Media and film studies

Viewing Women

Module code: P3047
Level 6
30 credits in spring semester
Teaching method: Seminar, Film
Assessment modes: Coursework

This module looks at how women are represented in film and how female audiences engage with those representations.

You’ll study:

• early feminist ideas about women in film, such as Laura Mulvey’s concept of women being shown as objects of the male gaze, shaped to fit male desires
• how female viewers relate to specific film genres like melodrama, “women’s films,” and horror, creating their own meanings and pleasures despite being positioned by the films in certain ways
• more recent trends, like how mainstream films reflect postfeminist ideas and how films made by women respond to these cultural changes.

The module will trace these shifts and debates, exploring the relationships between films, their cultural contexts, and their female audiences. You’ll dive into feminist film research to better understand how films portray and position women.

You’ll also analyse a range of films featuring women on-screen and behind the camera. The module emphasizes diverse perspectives, promoting intersectional and global feminist views that challenge the Western and white-dominated focus of earlier feminist approaches.

Module learning outcomes

• Demonstrate a coherent and specialist knowledge of feminist film and media theory and criticism.
• Identify, describe and evaluate approaches central to this body of work, including leading contemporary scholarship.
• Apply these approaches, orally and in written form, in the critical analysis of film, and where applicable, television texts, and effectively argue a position.
• Work effectively independently and collaboratively.