Introduction to Critical Investigation essay

This should clearly introduce your primary text, the media issue or debate you are addressing and what angle your essay will use to approach the question. It needs to engage the reader, pose some questions and give a clear indication of what direction the essay will take. The word count will vary but you want to aim for around 200-250 words.

You may find this brief Powerpoint guide to academic writing useful in approaching this task and can certainly refer to it for the rest of your first draft over Christmas.

Do recent Hollywood films such as the Wolf of Wall Street suggest that audiences are still being influenced by negative gender stereotypes?

Despite the gains made by feminism over the last 30 years, Hollywood films still offer too many negative gender stereotypes. This is particularly clear in Martin Scorsese’s highly successful biopic of Jordan Belfort, The Wolf of Wall Street (2012). In Scorsese’s film, women are presented as sex objects, prostitutes or housewives and there for the pleasure of the male characters (and arguably male audience). It is evident that negative gender stereotypes are still present in modern Hollywood films and it is hard to argue that audiences are not influenced by these representations. We can also see this in historical, successful Hollywood films such as Scarface, the original Wall Street and Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Despite the fact that the gender gap between males and females has started to close – more so recently with respected activists such as Emma Watson speaking out publicly on behalf of the UN gender campaign – negative gender stereotypes in film show that the gap is still an issue in society. Hollywood films that are based around the idea of 'power' often portray negative stereotypes of women. The idea of power and riches appeals to a mass audience as Richard Havis explores in an interview with Scorsese about The Wolf Of Wall Street: "Look at young people and what the American Dream means to them. It's all about accumulating more, and doing what is best for you, in spite of how it affects anyone else.”  This essay will explore the negative gender stereotypes in Hollywood productions and the influence such films have on the audience.

"Blondes make the best victims. They're like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints."

"To what extent are gender roles in horror remakes like 'Bates Motel' adapted for contemporary audiences?"

Throughout history, the horror genre has reflected the zeitgeist, this undeniably includes the way men and women are represented. In particular, we have seen a strong focus on gender roles. Gender roles are defined as a set of behaviours a person is associated with as appropriate to their gender; They are determined by the prevailing cultural norms of the zeitgeist. In Hollywood, many successful horror films adhere strongly to typical gender roles in order to carry their narrative. One brazen example of this, is seen in the almost 60 year old, "sensational slasher film", 'Psycho'. Hitchcock's 1960s masterpiece remains “one of the key works of our age” and inevitably has been subject to incessant debate and commentary on its female and male character portrayals. However, it appears Hollywood has been trying to challenge these fixed, prototypical gender roles. This reversal or deviation of gender roles arguably began due to Hitchcockian influence and can be seen in the recent, innovative television series 'Bates Motel'. This show is a contemporary prequel to Hitchcock's 'Psycho', continuing “the legacy of a beloved classic”, yet has “challenged the notions of exactly what a reboot can be”, by having their own approach to how gender roles are used, demonstrating the very changes in society. This contemporary text provides an ideal way of investigating how changes in society have impacted the way gender roles are used in Hollywood, because of the side by side comparisons its origin text - 'Psycho'.