THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER - APPROVED ELECTRONICALLY GENERATED THESIS/DISSERTATION COVER-PAGE Electronic identifier: 30137 Date of electronic submission: 28/02/2020 Thesis format: Traditional The University of Manchester makes unrestricted examined electronic theses and dissertations freely available for download and reading online via Manchester eScholar at http://www.manchester.ac.uk/escholar. This print version of my thesis/dissertation is a TRUE and ACCURATE REPRESENTATION of the electronic version submitted to the University of Manchester's institutional repository, Manchester eScholar. Approved electronically generated cover-page version 1.0 A SOCIAL NETWORK ANALYSIS APPROACH TO EXAMINING GENDERED CHARACTER POSITIONS IN POPULAR FILM NARRATIVES A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2019 Pete Jones School of Social Sciences Contents List of tables ............................................................................................................................................ 5 List of figures ........................................................................................................................................... 5 Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 7 Declaration .............................................................................................................................................. 8 Copyright statement ............................................................................................................................... 8 The author ............................................................................................................................................... 9 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 9 Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................................. 10 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 10 The Bechdel test ................................................................................................................................ 10 Rationale and aims ............................................................................................................................ 13 Structure of the thesis....................................................................................................................... 14 Chapter 2: Beyond the Bechdel test: Developing a relational approach to studying the marginalization of women in popular film .................................................................................. 19 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 19 Part 1: A closer look at the Bechdel test ........................................................................................... 20 The Bechdel test in academic research ........................................................................................ 20 What does it mean to pass the Bechdel test? .............................................................................. 22 Modelling Bechdel test success .................................................................................................... 27 Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 31 Part 2: A deeper understanding of the research problem ................................................................ 31 Empirical research on gendered representations in film ............................................................. 31 Feminist film theory: the male gaze and “absence, silence, and marginality” ............................. 38 Relational perspectives on narrative marginalisation .................................................................. 40 Gendered representations of female friendship ..................................................................... 46 Summary .................................................................................................................................. 48 Part 3: Towards a character network approach to the representation of women in film ............... 49 Social network analysis ................................................................................................................. 49 Character networks....................................................................................................................... 52 Chapter summary .............................................................................................................................. 57 Chapter 3: Developing a character network methodology ........................................................... 59 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 59 Methods ............................................................................................................................................ 59 Network extraction methods ........................................................................................................ 59 2 Definition of ties ........................................................................................................................... 61 Data collection process ................................................................................................................. 68 Data ................................................................................................................................................... 70 Blockbuster women ...................................................................................................................... 70 Selection of films for coding ......................................................................................................... 75 The usefulness of different kinds of ties ........................................................................................... 78 Summary ........................................................................................................................................... 82 Chapter 4: A character network approach to analyzing gendered positions in Wonder Woman .... 84 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 84 A framework for considering gendered character positions in Wonder Woman ............................ 86 Vocal (dis)empowerment ............................................................................................................. 86 Relational (dis)empowerment ...................................................................................................... 87 Summary ....................................................................................................................................... 88 Wonder Woman ................................................................................................................................ 89 Drawing comparisons with the God of Thunder and the Girl on Fire ............................................... 94 Thor ............................................................................................................................................... 94 The Hunger Games ........................................................................................................................ 97 Vocal and relational (dis)empowerment in Wonder Woman ......................................................... 100 Blockbuster benchmarks and beyond ............................................................................................. 103 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 110 Chapter 5: Measuring narrative centrality in character networks............................................... 113 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 113 Relating network positions to narrative positions .......................................................................... 114 Network representations ............................................................................................................ 115 Narrative as dynamic .................................................................................................................. 116 Principles for measuring relative narrative importance ............................................................. 118 Defining a measure of narrative positioning .................................................................................. 120 Definition of the speaking measure ............................................................................................ 120 Definition of the spoken-to measure .......................................................................................... 123 Normalisation and properties ....................................................................................................