‘Tell me what to do. Gabriel?’: gender hegemony in the film Far from the Madding Crowd (2015)

Abstract

This article explores the ways in which gender is produced in the historical romance film adaptation of Far from the Madding Crowd (2015). Utilising a visually informed, critical discursive psychology approach, we found that hegemonic masculinities and femininities are richly constructed in manners that ultimately functioned to subordinate femininity to masculinity. Moreover, multiple societal inequalities (e.g., racism, classism, heterosexism, ableism, ageism) are reproduced through the construction of gendered characters, perpetuating the myth that the nineteenth-century English countryside was entirely culturally homogenous. Collectively, our findings reveal how historicised, gendered film characters are mobilised to reinforce present-day inequalities.