[Commlist] CFP: Unmasking Gender: Power, Identity, Privilege in Film

*Unmasking Gender: Power, Identity, Privilege in Film*
**
*Conference Convenors*
Pete Deakin
Rania Kosmidou
**
Venue
*MediaCity, University of Salford, Manchester, UK*
**
Date
*10 December 2025*
**
*Keynote Speaker*
*Professor Kirsty Fairclough, School of Digital Arts (SODA), MMU *
**
*Call for papers*
In the 1970s Anglo-American feminist scholars in a variety of 
disciplines began to explore the problematic representations of women in 
Hollywood cinema, issues and concerns over female spectatorship, as well 
as the history of women’s cinema in Hollywood and beyond. Two seminal 
works Marjorie Rosen’s 1973 /Popcorn Venus: Women, Movies and the 
American Dream/, and Molly Haskell’s 1974 /From Reverence to Rape: The 
Treatment of Women in the Movies/, pointed to stereotypical portrayals 
of women mostly in Hollywood films. The conclusions were epitomised by 
Molly Haskell when she said, “You’ve come a long way baby … and it’s all 
been downhill.” Meanwhile in Britain several female scholars developed 
ideas grounded in psychoanalysis, semiotics and Marxist ideology. Claire 
Johnston (1973) discussed how cinema can construct a particular view of 
reality and stereotypical images of women from a semiotic point of view 
and proposed instead a counter cinema; Laura Mulvey (1975) used 
psychoanalysis to show how the female character in classical Hollywood 
cinema is made passive and powerless, is there to-be-looked-at, and 
proclaimed that there is no place for a female spectator in classical 
narrative cinema (ideas that she revisited later on). Others were not so 
pessimistic. Miriam Hansen (1986) demonstrated how the male character on 
screen can also be the object of desire for a female spectator; Johnston 
(1975) introduced the concept of masquerade in relation to female 
spectatorship, a notion explored further by Mary Ann Doane (1982/1991) 
who discussed masquerade not as cross-dressing, but as a mask of 
femininity among others. Such accounts raised questions about female 
spectatorship and the male gaze. They also questioned the female gaze 
and the male body.

By end of the millennium, for cultural commentators like Susan Faludi 
(1999), it was curiously Western masculinity that had apparently reached 
an apocalyptic state. Its /traditional/ markers – strength, a 
breadwinner status, social dominance, emotional self-efficacy and 
regulation – had been pathologised. In the wake of this sociocultural 
evolution, old jobs were lost; so-called masculine spaces once filled 
with miners, dockers and engineers were left barren or converted to 
penthouse homes and middle-management sites for the newly saturating 
white collar (so went the rhetoric), while the modern western male was 
increasingly under pressure to conform to commercial cultures of style, 
celebrity, and consumption. Ros Coward (1999) asked: when looking back 
on the achievements of feminism, “Is it now holding us back?” Is it 
demonising men and denying them the right to understanding and equality 
in a world that is perhaps far harsher for them than ever before?

Many years later, and in wake of the #MeToo Movement and the current 
sociopolitical climate that has seen Andrew Tate’s brand of 
hypermasculinity, misogyny and anti-feminism poll favourably in and 
beyond the ‘manosphere’, we believe there is an urgent need to 
re-examine gender in contemporary cinema. From researchers and scholars, 
from outreach initiatives to practice-based research among others, we 
welcome a diversity of approaches from a broad variety of perspectives 
on how film is grappling with contemporary portraits of gender in cinema 
in and beyond Hollywood.
*Topics may include (but are not limited to):*

  *
    The status of cinematic masculinity nowadays
  *
    The status of cinematic femininity nowadays
  *
    Challenging male or female dominance on screen
  *
    The female spectator then and now
  *
    The female gaze then and now
  *
    The male gaze then and now
  *
    The male spectator then and now
  *
    The more recent appropriation of cinematic texts into the
    “manosphere” (by individuals such as Andrew Tate) and/or far- and
    alt-right communities
  *
    Gendre equality in contemporary cinema
  *
    Gender in cinema and identity formation
  *
    Gender bending in cinema
  *
    Impact of gender stereotypes on screen
  *
    The evolution of gender and sexual diversity in cinema
  *
    Toxic masculinity as a cinematic theme
  *
    Gender and empowerment on screen
  *
    Gender and social change on screen
  *
    Women’s and/or men’s weaknesses on screen
  *
    Women’s and/or men’s strengths on screen
  *
    The role of women filmmakers in shaping cinematic discourse
  *
    The role of men filmmakers in shaping cinematic discourse

**
Please submit abstracts for individual papers (max 250 words) with 
presentation title, up to 5 key words, your full name, affiliation, 50 
word biography, and email address to (_conferencesalford /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(conferencesalford /at/ gmail.com)>_
_
_
*Submission deadline: 28 September 2025. *
*Notification of acceptance of papers: 5 October 2025.*
**
We support the presentation of practice-as-research, with papers and 
screenings. We also welcome abstracts from early career and postgraduate 
researchers.
All or a selection of papers will be considered for publication.
*No Registration Fee.*

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