THE RING

The text I chose to compare Flight Plan with is The Ring.

Traditionally horror movies don't have a post-feminist representation of females, with women in horror movies vulnerable and "feminine". However, similar to Flight Plan, the Ring has post-feminist representations. The mother is going taking a more "masculine" approach by going through her way to save her daughter imposed to the stereotypical narrative of a killer chasing the main heroine.

This is similar to Flight Plan which bears a similar narrative; while completely different genres, both show the representation of mothers in movies.

In both movies the protagonists are both mothers, however during the film both actresses take more masculine roles; a gender swap where they are taking the roles of what the father should be (going against patriarchal ideologies). They are both represented as lone-parents, where they don't need any male help to achieve their goals. In our society (which has gone through drastic social change) this has become more appealing to female audiences; Uses and Gratification theory. The audiences want to be like these actresses (a new type of action hero).

This has come alight in our society through how both sexes have swapped gender roles, in some cases men have become more feminine (feminists argue the idea of the "new man" who takes on roles that women take) and vice versa.

With the growth of feminism and the gay movement, the media has created this post-feminism trend of gender swaps. Now in the media powerful male role-models are represented as having a feminine side, e.g. Bruce Willis Die Hard 4.0 (caring father and action hero).

Both movies have similar narrative plots; while different genres the main focus of both is the mother trying to save her daughter. However both movies you can argue that there are some stereotypical values, with both roles being mothers. In the film industry, the only strong representations of females are being mothers. While it does glorify rise of feminism there are hardly any representations of women being more than just mothers.

It connotes that while in our society we can accept a strong mother we can't accept a woman saving a man, and in cases where it has happened films that do these tend to do badly in box office. While it can be argued Kill Bill was a success, in reality she was getting revenge for her daughter.

In conclusion, both movies do show post-feminist representations, through the roles they have, saving their families, are lone parents, don't seek male advice etc. However both movies, and others, that have post-feminist representations are about mothers and therefore to a certain extent still patriarchal. There's still a glass ceiling between that big step to achieve equal roles with men.