Date of Award
5-2024
Document Type
Thesis
Primary Advisor
Shelly Sanders
Secondary Advisor
Ken Cukrowski
Committee Reader
Todd Womble
Abstract
With Lady Bird (2017), Little Women (2019), and Barbie (2023), Greta Gerwig made history as the first director to have her first three directorial feature films nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award. This trilogy of movies is extremely relevant since Barbie was the highest-grossing film of the 2023 box office. However, little scholarly analysis of Gerwig’s filmography exists. This project examines the particular depictions of female characters in these three films. In Gerwig’s corpus, women are not solely limited to the roles of innocent daughter, obedient wife, holy mother, or damaged prostitute; they can be presidents and painters, authors and astronauts, musicians and mothers. How does this uniquely multifaceted and compassionate portrayal of women in Gerwig’s movies stand out from contemporary filmmakers, and how might it impact the future of women on the screen? Through a qualitative analysis of the women in Gerwig’s films and their relationships with each other, this thesis elaborates on the distinctive connection between mothers and their teenage daughters, the necessary autonomy of women and their dreams, and the construction of female identity. How does Gerwig approach the impossibility of womanhood in her films?
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Recommended Citation
Graessle, Genevieve, "“It’s Literally Impossible to Be a Woman:” Female Depictions in the Films of Greta Gerwig" (2024). Honors College. 80.
https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/honors/80