Classical cinema adheres to one usual main rule, and that is to adhere to the ‘gender roles and norms’. A beautiful woman there to be admired and lusted over, while a man admires with masculine power and the longing to control and own. To explore classical cinema it is important to explore feminist film theory and the the criticism’s it holds of classical cinema. Mulvey writes ‘pleasure in looking has been split between active male/passive feamle’ ((Mulvey, 842,1999).This quote so easily applies to the gender roles of classic cinema as well as the norms of its time, which were heightened around the 50’s and 60’s. Women on the classic hollywood screen became a spectacle for the audience and in particular men. It is no surprise that around the 50’s and 60’s was the height of ‘sex sells’ in the advertising industry, and of course this overflowed into cinema. As explored in the introduction feminists take cinema to be a ‘cultural practice regarding myths about women and femininity, as well as about men and masculinity’(Smelik,2016,pg1). Early feminist approaches believed cinema created ‘stereotypes of women, mostly in hollywood films’(Smelik,2016,pg1, and these films would create ‘objectionable distortions’(Smelik,2016,pg1 that would negatively impact the women watching these films.…show more content… Through this it can be seen that the obvious criticism from feminism that arises from classic cinema is that women were painted in a specific way and held in a stereotype that was mostly to please the male
