Film Matters: Please tell us about your article that is being published in Film Matters.
Linnea Warburton: My article looks at the new Ghostbusters (2016) movie and examines the positive ways in which the movie represents women. The action movie genre can be very misogynistic, and it’s rare to see a movie like Ghostbusters with four female leads. In my article, I look at the many different ways that Ghostbusters rejects the traditional characterizations of the female action hero. For example, it’s really unusual to see female action heroes that are not hypersexualized, or to see female characters that hold jobs in STEM. In many ways, the Ghostbusters movie presents new possibilities for women in action movies, which is very exciting.
FM: What research and/or methodologies do you incorporate in your article?
LW: In my article, I try to use lots of quantitative studies about the representation of women in film in addition to my other analysis. When you look at the numbers, you can really get a sense of how big of an issue this is in the action movie genre. For example, less than 7 percent of action movies have a female lead (Katy Gilpatric, “Violent Female Action Characters in Contemporary American Cinema,” Sex Roles 62 (2010): 734. doi:10.1007/s11199-010-9757-7 ). That number is shocking, and it helps the reader to understand why Ghostbusters is such a big shift from the norm.
FM: Describe the original context for/when writing this article while an undergraduate student.
LW: I have two younger brothers who love action movies, so my family tends to watch a lot of movies in that genre. Because of this, when the new Ghostbusters movie came out, I immediately went to see it with my family. Sitting in the theater, I was thrilled to see complex, well-rounded female leads on screen. I knew immediately that I wanted to write an essay about the movie so that I could really analyze all the differences between Ghostbusters and the rest of the action movie genre. My favorite character was Jillian Holtzmann, who is played by actress Kate McKinnon. As a female engineering major, it was such a positive feeling to see a female engineer represented on screen. Afterward, I spent a long time with my family trying to think of other female engineers in movies that we’ve seen. We couldn’t come up with a single one!
FM: How has your department and/or institution supported your work in film and media?
LW: I wrote the original draft of my article for an assignment in my introductory writing class at the University of Maryland. This specific class has a curriculum which really allows for the creativity of its students. I was able to choose a topic to explore in writing for an entire semester, and I decided to write about the representation of women in film. The flexible curriculum of this class allowed me to pursue an issue I was really passionate about.
FM: How has your faculty mentor(s) fostered your advancement as a film scholar?
LW: My professor for this course, Theresia Pratiwi, helped me through dozens of drafts. She really helped me analyze the movie and go in directions that I had not thought of before. She introduced me to some new sources about women in film that changed the way I thought about female representation.
FM: How has the Film Matters editorial and publication process impacted the development/evolution of your article?
LW: When I first submitted my article to Film Matters, my thesis did not concentrate on the action movie genre but instead made claims about Ghostbusters in the context of all movie genres. After receiving feedback from the editorial board, I was able to focus my thesis more by narrowing it to action movies. This really helped me tie back all of my arguments to my thesis. I also had to cut a significant portion of my essay to meet the word limit set by Film Matters. This process helped me to remove the extraneous details from my article and make it more streamlined. When I finished, my article looked more like a focused argument and less like a rambling rant.
FM: What audience do you hope to reach with your Film Matters article and/or what impact do you hope it has on the field of film studies?
LW: As I discuss in my article, the Ghostbusters movie was not necessarily received well by the public. There was a lot of backlash against the producers for casting four female leads . Ultimately, this backlash did impact the success of the movie. With my article, I hope to explain that this backlash is simply evidence of all the things that Ghostbusters is doing right. We are so used to sexism in action movies that when a movie refuses to follow this script, the public is shocked. I hope that the readers of my essay learn more about the misogyny ingrained in the action movie genre. The more we recognize the problems with female representation, the easier it is to create positive change.
FM: What are your future plans?
LW: I am currently a sophomore studying mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland. Because of my career path as an engineer, it is unlikely that I will be heavily involved in the film industry in my future. However, as a consumer of movies and television, I think it is always important to watch with a critical eye. The representation of women in film affects all of us, regardless of whether we are involved in the film industry.
Author Biography
Linnea Warburton is an undergraduate student at the University of Maryland. She is majoring in mechanical engineering with a concentration in biomedical engineering. Linnea enjoys movies and books with strong female leads and female characters who defy stereotypes.
