Reclaiming girlishness. Images of young women in contemporary American cinema

Master's Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other grade: 10 University of Cologne (Anglistik) language: English abstract: This thesis will be an exploration of the images of young women that Clueless The Virgin Suicides Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette provide to shine a light on what makes them stand out against other films of this type and why they continue to appeal so intensely to female audiences. To provide the context in which their films were created and to explore their impact the first part shall give a brief introduction to the backgrounds and styles of both directors. In extension attention will be paid to the cultural postfeminist context of the four films as part of a discussion in how far a postfeminist mindset provides new possibilities for female characters while simultaneously upholding old patriarchal patterns and rules that prevent a true liberation of girls and women and how Heckerling and Coppola treat this ambiguity in their works. Since the focus lies on female subjectivity and agency of the girlish young woman and how it is portrayed in cinema most of this thesis is dedicated to an examination of the films' storytelling and visuals - investigating and comparing the points of view in the films how they are set up and how the camera work supports that; the use of voiceover narrators dialogue and silences as means to interrogate the position of the girls within the framework of power dynamics in their respective stories; intertextual references as well as instances of parody or pastiche and how they create subtext that sometimes amplifies straightforward messages of a film and sometimes questions it; and ultimately costumes and the role of fashion and clothes in feminine expression as well as the recovery of female agency against the backdrop of the specularisation of women in cinema. Finally the last part will pay attention to where the four films by Coppola and He