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Bad Guys and Nasty Women: En jämförelse mellan Amy Dunne och Jokern.
Linnaeus University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Media and Journalism.
2022 (Swedish)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesisAlternative title
Bad Guys and Nasty Women : A comparison between Amy Dunne and the Joker. (English)
Abstract [en]

The aim of this study was to examine the depiction of female versus male antagonists. A semiotic qualitative analysis was used to execute this with a gender perspective in order to analyze the societal structures that may be reflected in the characters in the form of stereotypical gender roles. And the reason behind this.

 

Villains have mainly existed to drive the hero's narrative forward, until now. Recently they have excelled to become a big part of modern cinema. Despite the fact that villains are taking up more space in Hollywood, we hardly see an increase of studies in this area. This study focuses on the two antagonists Amy Dunne (Gone Girl, Fincher, 2014) and The Joker (The Dark Knight, Nolan, 2008). We have selected these characters from a gender perspective because we presume that they both are complex characters in the sense of gender roles and stereotypes. They have identities that challenge the traditional view of what is masculine and feminine, at the same time as they both have normative traits. One of the reasons we chose antagonists is because they are the character that drives the narrative forward.

 

Our main findings are that both characters mainly show masculine traits and show similar specific traits. They also show femininity, something that often relates to the sympathy of the character. We found a correlation between Amy’s masculine traits and her evil actions. This was not as prominent with The Joker. We see some traits that differ. Amy uses her sexuality as a weapon against men. Amy is also portrayed as weak in several scenes, while The Joker always remains in control.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2022. , p. 42
Keywords [en]
Gender roles, Antagonist, Stereotype, Masculinity, Femininity, Semiotics.
National Category
Media and Communications
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-115759OAI: oai:DiVA.org:lnu-115759DiVA, id: diva2:1687524
Subject / course
Media and Communications Science
Educational program
Creative Media Programme, 180 credits
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2022-08-22 Created: 2022-08-15 Last updated: 2025-02-07Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf