Historical texts

Text: Cool hand luke (1967)

Scene: Car wash scene

Analysis: This scene is very symbolic of what the attitudes towards women were back in the 1960's and essentially these perceptions of women and their roles in movies and the media became fixed stereotypes.

The scene starts off with a bunch of sweaty men doing manual labour with their shirts off and this could be percieved as the female gaze as the men are being shown as pieces of meat literaly and figuratively. "Am i not gonna see something look like that", is the reaction from one of the men who spots a woman coming out of her house and immediatly stares at her because of her clothes and her breasts. This was a typical woman representation in the 1960's when women had no secure place in society. "Look at that" is the phrase uttered by paul newman and by calling the woman 'that' he gives her no identity in the film but only as an object. The fact that the woman comes straight out of the house and starts washing a car, which confirms to the stereotypical assumtion of what women are really after and what they are most concerned about, which was cleaning and family. The segment of the scene when the woman picks up a hosepipe is very significant as it represents two things, one being a phallic symbol which shows that she needs a man in her life and the other being that she is far from the stereotypical woman who is just concerned about cleanliness, as she is playing with phallic symbols, which portrays her as promiscuous and provokative towards the men who are working. "She aint got nothing but a safety pin holding that thing together", this is very symbolic of what men used to think about women other than beneath them and this thought is all to do with sex and what women are wearing and its shown well, as it distracts the men from their work and their task in hand.
The sex factor fo the woman is emphasized upon even more as the camera only zooms in to the body and doesn't look at the face and the womans hair is covering her face aswell as her face not being focussed upon at all. This woman is definately seen as promiscuous and very provokative, as she squeezes the sponge and all the foam and water 'accidently' drops down onto her dress, which arrouses the men as in a sexual way it symbolizes the mans pleasure. She is not the typical passive woman who doesn't take notice of whats going on around her and she plays upon the feelings and the attention that the men are giving her and starts to play with them again, portraying her as promiscuous and provokative and sexually being able to dominant the men.

In comparison with my main text and my second choice of text, it goes some way in showing what the typical representations of women were and what kind of stereotypes they had to confirm to and what they still have to confirm to. Comparing the woman in 'cool hand luke' and 'casino royale' is a comparison with a lot of similarities and alot of differences, one of the differences being that the woman in 'cool hand luke' is only shown as a sex object and only her body is being looked at whereas, in 'casino royale' Eva Green plays a key role throughout the movie and is portrayed as abit of a 'tomboy' as she dresses up in trousers at the start while trying to gain the upper hand on the male gender. The only similarity between the two women in the two texts in the fact that even though they are being represented as sex objects in parts of the movie, they are smart enough to realize that they can use their charm and sexual appeal to their advantage and it works well for both.