Girls Against Boys - Feminist Theory

When the woman is sitting in the bathroom we can see an empty stare on her face, she seems to be looking into the space and thinking about something. When the man from the other room calls her, she gets up and walks to him in a way that would mean that she isn't really interested in him and does what she has to do. During that scene we can also see an interesting reflection as the woman named Lu walks next to a mirror, but instead of seeing her reflection we can see a reflection of another woman, Shea, which cannot be at the same place as Lu because she was left behind at the police station by her. I suppose that this might have a deeper meaning which is shown in the whole movie, it could connote that these women get so close together that they start to become one another. But going back to the clip, when Lu comes out of the toilet, we can see a policeman gazing at her even before she appears in the doorway. This can be seen till the moment when she puts material round his head to cover his eyes. But meanwhile, the gaze that we can see from the policeman isn't a look which would be seen from a man in love, it looks more like he would treat Lu like a sexual object which can be used to his likings and then left behind like an old toy. This stops when Lu shows her true face, that she is more like a Femme Fatale character that uses her attributes to get what she wants, like she has done with the policeman. This gives her an advantage because the policeman didn't expect such a turn of events, but Lu knew from the very beginning what she was doing and why she wanted to do that. In addition, Lu is wearing red lipstick, this could pass a strong sexual message to the policeman as red is the colour of passion, heat and love, but also death, aggression and blood; which in this case is more relevant. As it is visible in the video, Lu wears only a black short dress, which shows a lot of her body, this connotes that she isn't afraid of her sexuality and is able to use it to get whatever she wants. This shows the situation in which they are, it is shown how the policeman is a bit nervous about what is happening, but Lu is shown like she knows what she is doing and controls the whole situation. And even though it is a bit awkward situation for the policeman, Lu doesn’t stop but even pushes him to continue by taking more of her clothes of.

This film is closely related to feminist theory, that’s why I wanted to look at a feminism theorist Laura Mulvey. She is best known for her essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, which was written in 1973. This article was influenced by the theorists Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan. This is one of the first essays that helped to shift the orientation of film theory towards more psychoanalytical. Her contribution to this theory gave a more feminism look at it. She said that the classical Hollywood cinema put the viewer on more of the male position, and the women only appeared as an object of desire and male gaze. According to Mulvey, women were and still mostly are put in films for the visual pleasure. She argues that the only way to fight with this stereotype is to produce films which challenge this idea and show woman in a completely different way. This is what is shown in the film Girls Against Boys, Lu is portrayed as an attractive woman which uses her qualities to the ends of moral extent and during that process she kills men, because she thinks that all of them want to use women, and that they mean nothing to men, just like they would be toys for them. This is why she wants to get rid of them, which is a completely different way in which the women are portrayed, because if they were just a target of visual pleasure, harmless and always in trouble, needing saving then the picture that Lu shows of women is completely different. This is because Lu isn’t harmless, she is the complete opposite of it, she is dangerous and can unscrupulously kill all the men that will stand in her way, or if they have something that she desires, like the policeman. He had a gun so she used her attributes to get the gun and then kills the only witness.