Gender Stereotyping in L.M Alcott's Little Women And Its 1949 And 1994 Film Versions.

Abstract

The present paper aims to analyze two of the films based on Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: Little Women (1949) directed by Mervyn LeRoy and Little Women (1994) directed by Gillian Armstrong. In particular, I intend to examine the presence of stereotypes in both of the films by focusing on the main female characters: the four sisters (Jo, Beth, Meg, and Amy), Margaret March and aunt March. Indeed, I shall contend that the presence or the absence of these stereotypes will influence the overall meaning of the novel and the two films. Furthermore, taking into account Tori Moi’s distinction of the words ‘female’, ‘feminine’ and ‘feminist’, as well as Susan Bordo’s feminist discourse, I shall attempt to prove that the use of the most common gender conventions, in a mid-20th-century western cultural context, plays a particularly crucial role in the representation of womanhood in the 1949 adaptation of Little Women, and that, on the contrary, the film directed by Armstrong avoids the use of stereotypes, thus highlighting the subversive potential of Alcott’s text and confronting the rules which a patriarchal community may impose on women.