Modernism

Modernism and the cinematic art of Charlie Chaplin in the early twentieth century.

In all the seriousness of Modernism there was one person who was able to get the modern world to finally laugh at its new technological self and subliminally question if this new modern reality was a good thing. Charlie Chaplin's entrance into Hollywood allowed his open-minded humble perception of the world to be shared, which enabled people of many nations, economic statuses and political parties to be brought together. He brought sanity to the modern society. Chaplin's representation of a dualistic character which he conveyed in many of his films, presented a stylized view of the attitudes of the time. The dualistic character was the 'innocent fool and the humble workman'.  

Chaplin commented on the film: “It [the picture] started from an abstract idea, an impulse to say something about the way life is being standardized and channelized, men turned into machines—and the way I felt about it.”

THE MALE GAZE

The Male Gaze; "film spectators experience unconscious, scopophilic pleasure in two way: 1) by identifying with the male gaze of the camera as it concentrates on female characters 2) by identifying with the male characters who gaze at female characters within the film itself.

MEAN GIRLS

The male gaze is reflected in the teen movie Mean Girls. The infamous scene that instantaneously comes to mind is in the Christmas concert scene when the 4 girls sing Jingle Bell Rock and are all wearing fairly provocative outfits revealing a lot of skin. The auditorium where they are performing is filled with a complete audience, and the camera focuses primarily on the way the girls' body moves and their 'cheeky' facial expressions.  Expectedly, the camera then focuses on a boy in the audience who is in shock admiring the girls. This leaves an impression especially on females that they should present themselves in a certain way and feel comfortable being objectified. Films such as Mean girls encourage this ideology. This is WRONG. It is particularly bad as the portrayals have deeper implications for the young adolescent females who watch this film and internalize the characters behaviours and accept the representations of the females as correct.