lauras blog :): November 2008

This is my annotated catalogue so far...it is lacking a few things as i cannot yet include them on here, such as the description of Brassed Off as i have not yet watched it!!.......and responses from my focus group/imdb forum as i have not yet carried them out.

Annotated Catalogue

Films

Item 1: Billy Elliot (2000 Dir. Stephen Daldry)

This is my main focus film and a controversial example of ‘masculinity in crisis’. The main focal point of this film is the troubled childhood that Billy experiences, in a male-run household in the time of a miners strike. The film explores ideas of masculinity, youth and homosexuality among a British population. Billy Elliot is a film that is representative of a 1980’s society whilst holding traits and qualitie
s of 20th century life. It is a film that investigates themes of stereotyping in society and social conventions that affect what people predominately do and say.

Item 2: The Full Monty (1997 Dir. Peter Cattaneo)

The Full Monty is a film that challenges ideas of masculinity among males in an industry-corrupted society. Its focus is on the life of a group of male friends, struggling to find work after the shutting down of steel industry. Throughout the film, social stereotypes and the role of men and women are constantly questioned.

Item 3: Brassed Off (1996 Dir. Mark Herman)

Books

Item 4: BFI - Teaching men and film

This book explores the traditional traits involved with masculinity and how these affect the messages conveyed throughout film. Despite not concentrating particularly on any of my three focus films, parts of this book gave me fascinating insights in to the general representation of masculinity in British cinema.

Item 5: York Notes – ‘The Full Monty’

This book gave a detailed analysis of the issues and topics raised in ‘The Full Monty’. In particular, the chapter on “representations and stereotypes” provided me with a critical study of identities in the film and an insight into the characters individual thoughts and opinions on traditional stereotypes.

Magazines

Item 6: Sight and Sound – ‘Billy Elliot’ review

This article explores various concepts raised in ‘Billy Elliot’ and makes interesting judgements about the way in which masculinity is depicted.

Item 7: Sight and Sound – ‘The Full Monty’ review

This review addresses the way in which men attempt to find solutions to the crisis they are experiencing with masculinity, and how to overcome these problems in order to redeem their male status.

Internet

Item 8: Billy Elliot Blog
http://hereticalsex.blogspot.com/2006/06/billy-elliot.html

This article comments on how masculinity is seen as in a ‘crisis’ within ‘Billy Elliot’. It raises ideas of conventions in society, social stereotypes and homosexuality, which provided me with interesting information about how masculinity is viewed by the general public.

Item 9: Representation of working class in ‘Brassed Off’ and ‘The Full Monty’
http://www.grin.com/e-book/14482/the-representation-of-the-working-class-in-the-films-brassed-off-and-the

This makes a comparison between the films ‘Brassed off’ and ‘The Full Monty’, commenting on the Thatcherite government and the effects of unemployment during the times when each of the films were made.

Item 10: Interview with Jamie Bell
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=YasOxgGDjco

Part of this interview discussed Jamie bell’s own personal experiences of growing up as a male ballet dancer and how the comments and reactions he got helped to fuel his performance in ‘Billy Elliot’. This was hugely interesting as it commented on what is seen as ‘masculine’ and what is not.

Item 11: New Perspectives on British Cinema. Beyond the ‘Crisis’ in Masculinity.
https://lra.le.ac.uk/bitstream/2381/415/1/newcastle%20paper.pdf

This article refers to ‘The Full Monty’ and various other films that comment on the representations of masculinity. It explores the theme of ‘masculinity crisis’ within British cinema and looks at what ultimately makes the film similar.

Item 12: Online journal on Billy Elliot http://www.genders.org/g37/g37_weber.html

This article also refers to a ‘masculinity crisis’ within ‘Billy Elliot’ and discusses the reasons for its gaining of this title. It looks in to youth, homosexuality and primarily what it means to be called masculine.

Item 13: Analysis of themes in ‘Billy Elliot’, ‘The Full Monty’ and ‘Brassed Off’
http://www.britmovie.co.uk/features/duggan/local_heroes01.html

This article refers to all of my focus and secondary films, comparing the three in terms of identity, unemployment and gender as reasons to why the concept of masculinity is at risk.

Item 14: Re-negotiating Concepts of Masculinity in Contemporary British Film
http://www.genderforum.uni-koeln.de/work/articles.htm

This also refers to all three films and suggests how the problems embedded in masculinity can possibly be resolved. This helped me to understand the effect of industry on society.

IMDb Forum/Focus Group

Item 15:

DVD Extras

Item 16: Billy Elliot commentary: Stephen Daldry (Dir.) Jamie Bell (Billy), and Gary Lewis (Dad).

These extras provided me with a first hand commentary of the influence that personal experience had on understanding the issues raised in the film.

Rejected Items

Book: ‘Out at the movies’

This article only seemed to focus on the class and social structure in British films and did not refer directly to any of my focus or secondary films.

Internet: http://jmm.saepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/6/2/119

Despite it being quite interesting and commenting on masculinity in the film, this article was short and did not provide me with enough information on masculinity in ‘The Full Monty’.

Internet: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2000/oct/02/features.comment

This article only commented on the affect that the film, ‘Billy Elliot’ had on audiences, mentioning sentimentality and emotions. It did not go in to detail about how masculinity is represented throughout the film.

Internet:http://www2.kumagaku.ac.jp/teacher/~judy/classes/zemi/papers/2002Tamba.doc

This commented on social features and English features raised in ‘The Full Monty’ but the majority was statistics from surveys that had been carried out and was not helpful towards my investigation.

These are the responses from my focus groups, i found them really interesting as there were many differences and similarities between the three. I was particularly intrigued by the references they made to their own personal experiences as some of these corresponded to the events within the three films. The responses differed when comparing representations of masculinity in the films as the three men had some opposing views. However, the stereotypical masculine qualities that i asked them to list were all quite similar. This proves that there is a certian aspect of masculinity that people are aware of but this is not necessarily reflected through film, personal past experiences or present day life. The feedback that i retrieved from watching the three film clips was also quite interesting because each person saw something different being portrayed that they believed was essentially most impotant. I think that altogether the focus group worked well and was successful with the age group it was aimed at.