Vindicating Career Women through the Recent Feminist Biopic: An Analysis of Hidden Figures (2016) and On the Basis of Sex (2018)

Abstract

[eng] Women have always been misinterpreted in films and this is partially due to the androcentric nature of the film industry. Even movies which recount the real story of a female character, such as the female biopic, tend to depict the female protagonist in a rather negative way. However, new ways of presenting biographical movies with female characters as their protagonists emerged owing to the influence of the different feminist movements. One example is the feminist biopic, which reverses the conventions of representation of the female biopic and turns them into positive and empowering images of women. Hidden Figures (Melfi 2016) and On the Basis of Sex (Leder 2018) are cases of feminist biopics since they present the stories of four outstanding women who managed to become known and respected in the fields of science and law, fields which are predominantly male. These two biopics focus on the achievements the female protagonists made in their places of work showing how they managed to overcome the gender stereotypes and prejudices which were placed upon them. Thus, the aim of this dissertation is to prove that Hidden Figures and On the Basis of Sex give visibility to career women. To do so, the scenes and dialogues from the two movies will be considered, demonstrating that these biopics do help to celebrate the image of the professional woman in the context in which the two movies are set.