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This Is a Forced Feminist Agenda:” Master’s Thesis “This Is a Forced Feminist Agenda:” IMDb users and their understanding of feminism negotiated in the reviews of superheroine films Author: Alžběta Budirská Supervisors: Johan Höglund and Jukka Tyrkkö Examiner: Magnus Levin Date: 31. 5. 2021 Term: VT2021 Subject: Linguistics and Literary Studies Course code: 5EN10E I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the sources listed in references. …………………………………………….. Bc. Alžběta Budirská Abstract The thesis examines how users of the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) negotiate feminism in their reviews of four superheroine films – Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Birds of Prey: The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn, and Wonder Woman 1984. By combining critical discourse analysis with methods of corpus linguists, this corpus-based study of over 18,000 reviews analyses the frequency of the topic of feminism in the reviews, words and topics associated with it and the way the reviewers reflect broader mediated discourse over the four films, and the role of IMDb as a space for these reviews. The findings show that feminism is still understood as an anti-male movement where female-led films are shielded from criticism by the mainstream media by the virtue of the lead’s gender, the superheroines are criticised for being overpowered particularly where they have no equal male supporting character and that perceived feminist messaging is usually written off as a forced political agenda or as an insincere cash grab made by corporates which effectively use feminism for promotion. It also reveals IMDb as a highly polarised platform where the users leaving 1- and 10-star reviews are generalized as representatives of different sides of the political spectrum (antifeminist vs feminist, conservative vs liberal) regardless of the actual content of the review. Keywords Feminism, IMDb, Superhero films, Reviews, Wonder Woman, Captain Marvel, Birds of Prey, Wonder Woman 1984 Acknowledgment I would like to thank my two supervisors, Johan Höglund and Jukka Tyrkkö for their patience with my stubbornness and their encouragement to keep tweaking this thesis. Another big thank you belongs to my sister Lucie without whom I would not be able to finish this degree. Your support is appreciated and cherished. Finally, thank you to all the lovely IMDb users who comment on films. Whether you are funny, spiteful, trolling, or being genuinely enthusiastic, all of your opinions mattered to me because without you this thesis would not exist. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 2. Theory and Context ............................................................................................................. 8 2.1. Feminism ..................................................................................................................... 8 2.1.1. The fragmentation of feminism ........................................................................... 8 2.1.2. From postfeminism to popular feminisms ......................................................... 11 2.1.3. Trolling and the language of online antifeminism ..............................................14 2.2. Framing and understanding feminism.......................................................................16 2.2.1. Mediated presentation of feminism .................................................................... 17 2.2.2. Negotiating and understanding feminism by the general public .......................19 3. Methodology ..................................................................................................................... 22 3.1. Aims and research questions ..................................................................................... 22 3.2. Methods of analysis ................................................................................................... 22 3.2.1. Critical discourse analysis (CDA) ....................................................................... 23 3.2.2. Corpus linguistics ............................................................................................... 25 3.2.3. Corpora compilation .......................................................................................... 27 4. Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 30 4.1. General corpora overview and median word count .................................................. 30 4.2. Distribution of FEMINISM and FEMINIST .................................................................... 32 4.3. Qualitative analysis.................................................................................................... 36 4.3.1. Tone and presence of feminism ......................................................................... 36 4.3.2. Topics ................................................................................................................. 43 4.4. Collocations ............................................................................................................... 60 5. Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 65 6. Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 72 References ................................................................................................................................ 74 Appendix I. Topics in superheroine films ................................................................................ 83 Appendix II. Glossary of topics ................................................................................................ 85 Appendix III. Collocate LogDice scores ................................................................................... 89 1. Introduction When Wonder Woman entered the cinemas in 2017, it was the first female-led superhero film since 2005’s unsuccessful Elektra. Meanwhile, male superheroes have launched new cinematic universes and grossed billions of dollars in the box office – Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) which includes Iron Man, Captain America, and Black Panther among the many others, and DC Extended Universe (DCEU) with Superman, Batman, and, finally, Wonder Woman. Since the conception of both universes, thirty-two films have been released. Out of the thirty-two, only four have a female lead: Wonder Woman (2017), Captain Marvel (2019), Birds of Prey: The Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020) and Wonder Woman 1984 (2020). This imbalance between the number of male and female superheroes did not escape scrutiny from media and academia and due to their visibility and scarcity superheroine films became more than just entertainment. They became tests for female representation onscreen, for female professionals offscreen, Hollywood’s embracement of the re-emerging feminist movement, as well as the audience’s acceptance of all of the above. While the film industry evaluates the success or failure of superheroine films by their box office results, paying for a movie ticket is not the only way the audiences voice their interests and opinions. The aim of this thesis is to examine how users of the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) evaluate superheroine films in regards to female representation and feminism and if they reflect upon the existing discourse provided by other media. By analysing the user reviews, there is a unique opportunity to gain insight into how IMDb users navigate broader societal context that influences the film industry in a space that is created for expressing one’s opinion of a film. Is feminism a topic present in reviews of all four films equally and how is the topic distributed across the rating scale? Do viewers recognize the presence of feminism in the films and if so, what is their attitude towards feminism? What vocabulary do they use to describe feminism and its messages? What topics do they associate with feminism and do these topics reflect the ones brought up by the media prior to the films’ release? What role does IMDb itself play in the negotiation of feminism? These research questions seek to explore a new 1 perspective on the topic of feminism which comes from a space that is not created specifically for the discussion of politics and social movements and yet such discussion is a part of IMDb. It is necessary to first consider the context of the era the films were created in to be able to evaluate the reviewers’ reactions and reflections of the public discourse of that time. Wonder Woman was the first female superhero film to be directed by a woman. Moreover, with a budget of $150 million it was the most expensive film ever to be shot by a woman. Patty Jenkins, despite her decade-long experience in film and television, was seen as a gamble (Siegel, 2017). Jenkins thus not only had to prove her directing skills, but her film also had to succeed because previous superheroine outings Elektra (2005) and Catwoman (2004) were box office disappointments and were used as evidence of “female-driven superhero films as box office poison” (Brannon Donoghue, 2019, p. 8). If Wonder Woman flopped, Jenkins would prove that female directors do not have enough experience to helm big budget films and reinforce the stereotype that profitable female-driven films are exceptions to the rule (p. 9). Thankfully,
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