The Representation of Gender/Femininity in The Piano

From its beginnings, the film industry generally excluded women from the film-making process.� It was traditional for women to work behind the scenes in non-technical areas such as make-up and production. Aside from Muriel Box, there're very few well known women film-makers from the 1940's and the 1950's, but nonetheless some women has key roles in the film-making process. From early days of film, there were women who attempted to make a name for themselves in the industry. Alma Reville was married to Alfred Hitchcock and assisted him in many of his films, such as "The 39 Steps" and "The Lady Vanishes".

She also assisted him in writing other scripts. The first British feature-length cartoon, "Animal Farm", was co-directed by a woman, Joy Batchelor, in 1954. Through the years, there have been many films that attempted and often succeeded in breaking the patriarchal structure of film. Generally, these films stayed out of the mainstream cinema, but a more than a few have hit the mainstream while retaining its integrity and its positive message to society (especially women). "The Piano", is one of the later-mentioned films. In this paper, through a textual analysis of "The Piano", I'd like to show how the film attempts to challenge and break the stereotypical ways of representing a woman on screen.

In the early history of film, and for many years following, the representation of women on screen generally resolved to passive / inactive roles on wives and mothers. The stereotypes of women in film were extremely limiting and encouraged certain expectations of them. For example, the idea that women are always based at home, that they're inferior to men and that women like violent men - are some of the myths that were perpetuated by the media. In her book "From Reverence to Rape", Molly Haskell explores the identities of women from the earliest day of cinema to the 1970's. In analyzing the progress of women on screen, Haskell wrote: "From a woman's point of view the ten years from 1963 to 1973 have been the most disheartening in screen history.