This study came forth from a rereading of Ariel (2015) by Sylvia Plath and "The Laugh of the Medusa" by Hélène Cixous. Medusa was there, in the title, in the unsaid, but not so much directly in the text, she is only mentioned a few times in Cixous' works. You could still read Medusa in the works, but take away the title and you probably wouldn't to the extent that you do. That's how the questions arose, what do people do when they use Medusa in their works? Why do they decide to revive her?  The purpose of this study is to analyse, from a feministic perspective, what poets invoke when using Medusa in their works. The poems analysed are ”Medusa” by Sylvia Plath, ”Medusa” by Carol Ann Duffy, and ”Medusa with the Head of Perseus” by Torrin A. Greathouse.  Medusa, the Gorgon, used and abused, is a symbol for the silenced women. A woman is usually seen as an object by the patriarchal society, something they can do whatever they want with, Medusa included. This study is to show that women can take back their own bodies from the men, however many years it takes, however many people it takes.  Medusa is not a monster; she is just another victim of men’s oppression.

Cléo from 5 to 7 is perhaps the most famous work of influential French filmmaker Agnès Varda, who is often called the "Grande Dame of the New Wave". The depth of symbolism, the richness of imagery, the beginnings of cinécriture (a Varda-ism describing cinema as a form of writing that uses all the tools available to a filmmaker, not just words), and the charm of the story have guaranteed Cléo's popularity with scholars and audiences alike. Current scholarship has tended to focus on a few aspects of Cléo, including her role as a flâneuse, the use of mirrors and the theme of gazing, time and the division of the film into chapters, the female gaze, and femininity. I will examine the thematic of decay, nature, and beauty in Cléo. Beginning by linking it to her more contemporary documentary The Gleaners and I, I will analyze how Varda undermines conventional ideas of health, youth, and beauty by deconstructing Cléo's world through the threat of disease, only to show how Cléo regains autonomy and control of herself by learning to embrace the inevitability of decay in nature, and in her own body. I will rely on the theories in Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain to show how Cléo's changing relationship to her body constitute the profound transformation mentioned at the beginning of the film. I will also examine Cléo's cancer in light of Susan Sontag's essay Illness as Metaphor. We will see how Varda uses cinécriture to express these ideas, especially in regards to the dialogue between characters, visual symbols, and the use of space.

The purpose of this study is to compare the contents, editorials and front covers of Sweden’s oldest girl’s magazine Veckorevyn during two different years, in which the magazine had two very different chief editors. In the year 2000, Emma Hamberg got the job as editor-in-chief for Veckorevyn, with a vision of changing the way the magazine represented young females. She wanted to add a more feminist viewpoint to the magazine, since she felt that Veckorevyn didn’t live up to its claim of being “a girl’s best friend”. Six years later, the famous Swedish fashion editor Ebba von Sydow became editor-in-chief for Veckorevyn, with the intention of making the magazine better, smarter and more fun for young girls. Her ambition was also to add more features about career and affordable fashion, since she felt that those topics were important for young women of today. Since these two editor-in-chiefs wanted to do so different things with Veckorevyn, we found it interesting to try to pinpoint what their differences and similarities as editors-in-chief were and how this was reflected in the magazines. The methods used were quantitative content analysis and qualitative text analysis, together with a comparative analysis between the two annual volumes. We also did interviews with the two former editors-in-chiefs, Emma Hamberg and Ebba von Sydow to get a clearer image of what they wanted to do with the magazine and how well they thought that they reached their goals. As guidelines for the study, we used theories about the survival techniques used by female journalists, feminism, personification, the male gaze and the female gaze. We found that the two versions of Veckorevyn were similar in which subjects they chose to write about. Both versions had a content based mostly on fashion, beauty, and celebrities. However, we found a noticeable difference in how they wrote about these subjects. Other differences were found in how the editorials were written, and in the choice of what kind of people got to appear on the front covers.

" Dwelling at the Margins" is an exegesis of the short film Boundaries. Boundaries is a journey into the world of marginalised young people in inner urban Brisbane seen through the eyes of a the female main character with an eye for gentle beauty. The film forms the first part of the research and in the exegesis the ideas unfold that were behind the making of the film and that emerged further through its production and audience reception. The exegesis discussion centres on the major aspects of the film which are visual representations, female narratives and the themes of home and dwelling. Boundaries is a political film that looks from the edges of society. The exegesis seeks to explain the ideas behind this intention.

The overall dominance of white, cisgender, straight malecentered media remains largely unchanged and it is still considered the ”default” or ”universal” perspective. As a result, filmmaking is often limited to representing only a narrow view of humanity. Female representation both in front and behind the camera has been significantly impacted by this dominant perspective. A feminist approach to cinema practices is therefore crucial to challenge and reconstruct the cinematic system, allowing for more diverse and inclusive perspectives to emerge. Cinema is a powerful mass media industry that shapes its audience’s sensibilities, thoughts, emotions, perceptions, and reactions, while broadening the possibilities of human experiences through the screen. The producer plays a crucial role in overseeing the entire filmmaking process and striving to achieve the best possible outcome for the film. Given the significant impact that cinema has on society and the influential position of the producer in the filmmaking process, this study seeks to encourage film and TV producers, regardless of gender, to represent women with equal rights and opportunities. By embracing the female gaze, filmmakers can create more inclusive, diverse, and equitable films for all. This research asks: Have I, a female producer from Latin America, internalized the dominant white, cisgender, heterosexual, and male perspective? In what ways does this perspective manifest in my own role as a producer? And how can we producers creatively and practically challenge this perspective?

Type de dépôt #1 (version complète) / Ce mémoire porte sur la réactualisation de l’opéra d’un point de vue féministe en s’appuyant sur l’exemple de la mise en scène de Don Giovanni (1787-1788) de Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). Cette étude montre comment il est possible, en s’appuyant sur les outils de l’analyse musicale et littéraire, de créer une mise en scène qui respecte les principales caractéristiques du livret et de la partition – conservant ainsi ce que Jean-Jacques Nattiez appelle des « fidélités locales » – tout en permettant au public d’aujourd’hui de s’identifier à une œuvre composée il y a plus de deux siècles, et de s’y projeter. Pour ce faire, l’enjeu est de proposer une adaptation de l’opéra qui tient compte du contexte politique et social actuel, axé ici sur le féminisme. Prenant pour exemples les trois personnages féminins de Don Giovanni, le mémoire est construit sous la forme d’un triptyque, par ordre chronologique d’apparition des personnages : Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, Zerlina. Ainsi, il sera possible d’établir un point de vue s’apparentant au female gaze dans cet opéra, jusqu’ici majoritairement interprété par le biais du male gazing (regard masculin). Le premier chapitre propose donc l’analyse de deux airs phares du personnage de Donna Anna. Cherchant à l’abstraire de l’entité quasi fusionnelle qu’elle constitue avec son fiancé Don Ottavio, l’analyse harmonique et littéraire s’intéresse aux passages où Donna Anna est susceptible d’affirmer son indépendance. L’analyse de ces mêmes scènes dans deux mises en scènes récentes de l’œuvre vise ensuite à vérifier si les caractéristiques qui ressortent de cette analyse sont mises en valeur dans les productions. Enfin, dans un processus s’apparentant à la recherche-création, je propose pour les passages étudiés des avenues de mise en scène qui tiennent compte des analyses effectuées dans les premières parties du chapitre. Les deux autres personnages féminins sont abordés suivant le même procédé, cherchant d’un côté à dé-ridiculiser celui de Donna Elvira – trop souvent considérée comme « hystérique » – et, de l’autre, à rendre au personnage de Zerlina son côté stratège, habituellement camouflé dans les productions « traditionnelles » où la jeune femme n’est représentée que par son côté paysan. / This thesis explores the feminist actualization of opera, using Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s (1756-1791) Don Giovanni (1787-1788) as a case study. This study shows how it is possible, by using musical and literary analytical tools, to create a performance that respects the main characteristics of the libretto and the score—thus preserving what Jean-Jacques Nattiez calls “local loyalties”—while allowing today’s audience to identify with a work composed over two centuries ago. To do so, I propose an adaptation of the opera that takes into account the current political and social context, focused here on feminism. Taking as examples the three female characters of Don Giovanni (Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina), the thesis is built as a triptych in which the characters are studied in the chronological order of their apparition. The approach is based on a female gaze point of view, contrasting with the male gazing interpretation which has been dominant in the operatic world until now. The first chapter analyses two major arias of Donna Anna. In order to free her from the almost fusional entity she forms with her fiancé Don Ottavio, the harmonic and literary analysis centers around passages where she is most likely to show independence. The analysis of these same scenes in two recent stagings of the work then aim to verify whether the characteristics that emerge from this analysis are highlighted in the productions. Finally, in a process of research-creation, I propose staging directions for the same passages that take into account the findings made throughout the chapter. The two other female characters are approached following the same process, seeking on the one hand to de-ridiculize the character of Donna Elvira—too often considered “hysterical” —and, on the other hand, to highlight Zerlina’s sense of strategy, which is usually downplayed in “traditional” productions in which the young woman is solely represented by her peasant character.