Anke Werckmeister

Femininity and Masculinity Constructions in "Alfie" Anke Werckmeister

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other, grade: 3,0, Free University of Berlin (Institut für Englische Philologie), course: VS Culture, Gender, Media II: Sex and Gender in Sixties Britain, language: English, abstract: The 2004 remake of the 1966 original Alfie movie once again introduces a charmed, vain, rakish, and women-loving man to our screen. The story itself has not changed much and Alfie is still one of the best women-devouring men around New York City this time, so that makes it interesting for us to talk about femininity as well as masculinity since there are so many different types of women involved with Alfie. The gender construction here is very interesting to explore more deeply and how it affects the male lead and protagonist Alfie. So I want to argue that from the very first scene, because of the construction of it, each and every woman Alfie interacts with we can already guess how that particular female character is constructed in terms of femininity and we can also guess how it will affect Alfie and his decisions.