The Representation of Liberal Feminism through the Main Character in “The Post” Movie

Jelt : Journal Of English Language teaching, Vol 3 No.2 Tahun 2019 The Representation of Liberal Feminism through the Main Character in “The Post” Movie Nur Azizah; Nurul Fitri English Education Study Program, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Batanghari University ABSTRACT This research is aimed to find out representation of liberal feminism through the main character. This research used qualitative descriptive method and focused Marilley theory. The researcher used feminism concept to identify how the liberal feminism is presented in the movie. The supporting data were obtained from some sources, such as books, articles, and journals, related to gender discrimination, women‘s stereotypes, and feminism. In collecting the data, read-write technique was used. The data analysis was conducted using feminism approach. The researcher found that there are three types of liberal feminism. First the feminism of equal rights, second the feminism of fear, and last the feminism of personal development, in this research is dominant with feminism of personal development and liberal feminism representation in the movie. Keywords: Liberal Feminism, Main Character. INTRODUCTION Literature is one way for human to expressing their feel, using literature human can write an idea from reality and every human have different experience in they life in addition to the element of imagination, literature is art there are like music, drama, poetry, text, etc. According to Meyer (1997 v. 41) Literature is a word in the English language; like all words, it is used by perhaps millions of speakers, speakers who come from vastly different backgrounds and who have quite divergent personal experiences with, and views on, literary texts. And like all words, it is used fairly successfully; speakers and listeners generally communicate adequately, despite this variety of experience, background, and training. There is approach in the literature that is Feminist. Feminist is one way to try to get the rights and obligations equal to men, and woman can show figures of strong images of women and support the values of feminism, feminism is a tool to criticize literary works. From feminism, the literary work can be analyzed from women‘s perspective. Every human being basically has the equal roles in the society, however, in many societies; men are regarded more superior than women. It means men have a right to control women. As a result, women cannot control their life, and they have to accept all men‘s orders without any right to reject the orders. Some feminist scholars distinguished approaches to feminist theory that (1) problematize women’s exclusion from the major institutions of the public world (social, political, economic, religious, academic) from approaches that (2) focus on difference as a primary category of analysis (women’s differences from men, as well as systemic differences among women based on race, class, nationality, sexuality, historicity), and approaches that (3) embrace the postmodern refusal of categorization (Disch and Hawkesworth 2016:3). Early efforts by Western feminist theorists in the academy to analyze the proliferation of 84 The Representation of Liberal Feminism through the Main Character in “The Post” Movie Jelt : Journal Of English Language teaching, Vol 3 No.2 Tahun 2019 rich and diverse feminist theories gave rise to a classification system commonly referred to as the hyphenation model. Within this framework, approaches to feminist theorizing were analyzed in the context of the larger Western philosophical traditions to which they had affinities, such as liberal feminism, socialist/Marxist feminism, psychoanalytic feminism (Disch and Hawkesworth 2016:2). Liberal feminism emerged as one of the most dominant ideologies of the early women’s movement. Liberal feminism has been represented in broadcast and major print media as the most viable political alternative for women’s equality and women’s rights. Thus, the central problem with liberal theory is that it creates protection for a human subject that only a certain number of human bodies can claim or occupy. It assumes that we are all independent, autonomous subjects, and when we are not, it assumes that we have freely chosen such a position (Rudy:1999). The stereotype of women also makes the film world give birth feminist films. A film, also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, theatrical film, or photoplay, is a series of still images that, when shown on a screen, create the illusion of moving images. Movie is cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them. Movie is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating or indoctrinating citizens. The visual basis of film gives it a universal power of communication. Some movies have become popular worldwide attractions through the use of dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into other languages. Some film or movie explains about history, fact, etc. One of the movie is “THE POST” in this movie tell about American historical political direct and produced by Steven Spielberg and write by Liz Hanna and Josh Singer. The post depict the true story of attempts by journalists at the Washington post to publish the pentagon papers, classified documents regarding the 30 year involvement of the United State government in the Vietnam War. The film premiered at the Museum in Washington D.C. ON December 14, 2017, and went into limited release in the United State on December 22, 2017. It entered wide release on January 12, 2018. The White House retaliates, and in short order the Post and Times appear together before the Supreme Court to plead their First Amendment case for the right to publish the material. Meanwhile, newspapers across the country pick up the story in solidarity with the Post and Times. On June 30, 1971, the court rules 6–3 in the newspapers' favor, vindicating Graham's decision. A short while after, Nixon demands that the Post be barred from the White House. One year later, on June 17, 1972 (two weeks before the first anniversary of the court’s ruling), security guard Frank Wills discovers a break-in in progress at the Watergate complex. This is the main reason why the researcher is interested in analyzing feminism in The Post Movie is because there are some people in movie don’t believe if woman can be a leader in a big company such as Katharine Graham. She is tries to balance her social life with her responsibility as owner and publisher of The Washington Post, following the deaths of her husband, Phil Graham, and her father, Eugene Meyer. From the explanation above the researcher will identify the problem of woman can be a good leader in social or family in The Post movie there are values of feminism in modern era. However in this movie, the representation of liberal feminism through the main character is identified. 85 The (...truncated)