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\"In Shakespeare's time, women were not allowed to appear on stage, and so female parts were played by boy actors. In I Was Cleopatra, readers meet John Rice -- perhaps the most beautiful and acclaimed boy actor of them all. It is believed by many that John Rice originated the roles of Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra and Cordelia, and this fictional memoir explores his life both on and off the stage. With graceful prose and an encyclopedic knowledge of the period, Dennis Abrams invites readers to experience gender fluidity and sexuality through the fictional recollections of a fascinating historical figure as he reflects on his life in this 'farewell' to his theatrical past. The story follows John from the age of thirteen, when he leaves his family in Reading to join the King's Men theater troupe in London as an apprentice boy actor. Over the course of the next few years, John eagerly hones the acting skills necessary to portray female roles. He memorizes lines, reads all the plays he can get his hands on, and works on imitating female gestures and mannerisms. He becomes a friend, and eventually a lover, of Alexander, a boy actor who is getting too old to play female roles. And he works closely with Shakespeare himself, who coaches him through the roles of Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra, among others. But around the time he turns sixteen, John starts to worry about inevitably becoming too old to convincingly portray women onstage, which leads to some unsettling choices.\"--Amazon.com.

Depictions of gender in media are often scrutinized for stereotypical patterns. Disney films are of particular interest, as they are often watched by children and may play a role in children’s gender socialization. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to assess gender depictions of characters in animated Disney films (released between 1937 and 2019; 61 films with 323 characters total), and second, to explore depictions of gender in Disney animated films coupled with an analysis of the gender of those involved in the production of these films (producers, directors, and writers). We found a significant difference in the number of male and female characters (roughly 60% male, 40% female), which did not significantly differ by decade. Female characters were more consistently depicted as attractive compared to male characters, although character’s intelligence, ability, popularity, activity level, family role, story role, and romantic engagement did not differ by gender. Male characters were more often represented as parents or children in films written by women, and female characters were more often represented as the antagonist in films written by men. Male characters were over-represented as overly active in films produced by women, and female characters were over-represented as grandparents in films produced by women. These findings revealed few stereotypical gendered depictions of characters in Disney films over nine decades and that the inclusion of women in the production process resulted in more nuanced depictions of both male and female characters.

In this interview, Roddy Doyle, one of the most popular contemporary writers in Ireland, provides insightful comments on crucial aspects of his writing career. Doyle speaks about the beginning of his literary adventure, the creative process of his work, and his artistic influences, as well as his feeling of pride in being a native Dubliner. Furthermore, he addresses his experience of the Celtic Tiger era in Ireland and the multicultural reality of the country in the late 1990s. Doyle's detailed discussion of the female characters in his work is one of the most intriguing parts of the interview. He also gives hints about his latest novel The Guts (2013) and talks about the shift in theme, to the middle-age crisis in men, in his recent work: The Bullfighting (2011), Two Pints (2012), and The Guts (2013). His ideas about the filmic adaptations of his work, his favourite writers and his favourite fictional female characters are other inspiring points of the interview. The interview closes with Doyle's characterization of the Post-Celtic Tiger period in Ireland and his views about the shifting portraits of Irish men and women. Key Words. Roddy Doyle, contemporary Irish literature, Celtic Tiger era, Post-Celtic Tiger period, female characters in Roddy Doyle's Work, middle-age crisis in men. En esta entrevista, Roddy Doyle, uno de los escritores mas relevantes de la Irlanda contemporanea, aborda aspectos cruciales en su carrera literaria, tales como los inicios de su aventura como escritor, el proceso creativo de su obra, sus influencias artisticas, y su sentimiento de orgullo de ser dublines. Doyle tambien habla sobre su vision de la Irlanda del Tigre Celta, la posterior recesion del pais y la realidad multicultural que se observa en la actualidad. Por primera vez, el autor reflexiona sobre el cambio tematico que ha experimentado su obra mas reciente, y como la crisis de la mediana edad en los hombres es el eje central de Bullfighting (2011), Two Pints (2012), y The Guts (2013). Otros aspectos mencionados en esta entrevista son las adaptaciones cinematograficas de su obra, sus escritores favoritos, sus personajes femeninos favoritos de ficcion, y como las mujeres aparecen retratadas en su obra. Palabras Clave. Roddy Doyle, literatura irlandesa contemporanea, la Irlanda del Tigre Celta, personajes femeninos en la obra de Roddy Doyle, crisis de mediana edad en los hombres.

In this article, we ask if there was a backlash against film feminism in Norway in the 1980s. In Norwegian film history, this decade is known as “the helicopter period” and is associated with a turn towards commercial genre film and classical dramaturgy. This has usually been narrated as a success story for Norwegian cinema. It is, however, also a decade connected to a loss of position for the women directors who had gained a footing in Norwegian cinema in the 1970s. We thus question the idea of progress associated with this decade in film history and propose avenues of investigation. We explore the loss of position of female directors by looking at film reception and film criticism. We further present and discuss a numerical breakdown of women directors and female lead characters in the 1980s and 1990s and point to thematic readings of the on-screen portrayal of women characters in this time span. We find evidence of aggression towards women and a disappearance of women’s film and argue that this points to an anti-feminist pushback in Norwegian cinema of the 1980s and 1990s.

Between the late-nineteenth and the early-twentieth centuries, Beatrice and Laura, as literary characters and beloved women of Dante and Petrarch, were at the centre of a vigorous scholarly debate, which gained traction in Romagna’s literary circles. Offering a comparative analysis of two key case studies—La vita di Beatrice Portinari (1904) by Giovanni Federzoni, and Laura’s biographical profile from Femminismo storico (1901) by Sfinge (Eugenia Codronchi Argeli)—this article reconstructs the popularising turn of this debate and its effect on medieval female characters’ reception as poetic inspirers. While Federzoni is motivated by didactic aims, seeking to facilitate readers’ access to the Commedia by deconstructing Beatrice’s abstraction, Sfinge elevates Laura as a model for contemporary women. Through an accessible structure and a hybrid methodology blending historical inquiry with literary imagination, both authors challenge allegorical readings and reclaim Beatrice and Laura as historically grounded figures.

This article aiming at evaluating female characters in Suat Derviş’s novels, also identifies her position in the historical stages of female literature. From the beginning of the debate on the women and literature relationship in the 1920s to the 1970s in which female literature was constructed as a literature of their own, Suat Derviş continuously wrote novels, literary criticisms, newspaper writings and existed with her author identity. In general, most of the Suat Derviş’s novel characters are female characters whose gender and class positions are combined by Suat Derviş. These characters, in which gender and class positions are combined, are also settled in an historical period: the collapse of the Ottoman Empire which evolved into the modern Repyblic of Turkey radical social change and transformation process. When we closely look at the female characters in Suat Derviş’s novels, we face; weird women in her gothic novels, lonely and desperate women who are in the upper class of the disappearing Ottoman society, opportunistic women believing in that everything could bought and sold, and mothers who have lost their children. The most striking finding is that Suat Derviş working as an author and journalist gave almost no place to working women in her novels.

This article comparatively explores Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing and Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, examining the subordinate status shared by women and animals, male-controlled medical science and camera technology, and women’s mythical metamorphosis. Both fictional worlds, as lived by the heroines, are decidedly patriarchal: the I-heroine in Surfacing undergoes violence in a coerced abortion while Yeong-hye in The Vegetarian is force-fed meat by her authoritative father. Both narrative arcs are shaped by the heroines’ realization of their share in violence: the I-heroine realizes her consent to the abortion and Yeong-hye holds herself accountable for eating the meat of a dog killed by her father. The two heroines are met with different endings—the I-heroine chooses to be pregnant again and Yeong-hye renounces her life by avoiding eating—because of the former’s conviction about survival and life and the latter’s conception of eating as killing. Read together, the two novels explore the legitimacy of claims of innocence, the limits of care, and possibilities of transcending victimhood in mutually illuminating ways. Meanwhile, the novels provide insights into the non-closure prevalent in women’s fiction and the feminist meaning of women’s spiritual quest novels.

In František (Frank) Daniel’s films we find two situations that do not seem to belong to his work. These are scenes from his first and last films, in which the perspective is reversed and for a brief moment we see a fictional world through female characters. The matter is all the more surprising because Daniel did not emphasize the issue of feminism in his theoretical work. The aim of the study is to show how both scenes stand out from the rest of the films and to try to explain how they can be seen in the context of Daniel’s theory of narration. Methodologically, the paper combines an analysis of film form, work with archival sources and analysis of Daniel’s theoretical books.

This study depicts the role of Javanese women in dealing with social meaning, body, and moving space. It is derived from the idea that Javanese women are physically described as frail, tender, and inferior creatures who seemed to be protected and strictly controlled. Such a description has been represented in some sources, such as tales, documents, and societal events, exposing their inferiority elaborated in the erroneous analysis of the texts. As seen from another perspective, there are hidden powers of women from their nonphysical qualities, such as tenacity, determination, and conscience. Therefore, this study transforms the paradigm toward the Javanese women aiming at educating and treating them as physically nonresilient, especially in life-actualization endeavors. This multidisciplinary qualitative research follows the theories of ethnochoreology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology in analyzing data. The findings of this study reveal that Javanese women are socially placed as subordinates, as demonstrated in the female characters of Wayang Wong Yogyakarta. In contrast, from their nonphysical manner, the women act as a key mediator because they have the power of sensitivity, tenderness, and multiculturalism that enable them to interact and strongly influence other people. These positive attributes consequently shape the educational foundation and treatment in developing their potentials and roles in society.

Este artículo se centra en la mirada que la obra literaria y teatral de Carlota O’Neill dirigió a la reclusión de mujeres prostituidas durante la Guerra Civil y el franquismo. Para explorar esta temática, se realiza una comparación entre su pieza dramática Al rojo (1933) y varios extractos de otras obras: el relato corto “Anagnórisis” (1939), el poemario Romanzas de las rejas (1940), la primera parte de sus memorias Una mujer en la guerra de España (1964) y el teatro escrito desde el exilio, concretamente Cómo fue España encadenada (1974), Circe y los cerdos (1974), Cuarta dimensión (1974) y Cinco maneras de morir (1982). La autora fue encarcelada en la prisión de Victoria Grande (Melilla) durante casi cinco años, de 1936 a 1940. Esta experiencia personal y este corpus forman una potente base vital y creativa para poder abordar, desde diferentes enfoques, las reflexiones de la autora sobre la tipología de las personas confinadas, la duración de las penas de prisión, las vejaciones y torturas, las diversas reacciones ante el encierro y, fundamentalmente, su testimonio de cómo los roles de género fueron determinantes en la materialización de los internamientos sufridos por sus compañeras de celda. This article is focused on the gaze that Carlota O’Neill’s literary and theatrical work directed towards the imprisonment of prostituted women during the Spanish Civil War and Francoism. To explore this topic, I compare her play Al rojo (1933) along with fragments from several other texts: the short story “Anagnórisis” (1939), the poetry collection Romanzas de las rejas (1940), the first part of her memoir Una mujer en la guerra de España (1964), and the plays she wrote in exile, including Cómo fue España encadenada (1974), Circe y los cerdos (1974), Cuarta dimension (1974), and Cinco maneras de morir (1982). The author was jailed in the Victoria Grande Prison (Melilla) for almost five years, from 1936 to 1940. By examining her personal experience and the abovementioned works, we may consider her reflections on the typology of confined persons, the length of prison terms, harassment and torture, diverse reactions to confinement, as well as her critical testimony concerning the ways in which gender roles were decisive in the forms of internment endured by her cellmates.