Text Style: Short Film

Written by: Camille Rainville

Produced by: Claire Rothstein

Be a Lady They Said is a short video that is based off of comments directed towards women to answer the golden question of, what is a lady? There isn’t a narrative and instead looks at the different ideals that a woman should be and explores the stereotypes and expectations that women have, showing that there is no way to be the perfect lady despite everyone’s opinions on what that should look like.

My initial reaction to this was wow. This has simple sentence structures which makes it so powerful along with the images and video on screen as well as the narrator, Cynthia Nixon who appears to accept what she is saying despite the contradicting meanings. I felt conflicted too at the contradicting messages as I knew that what they were saying was what was pushed onto females and we don’t have to conform ourselves to it, but I also couldn’t help but want to be the things that were being said. These are the internal conflicts that we face when we chose to do something but then we hear these little whispers telling us that what we are doing is wrong. The images and videos being shown is conflicted with me, there was one point where it showed first someone being tightened into a corset slimming them down which no matter how much I deny it I wish I was thinner too. But it would then show a woman stuffing a burger in her mouth which I also aspire to have her confidence and to do whatever I like and eat whatever I like without caring what other think. This caused me to think deeper into what I’ve heard I’m meant to become and see that I can’t be what society wants me to be, because it’s impossible to be two things at once which is the messages we are receiving here. The soundtrack starts with an intense throbbing beat along with violet, two opposing sounds which set an unsettling and almost frightening mood to me. I wasn’t aware of what I was getting myself into, all I knew was that my heart was pumping and I was hanging off each word in fear of what was going to happen next, I was anxious for what was to come. Then soon a ticking clock was added in, and when it got to the lines, “Be a size 0. Be a double 0. Be nothing. Be less than nothing.” where it shows a heart monitor becoming flat lined. To me it shows the pressure women have to be this golden image until it kill them, until time runs out of them keeping the act up. I thought it was going to finish there but I was wrong, the music became more upbeat than the distorted sound before, now contradicting what was being said, what we were being told.

I liked how it seemed to go on a tangent reading us one way, before taking us in a the complete opposite direction, “Save yourself. Be pure. Don’t be a whore. Don’t sleep around. Men don’t like sluts.” until it went on to, “don’t be a prude. Don’t be so uptight. Pleasure men.” This is one example of when you think you know what’s going to happen, you think gossip sites are telling you to be pure and innocent but then goes on to tell you to not say no and do what men want of you. I loved the contrasts and change of pace that it brought to keep you hooked in while building up the tension and the constant repeat of the line, “Be a lady they said.”.

The worst thing is that these are the messages being sent to us, I constantly see these ads for the bright bold makeup but then a week later showing us a natural look to show your natural beauty. We are told to be emotional but if we show it we are “being a girl” as if to show our emotions proves their point that we are weak and inferior to men. “Why don’t you skip dessert? Go on a diet. God you look like a skeleton! Why don’t you just eat?” I am also suffocating in this idea that I need to do both things at once. I’m still stuck in this idea that I need to be skinny, but I also want the confidence of eating what I want when I want because I want to fit into society and be seen as acceptable. It’s impossible for me to be bright and bold but also natural at the same time, I can’t split myself in half to fit into their ideals. It has woken me up to what I am going through with society’s expectations of me and where I stand. I’m smart enough to know that I will never fit their perfect picture but I’m still naive enough to have the hope that maybe I will be what a woman’s meant to be.

It uses stereotypes to portray the message and uses pictures and video clips to further support what’s being said. There is a stereotype that women in power are bossy, intimidating and a wench, it’s either that or there aren’t women in power. When I was younger, the highest power that a woman had was a teacher, there weren’t any principles, or business owners or politicians that I knew of they were all men that were also police officers and doctors so I never really saw a woman in charge. If I was in charge of group activities as a girl and I wanted something to happen I was being a “bossy britches” which I didn’t know what it meant but I knew that it wasn’t something I wanted to be called. This led to me becoming shy with my ideas and becoming hesitant to share them with groups and is why I came to prefer individual work than group work. I hate to admit it but then I would also think a girl was being bossy when they led a group because it was something that I just learned, that a girl showing leadership wasn’t actually being a girl and was actually just being bossy and rude. When I reflect on what the stereotypes have done to me, I can see how much I have changed because of it. It has directly impacted me and driven me to the point that when I was younger I didn’t want to be a girl and be forced to live up to society’s expectations which is unfortunate that we are learning these prejudices at a young age. Women then change their personality so that they are viewed better because they are embarrassed or don’t want to be who they truly are. My mum and sister both take pride in how they look, but they unfortunately feel as if their body isn’t good enough and talk about what they would change if they could, what they need. “Plump your lips. Botox your wrinkles. Lift your face. Tuck in your tummy. Perk up your boobs.”, they talk about tucking in their stomach to make them look skinnier and getting rid of wrinkled lines on their face even though it shows warmth in their features. “Look natural. You’re trying too hard. You look overdone.”, stuff similar to this is what they say to celebrities who’ve had plastic surgery, “Look at her, she can’t even make facial expressions.” or something like, “I want to take a few years off but I don’t want to look like I’ve done that much work.”, because we are being told to get all this work done but not look as if we’ve had it done. “Don’t be intimidating. Don’t be a bitch. Don’t be so bossy.”, it shows some politicians when this is being said which reflects that lack of female leaders in politics. In our last election when Jacinda Ardern was leading the labour party, I remember what people said to put people off her was, “What if she has a baby?” and in the video this topic is also addressed, “Give him children. You don’t want children? You will someday. You’ll change your mind.”. Society has this idea that all women want children and if you don’t when you’re young you will want them eventually acting as if having children is a requirement for us. Jacinda Ardern did end up becoming pregnant and having a baby girl but then came back to lead our country and is the person that is going to get us out of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Be a Lady They Said is the title of this and the use of “they” shows that it is society painting women this way and is not gender specific. Both men and women are the cause for this as it has been ingrained in society for so long that women were to marry young, to have lots of children so that they have something to do all day when they stay at home while their husband works. Near the start of the video a picture comes up with multiple magazine covers. They all talk about the best and worst beach bodies, who looks too skinny, who looks too fat, even when some of them have just given birth. But what shocked me to the very core was one of the covers had as the main story for the winter edition, “Best and Worst Beach Bodies”, and as I looked next to it I saw another story, “Heidi Klum Saves Her Family”. The magazines target what society wants and paints it on the front cover, and unfortunately they have come to the conclusion that society would rather judge what others look like when they are having some down time than hear of a mother saving her family from drowning. I remember hearing about this story and what people chose to focus on was the fact that her bikini fell down as she was saving lives with no one helping her. This shows how strong women are but don’t get the recognition for the right reasons as they aren’t seen as strong and brave and are instead looked at because of their bodies. Society still has these prejudices because people like to be in power and we all want to find our place in the world which I think is why it has taken so long for feminism to get to where we want to go. People struggle with change and frightens some people that what they have grown up with isn’t fair to everyone as it affects everyone.

The creator of this wanted to highlight the different ideals that women face and how unrealistic it is for us to achieve. It’s purpose is to visualise what women are supposed to be and show how we are put down and see as inferior. When I went through the comments I saw people asking about why they don’t say anything about men’s expectations or why women think they have it so hard compared to men. This video is to show what women go through, not men, that isn’t to say that men don’t also suffer from stereotypes but it’s the fact that women are being put down their whole life and has been like that for as long as anyone can remember. It is fair to recognise that there are prejudices against both sexes but being able to view them differently and separately as they don’t suffer from the same things and the comments made it seem like they were invalidating women’s comments to put the focus back on them. Again the said the whole “not all men” but you do have to recognise that you do have some privelidge over what sex you are. Like in a biography Waking up White expresses how you are being racist when you don’t see that having white skin gives you privilege. Being a male means that you have privilege over females and the creator wants us to see all aspects of the stereotypes, both good and bad.