Continuous Motif Of Women As Puppets example essay topic

Our team chose to focus on representations of women in Spike Lee's latest joint", Bamboozled". This theme was attractive to us because we felt the filmmaker had a powerful message to send his audience after viewing the trailer in class. Despite the fact that there is only one woman in a starring role, a multitude of specific and acute ideas are presented by Spike Lee through the film. We were also eager to take advantage of the opportunity to apply what we have learned in class to the thought-provoking and controversial nature of his work. When reflecting upon representations of women, we felt that a continuous motif of women as puppets is present. The lead female character, Sloan Hopkins, is played by Jada Pinkett Smith.

She comes across as being under Pierre Delacroix, or his puppet, from her first appearance in the film. The opening scene of the movie emphasizes this as he is yelling at her for not informing him of a staff meeting. Sloan continually apologizes but, not knowing about the meeting, has no reason to do so. Regardless of this fact, she is putdown and silenced by Delacroix. He dismisses everything she says and acts as the voice of authority with no consideration of the actual circumstances. She is merely his puppet who has failed.

When Delacroix comes up with the "MantanShow" idea, Sloan feels strongly against it. However, she is the one who has to research and come up with historical portfolios for the show. She tries to educate everyone about what they are getting into by doing such a blatantly wrong show, but her voice is not heard and her arguments are brushed aside. She remains a puppet controlled by Delacroix.

It seems the only way she has to get any attention is to agree and go along with the horrible concept. These are just a few examples of how Sloan acts as a puppet. We would like to move on to some other representations of women that continue this motif. Women in the film were also portrayed as puppets for society.

This is demonstrated through the stereotypical roles the characters fulfilled. They we reused as a tool for advertising, in this case clothing and an alcoholic beverage. Scantily clad and engaging in sexual behavior, the women are used as objects in advertising to sell products. Another character that is highly sexual ized is the only female member of the rap group, Mau Mau.

Her official name in the credits is Smooth Black, but we will refer to her simply as "Lollipop Girl". She plays the role of "group slut" and comes across as sexually promiscuous. There is always a lollipop present with her and it's obviously meant to be a phallic symbol. Her main response is agreeing with all the men in her music group. This makes her submissive in the same vein that Sloan bows down to the wishes of her male counterparts.

While these are two completely different characters both visually and mentally, they are portrayed in a similar manner of disrespect. Both play the role of a "yes" woman despite their attempts to assert themselves. Throughout the film, women in high levels of education or authority we reviewed to be just as ignorant as Lollipop Girl or the women in the commercials. In the eyes of the male characters, women with PhD's as well as professional writers could just as easily have been the "booty bitches" from the TimmiHillnigger commercial.

All the women are tied down by the strings no matter what they try to do. A college degree, intelligence, and determination makes them no different in the eyes of men. No matter what a woman does to try and prove herself in the film, she gets nowhere. Sloan is even accused of sleeping with Delacroix to get her position. She feels the need to prove herself to Man ray and other characters by explaining her ascent to the top, an internship. This is further illustration of the idea that women have to use their sexuality to get somewhere in life, despite intelligence or determination.

Ifa woman does use her sexuality for personally beneficial reasons she must either defend or hide it. We feel the portrayal of women in "Bamboozled" says a lot about the way they are represented not only in the media, but in capitalistic society. Women are underrepresented in the media, like this film, and the few depictions are generally negative. They are the slut, "yes" woman, or sexual object. There are infrequent representations of women in positions of authority or in assertive roles. We wonder if it's possible for females to overcome these stereotypes in actual society when they are constantly tied down by the strings of their puppeteers.

But the question remains, who are the puppeteers?