Abstract

My approach mainly concentrates on the ideological impact of film in the representation of dominant images of femininity and therefore focuses on the effects and consequences of such representations. In this sense it is not solely concerned with the production of meaning through and within representation, but mainly with reproducing power relations and forging identities and subjectivities. Therefore, the key questions that concern me involve: (i) how narrative cinema contributes to the field of cultural representations and in particular to definitions of gender inside a specific socio-historical context; (ii) how popular fiction contributes to the production and circulation of gendered identities; and (iii) what relationship exists between social reality and the fictive representations of the dominant and / or mutating definitions of femininity. Within this framework, ideologies are not taken to be simply imposed by a dominant hegemonic force. Instead, they are considered to constitute points of conflict and negotiation on the definition of what must be considered to be the “real” or, in other words, about the imposition of one particular discourse as hegemonic. In this process of negotiating hegemony, as Gledhill accurately claims, “ideologies may shift their ground, the central consensus may be changed and ‘the real’ reconstructed” (Gledhill, 1997). I consider narrative film an area where negotiation of gendered identities takes place, as well as an area where ideological tensions concerning femininity are played out. Therefore, I shall attempt to present a model that locates the images, representations and discourses inside the filmic text in order to unravel the ideological function of the narrative.