'Miss Representation'

Watched the 'MissRepresentation' documentary today about- yeah you guessed it- misrepresentations of females. Don't you beg to question: using 'miss' to describe a misrepresentation of a female is largely contradictory of the whole documentary's concept. 

A lot of the points made in the documentary were fair and made me feel strongly about how women should behave differently in society and be considered differently by men. I also enjoyed how men were defending the points made by women concerning how women used to have more importance in society and even in a society that was highly patriarchal; however now women seem to be decreasing in importance even when we think society has 'changed' for the better. Women were seen as objects and 'props' for the male gaze to enjoy. They claimed how women were creating this image for themselves and it was the women who were setting their standards low due to the depression they faced over struggling to conform to societies demands. 

This infuriated me! Although some points made did relate to some women or girls, most deemed 'all-women' to be vulnerable to society as the media was consuming all of the woman's confidence, self-respect and motivation to succeed to a profession that has been birthed through intelligence. It's a load of rubbish. Women, like all people in society are influenced by their surroundings and in today's society, the media plays a vital part in that. This doesn't mean that women, like all people, don't have a sense of free-will. People don't necessarily live in a confined box made up of the foundations of society. I agree- some may feel caged by certain conformities that society provokes. At times the restrictions that are set out for us can feel suffocating but all-in-all people aren't social robots and are able to have control over themselves and their lives. 

Another thing that angered me was the set up of the documentary; a 'powerful' discussion of the misrepresentations of females, yet the whole thing was so carefully mediated and edited together, it in turn created a certain extent of misrepresentation of people and views. I acknowledge that this documentary was crafted to put forth specific views on the misrepresentation of women, but most of the 'shocking' statistics presented could also apply to boys and even men. Something like '78% of girls at the age of 17 are uncomfortable or unhappy with their bodies' yet aren't boys? If anything, the media encourages females to talk about their body issues, yet for boys it is deemed inappropriate and unusual to express a discomfort or feeling of body-consciousness. This documentary only enforces this ideology by allowing women to openly discuss and speculate over media representations of women and by not allowing men to evoke their feelings towards their representations in the media. A friend even said how he felt these representations are similar with boys and the statistics are presumably exactly the same for boys as they are girls- just because they are represented differently, they shouldn't be excluded from the fact that they are also misrepresented. By creating this divide between males and females this documentary is essentially promoting gender specific roles- doesn't this completely go against the concept of the documentary that tries to allow women to be equal to men and not feel dominated by men and male/female stereotypes?

Additionally the woman who is the voice of this documentary is stunning. A women claiming looks don't matter, yet she is one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. Also the women: supposedly professional business women who have 'made something of their lives' and have not had to care about looks; when looking carefully you can see that every single woman and girl shown in this documentary is wearing makeup-not always a lot but enough to look 'appealing' for the cameras, or more so to appeal to what society and the media demands. 

And am I the only one who noticed that the title alone contradicts itself. 'Miss' implying a single woman. If a man is to be described using his given title, he is usually described as 'Mr', whether married or not. However a woman's title is mostly dependant on her marital status. By naming the documentary 'MissRepresentation', the producer(s) is immediately representing women as an object that changes when her ownership Is passed between different men. Is this done on purpose? Or is this just a stupid mistake? I hope for the purposes of the documentary that it is the latter. Rosie Bowen 

Review: 'The Fault In Our Stars'- John Green

SPOILER ALERT

Ok, so I finished 'The Fault In our Stars' four days ago now and am only writing a review now because it took me a while to get over it.
For those who don't know, it's about Hazel Grace, a cancer sufferer who's cancer is terminal; Hazel Grace falls in love with Augustus, a boy who used to have cancer. A lovely book it seemed until Augustus' had a 'recurrence'-as they put it in the book. I must admit that this book was profoundly easy to read and most enjoyable but after having finished a book, I always feel a sense of pride and joy from having gone on a journey that has aided me in my escape from every-day life. However with this book in particular, I have been on a journey and made friends (however fictional they may be)and am very glad for it but after having read the last page I sat with a sense of disappointment. I felt like I had just been involved in a fight, in which I had lost and been left alone to pull myself back together again; this may seem to be a bit of an exaggeration to feel over a book, but I really needed it not to finish as it had made me feel so sad and all I longed for was a happy ending. I guess it was happy; i really cannot put my finger on it, but i guess what I am trying to say is that I was crying over the story for such a long time that I just needed something more.

Anyway, I would definitely read the book again and advise others to read it (providing they don't mind a marathon of tears). I feel that the next time would be less sad and I would be able to enjoy the more positive and happy moments in the book all the more. Though, having said this (if you have read it already don't be mad with me) I feel it is slightly overrated. Only slightly though. Also I am very happy that it is being made into a film, and am sure it will be a good one at that, especially with the cast of Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort and Willem Dafoe. Overall a good read and I will be looking out for more books by John Green. Rosie Bowen

Current happenings

Devoted my evening to reading; currently 'The Fault In Our Stars'-John Green. I haven't even had it a week and it has almost been entirely consumed. The truth- it's slightly overrated but nevertheless, a good read. 

I'm sure to post a review when finished reading Rosie Bowen  

'Now You See Me' Review

Ok, so Now You See Me is about four illusionists with different skills being brought together to unite as a magical force to be reckoned with(well kind of). They create illusions that are not only mesmerising but criminal. Therefore they are being chased by an angry cop who is determined to catch them.

I have noticed that Now You See Me has been slightly battered by the critics, with Empire's Olly Richards claiming 'The flowers up its sleeve have wilted and the rabbit in its hat is dead'. However I must disagree with this. I found Now You See Me to be way better than I had first expected; the film takes you on a journey of trickery and just when you think you've grasped what the hell is going on another trick is put in place to throw you right out of balance.

I thought that all the trickery/magic would become almost silly and although being the theme of the film, it would ruin it but I couldn't have been more wrong. We all know that there is a reasonable explanation for all 'magic' tricks but the best part of a trick is that we don't know how it is done. This film focuses on that fact and makes you feel stupid for repeatedly not getting the trick . Jesse Eisenberg's character even says 'the more you look, the less you see', making you in the audience think ok I can get it the next time but you never do. I don't say this in a negative light, it may sound weird but the more stupid you feel the more excited you become watching the film(in this case anyway).

All of the actors in the film are brilliant. Morgan Freeman, Mark Rufflo, Dave Franco,Isla Fisher, Jesse Eisenberg and the beautiful French one from Inglorious Bastards. I think that without them the film may have fallen a bit flat. But then of course, that is how it almost always is with films; a good looking or powerful actor always adds to the excitement on screen.

The film ends, as it must, with a show stopping, elaborate illusion that goes beyond everyone's imagination. Of course the film succeeds in expectations with this and everyone is left in utter shock. As for the 'wilted' flowers and 'dead' rabbit, in my eyes the film produces a whole field of lush flowers and bounding rabbits that were completely unexpected. Rosie Bowen

If you haven't already you must go and see Now You See Me in cinemas or buy it when it comes out on DVD. If you have seen the film please leave a comment below, I would love to know what you thought about the film.

Oz:How could you?

So without a doubt we all love The Wizard of Oz. When there were rumours an Oz The Great And Powerful would be released most of us were devastated. People wanted to stick with the traditional Oz and felt there was no room for a new remake that was predicted to fail. I disagreed and thought no, this film will be separated from the last and instead of a remake it could be seen as a film standing alone. I also thought that people who opposed the film were probably just scared that the film would be so good that it would be compared and even be better that the wonderful Wizard of Oz.

At first the idea of James Franco as Oz seemed a great choice but then I thought, his previous films such as Lovelace(the story of a woman abused by the porn industry), Spring Breakers(where he plays a drug dealer) and About Cherry(another film about porn) do not all cry out 'I'm the best man to play Oz the Wizard who families will love'. Also Empire's Ian Nathan points out that Franco 'has the hesitant smile of a conman needled by his conscience' and as much as I love James Franco, I can see his point. Although having said that, Franco was a good Oz and his smile can make a mysterious wizard become an endearing ordinary man of Oz any day.

Also another interesting cast member was Mila Kunis as The Good Witch; her past experience acting in Black Swan and Friends With Benefits was good  but again not the kind of actor I would expect appearing in a family film but to my surprise this film actually made me like and appreciate her a bit more as an actress. I guess if anything this film taught us not to judge the excellence of an actor on their past films. The other two witches in the film played by Michelle Williams and Rachel Weisz were also very well performed.

Furthermore I appreciated the film in the sense that it was set to be different from the Wizard of Oz and the storyline allowed you to get lost in a film that couldn't be compared to the traditional Oz because it was almost completely different. Of course how could we not all love Sam Raimi, the director, who done an amazing job on the film.

Overall I found the film to be thoroughly enjoyable to watch, what more could we want? However with Oz I found the case to be more what less could we want? The beginning of the film, set out similar to the Wizard of Oz in black and white. It was nice to see that the older film, although different was enabled to be appreciated through this film. The authentic style and the old-fashioned carnival was marvellous. My only issue being that once in Oz things did not only turn to colour but became so bright that it was a little too much. The animations were ok, I wasn't too keen on the animated horses that looked like they had been snatched from an old Barbie film. I would have preferred things to be a little more dark; maybe a twist on the tale similar to Tim Burton's work on Alice in Wonderland. At times the film tumbled into a silly dance at a children's party in the sense that everyone seemed to be to much in costume and the set seemed to be so bright, colourful and child friendly that it felt extremely unrealistic and silly. Even the Wizard of Oz managed to make the munchkins fun and friendly without being blindingly bright and in-your-face. I may be using the wrong words but I can't quite put my finger on it, maybe it is the advances in cinema that make things appear differently but I found Oz to be too silly at times and even slightly patronizing. Rosie Bowen

Review of 'Perfume:The Story of a Murderer'

SPOILER ALERT

I recently watched Perfume:The Story of a Murderer. I had heard that it was worth watching and thought I would give it a go. Just in case you don't already know, the film is about a man who was born with an incredible sense of smell(trust me it is freakishly good!). As he gets older he discovers a perfume shop and wants the perfumer to teach him how to preserve smell. Although kind of weird at first, the film at this point seems ok. He learns that to fully understand how to capture and preserve smell he must travel to a place named Grass(hope that's how you spell it). Whilst there he starts to murder women to collect their scent as he finds the odor of a woman to be somewhat beautiful. The more he murders the more people catch on that there is a killer that needs to be hunted down and prosecuted. He finally gets caught but not until his very special perfume has been fully constructed. He is ordered to death by cross and an iron bar but as he approaches the podium where his death awaits he applies his perfume onto himself. Suddenly the whole crowd cries that he is innocent and an angel. It is as if the perfume has put everyone into a trance. People start taking their clothes off and all of a sudden there is a gigantic orgy(with the Pope involved!). As all of this goes on Ben Whishaw looks down on the crowd in realising the power of his dead women scent. When all is over Jean-Baptiste(the murderer played by Ben Whishaw) is announced innocent and everyone in the audience awakes in horror and embarrassment of what they did. He returns to Paris, the place of his birth and childhood where he once again applies the perfume and is(what seems to be)eaten alive by some common-folk.

The film is interesting to say the least. Of course, as always Whishaw is elegantly brilliant and makes acting look as easy as drinking water. However for the concept of the film, well there are no words. At times the film is great but I pin that solely on the acting performances. I found the film, in parts, to be ridiculous; Jean-Baptiste's sense of smell isn't just out of the ordinary, it becomes silly and almost comical. Also the orgy scene ant the end completely erases any sense of the film being good. An audience being transfixed and controlled by a perfume sounds reasonable to find in a fantasy film, but when you are discussing murders, an orgy over a smell(and a smell that has been created from only a drip of perfume on a cloth) is more than ridiculous. Rosie Bowen

If you have seen the film, please let me know what you thought by leaving a comment below.

'Cloud Atlas': I may have to take it back

Cloud Atlas

Yesterday I mentioned how wonderful the book Cloud Atlas is, written by author David Mitchell. I must take back my comment on the film of being 'disappointed'. I bought the DVD later today and watched it this evening. After having watched the film today and being further from having read the book I feel oh so much more love for the film. It plays with my emotions and have found the skills that must have been used to create this masterpiece to be phenomenal. I did find the film to be disappointing at first in the cinema; I was still getting over my overwhelming excitement for it. Now I feel so much more love for the film and the creators of it. 

I must say that this happens on countless occasions, where I feel more fond of a film the second time round or away from the cinema. 

If you have any views on the film you would like to share please do :) Rosie Bowen