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5 - Subversive Sound: Gender, Technology and the Science Fiction Blockbuster

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2016

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Summary

This chapter considers the representation of gender in the late 1970s and 1980s in the so-called blockbuster era, focusing specifically on the science fiction genre. The aural dimension of these types of films immediately conjures up ideas of space, technology and other worlds and thus potentially appear as acoustically distinct from the experimental or avant-garde nature of New Hollywood or the loud, pervasive sounds of weaponry, shouting and male camaraderie in war films, which, as previously discussed, explored alternative representations of masculinity in mainstream US cinema. Financially, the most successful American films to emerge in the post-New Hollywood era were Hollywood blockbusters. These films, which were popular from the late 1970s onwards, saw a return to classical movie formulas and genres which, according to some scholars, also saw the re-emergence of strong male heroes and passive female characters and thus a noticeable return to binary representations of gender. Scholars such as Benshoff and Griffin consider this was a cultural backlash to the growing independence of women in the 1970s. But the new depictions of gender in films of this period seem also to veer away from simplistic, binary views of gender that characterised the negotiation of rigid heteronormative ideologies in the US cinema of the 1950s. This chapter explores the previously unattended to subtleties of the soundscapes of these films, which has led to discoveries of some subterranean subversions of traditional representations of gender.

Much previous discussion about the representation of men and women in films of this era emphasises the conservative political climate in which such texts emerged. The election of ex-movie star Ronald Reagan as President of the United States in 1980 (and his subsequent re-election in 1984) led to the emergence of an ideology that recalled the sociological structures of the 1950s; a so-called era of patriarchal family values. In his role as president, Reagan frequently capitalised on his Hollywood, tough-talking cowboy persona to maintain his popularity with voters. Susan Jeffords argues that he constructed himself as a strong, father figure to America, believing that this was what the country wanted after a previously liberal government and an apparent loss of family values. Reagan's political standpoint on this matter is arguably present in the most popular films of this era, such as the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies, which feature a strong, patriarchal worldview dominated by male characters.

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Talkies, Road Movies and Chick Flicks
Gender, Genre and Film Sound in American Cinema
, pp. 125 - 148
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
Print publication year: 2016

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