Stereotype
In the film <Cold War>, there are some stereotypes can be found on
the choice of characters and the identity of a specific career – policeman.
According to Walter Lippmann, stereotype is commonly held public belief about
specific social groups, types of individuals. It can be a short cut to certain
of groups of individual referring to the world in expressing out values and
belief in an ordering process. < Cold War> is under a film genre of crime
& police. In the choice of characters, stereotype in gender is easily
found. In the cast of the film, there are total 22 characters which perform as
a part of the police force. However, there are only 3 female and the rest in
male.
Police force is always portrayed as a male dominated career because of
the strong physical strength and the decisive determination. In < Cold
War>, the two leading actors, Aaron Kowk and Tony Leung Ka-fai, who acted as
Rival Deputy Commissioners, are male. The
personalities of the two characters are decisive, intelligence, organize & having
strong leadership on their own team. On the other hand, the actress Charlie
Young who is the Chief Superintendent,
Head of Police
Public Relations Branch, is portrayed as a softer image
in the film. This is a common stereotype in the society toward the police force
that male are usually the more powerful one while female are only supporting
from the side. It is rare to see a female character takes up the chance to be a
leading police force position in this kind of film.
In the movie, there is more than one scene that both teams are gathering in a conference room and having meeting about how to save the ransom from the criminal. Something to notice is that there are nearly non female actresses in those scenes. This also reinforces the strong male images in police force.
Posted by Sham Ho Yi Vicky 10518192 /21047566
The review has made some good observations on the film genre and also related the story to some gender-related theoretical concepts. Particular scenes are cited to illustrate the cultural representations and signifying practices as shown in the selected film.
ReplyDeleteYou might elaborate a bit on the personal qualities embodied by both the male and female protagonists, in order to analyze the ways the film tried to construct the typical /traditional notions of masculinity and femininity. In fact, does the film consist of other forms of stereotypes/binary oppositions in addition to the image of Police force (e.g., good and evil?)