The Gaze part 1 - Feminism

"My idea of feminism is self-determination and very open-ended: every women has right to become herself, and do whatever she needs to do."

Quoted by: Ani Difranco (American singer, song writer)

I personally think that feminism is a social movement that finds equal rights for women. Feminism is also a word that takes power away from women, not letting them speak for themselves and not even allowing them have there own voice. Instead of thinking of them (women) as a normal human beings, us male tend to discriminant them and separate them from us only because of our different agenda. Us males also tend to Objectify women as only objects which I think is clearly wrong. I remember this one time when I was watching Deal or No Deal when it use to be played on air, where The female models in Deal or No Deal, whose function in the show is to look pretty and to remain still until the moment the host allows them to "open the case". But how can women be objectified, some people argue, if they voluntarily portray themselves in sexualized ways? The women in Deal or No Deal aren't being forced to anything. I think through out history the female figure is used a lot. And In the 1950-70s the movement of Feminist carried on and had a a big part of the values of woman in Art.

In my country, Samoa is ruled by high chiefs in each village which are called Matai's of the Nu'u. Matai's (Chiefs) have all the power and the authority to over rule anybody and anyone. I can sort of relate feminism back to my homeland Samoa, where is in my culture; Samoan women have no right to speak over there husbands or even a man high status or matai's etc. Samoan females can only speak for themselves unless there are the daughter of a high chief of a village which is called Taupou. The Taupou female is highly respect amongst the Matai's from other villages because shes the daughter of high chiefs. She also wears a traditional distinctive royal headdress (Tuiga) and holds a knife, where she also part takes in leading the Samoan group.

Tutorial "Vertigo" by Alfred Hitchcock (1958)

March 23, 2010. If I can remember in class we watch a scene in Alfred Hitcock's film "Vertigo", where it takes us straight in his movie about a retired police detective John "Scottie" Ferguson , who is hired by this man (Gavin Elster) as a private investigator to follow his wife (Madeleine Elster) and uncover why shes been acting so strange. While watching that small segment in Hitcock's film we watched as the character John follows Madeleine to many different places around San Francisco, shes goes to visit a flower store, a grave yard then a museum where she stairs at a portrait of her dead great-grandmother. I think Feminism plays a big part in this movie because throughout the whole scene I watched the character Madeleine walk about without even saying a word, as detective John 'Scottie' follows her around. Hitcock: A male director, he clearly takes away the power of speech away from Madeleine's character in that scene I watched. That scene reminded me about the 'Deal or No Deal' models, and how they just stand there to look pretty and remain absolutely still, and which Madeleine's character did that exact same thing.