This essay aims to analyse how the exposedness is constructed in the Swedish contemporary artist Nathalie Djurberg’s two stop motion-films Greed and Cave. Five stills from Greed and three stills from Cave will be examined from a feminist perspective with a theoretical viewpoint based on theories from both art history and film studies. The method applied is visual semiotics which focuses on how meaning is created within an artwork rather than what the meaning is. The stills from Djurberg’s films are analysed first on a denotative level and then on a connotative level. Furthermore, visual semiotics theorises that everything is made up of systems of signs which allows this essay to study how the women in Djurberg’s movies functions as signs. The essay demonstrated that the women in Djurberg’s films can be seen as passive objects under the power of the male gaze. However, the analysis also displayed that the woman in Cave can be perceived as someone who defies the patriarchal norms for how a woman should behave and look. Nonetheless, the exposedness of these women seems to be constructed firstly in their bodies and how they are represented, both in looks but also how they are posed to reinforce patriarchal conventions in the female representation, and secondly in their relation to male characters - or the implied male gaze from a spectator - in the films. The women in Djurberg’s films can thus be understood as signs for male sexual desires, as signs for the Woman posing as the Man’s opposite, as the objective for His gaze.

The media is not only a source of entertainment, it is also a way to better understand ourselves and a means to shape our identities. The purpose of different types of communication are never neutral, there is always a discourse and an underlying meaning at work. By continually portraying women as stereotypical characters, the patriarchal discourse is reproduced and perpetuates an unequal view of women in society. It is possible to reconstruct the hegemonic male domination and representation is key if there is a change to be had in this area. Thus, it is of utter importance to create productions that showcase a vast variety of social and gender roles. The purpose of this essay is to analyse female representation in visual media with a primary focus on women’s history, exemplified by how gender is created by female characters in the miniseries Fröken Frimans krig. The analysis has a basis in multimodal critical discourse analysis as well as critical narrative analysis, and also takes into consideration Mulvey’s theories on the male gaze. The theoretical framework is based on poststructural feminist theory with an aim to deconstruct notions of what constitutes a woman and a man.

Uppsatsen syftar till att studera intertextualiteten i Bjarne Moelvs Helgas offer – dagboksroman om ett brott och Hjalmar Söderbergs Doktor Glas. Tyngden i analysen ligger på Moelvs roman, under det att Doktor Glas tjänar som belysande jämförelsematerial. Analysen består av tre delar där den textuella strukturen, perspektivet och berättarstrukturen undersöks. Resultaten visar att romanerna uppvisar flera stilistiska likheter men även tydliga skillnader när det gäller jagberättarens framställning. Moelv distanserar sig från det kvinnliga berättarjaget genom att begränsa henne till en iakttagare. Detta ger uttryck för en framställning som konstrueras ur ett genussystem där manliga normer slår igenom i representationer av kvinnor.

Caryl Churchill, the most widely performed female dramatist in contemporary British theatre, is a playwright preoccupied with the dissection of the traditional relations of power. She challenges social and dramatic conventions through her innovative exploration of the male gaze, the objectification of women, the performativity of gender, and women as objects of exchange within a masculine economy. In so doing, Churchill locates her concerns in the area of `materialism and gender'. Churchill explicates a socialist-feminist position by pointing directly at the failure of liberal feminism. The lack of a sense of community among women, highlighted by Churchill's portrayal of women such as Marlene in `Top Girls', forms a critical aspect of Churchill's work. Her drama re-iterates how meaningful change is impossible while women continue to oppress one another, and while economic structures perpetuate patriarchy. Altered consciousness, aligned to socio-political re-structuring, is necessary for both the oppressors and the oppressed, in a society where too much emphasis has been placed on individualism. The outspoken hope for a transgression of the conventional processes of identification and other omnipresent, oppressive socio-political phenomena, is a strong aspect of Churchill's work. Her plays reveal how signs create reality rather than reflect it, and she uses Brechtian-based distancing methods to induce a critical examination of gendered relations. Time-shifting, overlapping dialogue, doubling and cross-casting are used by Churchill to manipulate the sign-systems of the dominant order. Cross-gender casting, Churchill's most widely reviewed dramatic device, is employed to destabilise fixed sexual identities determined by dominant heterosexual ideology. She calls into question the traditional sign `Woman' - which is constructed by and for the male gaze - and addresses the marginality of the female experience in a non-linear framework. Although dealing with serious issues, Churchill's plays are often executed in a style that is at once amusing and thought-provoking to exclude the possibility of didacticism. With her skilful use of language and innovative techniques as her highly effective instruments, Churchill accomplishes her broader purpose with originality. In its originality and complexity, her drama is in itself a `new possibility' for different forms. / English Studies / M. A. (English)

Ce mémoire se concentre sur la figure de l’héroïne d’action dans les jeux vidéo. La culture vidéoludique, qui glorifie la masculinité militarisée, tend à sexualiser les personnages féminins et à négliger les préférences des joueuses afin de cibler les hommes et les garçons. La figure de l’héroïne d’action naît du désir d’inclusion des femmes dans la culture du jeu vidéo. Ces protagonistes féminins, bien que souvent objectifiés comme le témoigne le célèbre personnage de Lara Croft, présentent tout de même un potentiel subversif en envahissant l’espace traditionnellement masculin. Ce mémoire analyse quelques protagonistes qui correspondent à la figure de l’héroïne et la remodèlent. / This master thesis focuses on the action heroine trope in video games. The video game culture, which glorifies militarized masculinity, tends to sexualize female characters and to neglect the preferences of female players by targeting men and boys. The action heroine trope is born from the desire to include women in the video game culture. These female protagonists are often sexualized, such as the famous Lara Croft, but they also have a subversive potential by invading a traditional masculine space. This master thesis analyzes a few characters that are modeled and reshaped on the action heroine trope.

Abstract The great detective Sherlock Holmes casts a long shadow on the previous research on the short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, where Mr. Holmes has been given the main attention. On the periphery, however, a woman named Irene Adler is recognizable. Adler makes her single entrance in the Sherlock Universe in “A Scandal in Bohemia” from 1891 when she outsmarts Mr. Holmes and makes him reconsider the entire female sex as a consequence. In the BBC adaptation Sherlock, the case is however different for the early feminist icon Adler. The portrayal of Adler in the episode “A Scandal in Belgravia” from 2012 is mainly focusing on her sexuality, nudity and seductive personality when meeting Holmes, which has resulted in this essay that aims to study the transformation of Adler from text to screen from a gender perspective. By conducting a comparative study based on gender theory and adaptation theory, the essay finds that there has been a sexualisation and diminishing of independence on behalf of Adler, which relates to common stereotypes in the portrayal of women in film. Through a successive degradation of the female character, it is possible to detect a form of reversed emancipation where the hundred year older predecessor shows greater feminist characteristics than the modern adaptation. / Sammanfattning Mästerdetektiven Sherlock Holmes kastar en lång skugga efter sig och har stått i centrum för majoriteten av forskningen om Sir Arthur Conan Doyles noveller. I periferin återfinns emellertid en kvinna vid namn Irene Adler som i ”A Scandal in Bohemia” från 1891 överlistar Holmes och får honom att omdefiniera hela sin syn på det kvinnliga könet på grund av Adlers intelligens och agens. I BBC:s filmatisering av den berömde detektiven i serien Sherlock har dock stora förändringar skett i transformationen av den feministiska förgrundsgestalten Adler. Porträtteringen av Adler i avsnittet ”A Scandal in Belgravia” från 2012 fokuserar till stor del på hennes sexualitet, avkläddhet och förföriska person i mötet med Holmes, vilket också föranlett denna uppsats vars syfte är att studera porträtteringen av Adler från text till filmduk ur ett genusperspektiv. Genom en komparativ metod grundad i genusteori och adaptionsteori finner uppsatsen att det skett en sexualisering och ett osjälvständiggörande av Adler som överensstämmer väl med många av de vanligt förekommande stereotypiska porträtteringarna av kvinnor på filmduken. Genom en successiv nedbrytning av den kvinnliga karaktären kan ett slags omvänd emancipation skönjas, där den hundra år äldre förlagan visar starkare feministiska förtecken än den moderna adaptionen.

This paper aims to investigate the terms and conditions of a lesbian gaze and a lesbian spectatorship from a feminist and queer theoretical point of view. The empirical material consists of three paintings by the American artist Romaine Brooks (1874-1970).  Brooks was based in Paris in the early 20th century where she was surrounded by a group of intellectual and usually cross-dressing lesbians. The women within this context are the ones depicted in Brooks’ paintings and this makes her one of the first artists in modernity to openly portray lesbian and cross-dressing women. Her paintings lead into new conditions for the traditional understanding of spectatorship as well as female positions, since there is no male involvement or presence within the interactive space surrounding these paintings. The survey tries to further investigate and break down already existing theories concerning spectatorship with the main focus on Laura Mulvey’s the male gaze, termed in the essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975). The queer theoretical approach in this paper is based on Judith Butler’s performativity, which then is attached to gaze theories in order to investigate the active and passive positions found in Brooks’ paintings. The paper does also include an analysis of the male gaze in relation to modernism, avant-garde, canon and subsequently the reason behind Brooks’ absence in modernist canon.

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.

Caryl Churchill, the most widely performed female dramatist in contemporary British theatre, is a playwright preoccupied with the dissection of the traditional relations of power. She challenges social and dramatic conventions through her innovative exploration of the male gaze, the objectification of women, the performativity of gender, and women as objects of exchange within a masculine economy. In so doing, Churchill locates her concerns in the area of `materialism and gender'. Churchill explicates a socialist-feminist position by pointing directly at the failure of liberal feminism. The lack of a sense of community among women, highlighted by Churchill's portrayal of women such as Marlene in `Top Girls', forms a critical aspect of Churchill's work. Her drama re-iterates how meaningful change is impossible while women continue to oppress one another, and while economic structures perpetuate patriarchy. Altered consciousness, aligned to socio-political re-structuring, is necessary for both the oppressors and the oppressed, in a society where too much emphasis has been placed on individualism. The outspoken hope for a transgression of the conventional processes of identification and other omnipresent, oppressive socio-political phenomena, is a strong aspect of Churchill's work. Her plays reveal how signs create reality rather than reflect it, and she uses Brechtian-based distancing methods to induce a critical examination of gendered relations. Time-shifting, overlapping dialogue, doubling and cross-casting are used by Churchill to manipulate the sign-systems of the dominant order. Cross-gender casting, Churchill's most widely reviewed dramatic device, is employed to destabilise fixed sexual identities determined by dominant heterosexual ideology. She calls into question the traditional sign `Woman' - which is constructed by and for the male gaze - and addresses the marginality of the female experience in a non-linear framework. Although dealing with serious issues, Churchill's plays are often executed in a style that is at once amusing and thought-provoking to exclude the possibility of didacticism. With her skilful use of language and innovative techniques as her highly effective instruments, Churchill accomplishes her broader purpose with originality. In its originality and complexity, her drama is in itself a `new possibility' for different forms. / English Studies / M. A. (English)