WMST 270 Women and Film
This course uses film to explore the human search for meaning, through examining films written and/or directed by women, featuring women, and focusing on women’s experiences. Engaging a wide variety of worldviews, the focus is on the creative and risk-taking strategies women choose in order to navigate systems of race, class, gender, and sexuality, while pursuing meaningful lives for themselves, their families and communities. The course draws on the arts, media, and popular culture to analyze the worldwide impact of gender expectations in shaping and limiting societal roles, as well as women’s innovative strategies for expanding and enhancing them.
Prerequisite
Eligible to enroll in
ENGL 121
Hours Weekly
3
Course Objectives
- 1. Explore the power of gender constructs facing female film characters and the innovative,
creative, and risk-taking strategies they invent to skillfully navigate the intersectionality of
race, class, gender, and sexuality, while pursing meaningful lives for themselves, their
families, and communities; analyze whether a film portrays female characters as
subjects – agents in their own lives, able to act on their own behalf and craft their own
destiny – or objects – passive recipients of dramatic action. - 2. Analyze the range and diversity of roles available to women of color and portraying
lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women in film; explore the roles available to female
characters during a range of historical time periods and in films from a variety of
cultures; analyze the power of female film characters to expand or contract imaginative
possibilities for female film viewers.
- 3. Analyze the power of the female director to broaden and deepen the portrayal of female
characters in film; explore several female film directors in the role of auteur.
Course Objectives
- 1. Explore the power of gender constructs facing female film characters and the innovative,
creative, and risk-taking strategies they invent to skillfully navigate the intersectionality of
race, class, gender, and sexuality, while pursing meaningful lives for themselves, their
families, and communities; analyze whether a film portrays female characters as
subjects – agents in their own lives, able to act on their own behalf and craft their own
destiny – or objects – passive recipients of dramatic action. - 2. Analyze the range and diversity of roles available to women of color and portraying
lesbian, bisexual, and transgender women in film; explore the roles available to female
characters during a range of historical time periods and in films from a variety of
cultures; analyze the power of female film characters to expand or contract imaginative
possibilities for female film viewers.
- 3. Analyze the power of the female director to broaden and deepen the portrayal of female
characters in film; explore several female film directors in the role of auteur.