many men out to dinner, the men thought they were in control of the outcome expecting sexual favors, but rather the women were in control as they continually played different men. Another instance is when the one man claimed to be in love with one of the women. He would talk continuously about how beautiful she was and how he loved her, yet she once again seize control as she undressed herself to reveal that he only wanted sex. Later in the film both of the women were shown cutting up sausages and bananas, all things showing the power they possess. This film was to show women that they also possess power just like men and what they deserve while ridiculing the expectations they had set by men.
ReplyDeleteWhen watching Daisies (1966) I most certainly saw the feminist messages in this movie, especially for the era in which it was filmed. To start off the movie the sisters are seen in bathing suits moving robotically. This was not a coincidence, but a purposeful move by the female directors to make a message about how society expects women to do what they are told without question like robots. Another example of a feminist message in this film is the way the sisters manipulate the older men that they go on dates with throughout the movie. While this was not a particularly nice thing for the sisters to do, the directors were making a statement about the fact that women can be smart enough to manipulate men. Men are normally seen as the manipulators, but in Daises, the sisters are able to get free meals without having to do anything else because they can be seen ditching the men on the trains. Another feminist message can be seen at the sister’s apartment as they have the numbers of many men written on the ceiling and walls. This is to show that women shouldn’t have to be required to be in monogamist relationships to be respected. All the phone numbers on the walls show that these women flirt and have fun with many guys which is considered to be only socially acceptable for men to do and not women. Lastly, the sisters are constantly eating large portions throughout the movie poking fun at society’s expectations that women eat very little in order to be thin.
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