Red Notice

• Objectification

  • Gal Gadot is the notoriously powerful and elusive Bishop, the number one art thief in the world but is she still objectified? What’s on display in the following scenes, her body or her skills?
  • The bishop has agency but does conniving, trickery, deceit characterize this agency? If so, isn’t this also objectification?
  •  The portrayal of female characters such as Bishop as a romantic interest. The character of Bishop is objectified through the plot. She is initially portrayed as a woman who is got at deceiving and is manipulative but later the plot twist shows that she was just a sidekick, and all her actions were being controlled by the Male protagonist. Therefore, the conventional narrative that the male lead is the mastermind, and the female character is just a sidekick following the lead of the male and has no opinion or perspective of her own. 
  • Does the film make it seem that seduction is part of the skill-set that the bishop possesses?

  Comments:
  In the film, when Johnson and Booth were captured by Bishop in the palace. T he camera lingers over Gal Gadot's body in a tight red dress as she seduces Dwayne Johnson's. The movement of the camera shows how the camera fragments the female body. This is a perfect example of Male Gaze as the female body is put on display for the male desire. Although she is there to fight them, she first unties her hair, and even tries to seduce them. In the fight scene, the camera angle is focused more on objectifying Gal Gadot than showing off her fighting skills as the camera pans over to her legs than to her feet. When she gets the spear, the camera shows her legs (image 1), and she grabs the spear with her foot (image 2) and then she kicks Booth. She is groped and pushed and in one scene Johnson pushed her and falls on her (image 3) and says, “Take it easy” in a seductive tone and she replies, “this is easy”. This shows that although she can fight yet she is being controlled and directed by a man.
  
  
  In the film, Bishop meets Johnson and Booth in the jail and asks them about the third egg. In this scene, the focus is more on her legs and shoes than her dialogues as she has less dialogues and camera is focused on her shoes and legs. Therefore, in Hollywood films the camera angle purposefully fragments female body and objectify women to please the male audience.
  In the film, when Bishop is at home and watching TV. The camera angle is over the shoulder shot and her shoes and legs are the focus. This shows that the female body is the sight of pleasure, and all the actions are reflected and associated to her body. Therefore, this fragmentation of the female body highlights the objectification of female characters in Hollywood.
  

  In the film, when Bishop ties the FBI agent and delete her data. The camera work in the action scene shows that the camera movement is focused on her legs and shoes. So, this legs and foot fetishization shows how the female character is objectified in the film.

  
  In the film, during the masquerade ball, Gal Gadot is dancing with Johnson and the camera angle shows her legs, shoulder, back more than her face. Similarly, a deep focus camera shot is used to show her heels whilst she is dancing. This shows how Hollywood films objectifies the female characters and fragmentation of the female body is shown to fulfil the desire of the male audience.
                
  In the film, when Booth and Johnson are captured, the focus is on Bishop’s clothes and shoes. In this scene, it is evident that her character is sexualized not just through camera angles but through her appearance as well.

  In the film, Bishop is portrayed as weak and vulnerable although throughout the film she was passive, yet she was manipulative. She crawls out of the water and lays down. The camera is placed in such a way that when Booth and Johnson are talking, she can be seen laying at the back.
  

   

   

                
  In the film, the role of female character is to only manipulate and seduce. This traditional idea of portraying women as weak and manipulative shows that Hollywood still has the tradition of objectifying women. The film portrays use stereotypical images to portray the female characters, as in the film when Bishop ties the FBI agent, her dialogue shows her manipulative and cunning nature. Although, this is a contradiction as she is an FBI agent, she is a good fighter, yet she must seduce men to get things done shows that Hollywood films still portray women as weak, vulnerable, manipulative, and cunning. In the scene below, she winks, swiftly moves to seduce the FBI agent and even the dialogue add to the narrative of how the female characters are objectified.