Introduction
The documentary “We Are Not Princesses” (2018) is an adaptation of the Antigone myth. The play tells us about how female authority is portrayed in modern society. It tells the story of several women worldwide and their hardships of being oppressed in society simply because they were born female (Filmzie, 2018). It bursts with a deep passion for how censorship, objectification, and trivialization make it hard for female authority to endure. The language used reveals the true nature of the characters. The adaptation is an example of a richly layered film that invites audiences to analyze different languages and wrestle with implications about what it means to be human (Le Guern-Camara, 2019). The film uses a range of cinematic techniques to implicate the viewer in the objectification of women. The documentary adopts an oblique structure, using bold, comic relief devices and formalized structures to position the viewer as an empowered observer rather than a morally responsible agent.
Contrary to popular belief, not all women in the past have fit into a Princess archetype. The Princess image has been perpetuated by feminism and women over time, such as during the Victorian era (Le Guern-Camara, 2019). The documentary responds to the question of female authority posed by Antigone’s war against the norms of his society. A decisive factor in this confrontation is the attitude toward gender, which is constantly questioned and challenged. This essay will analyze how female authority is depicted in society.
Summary
In ‘We are not princesses,’ Antigone’s speech is adapted to assert female authority. The director uses the language of Antigone’s speech to highlight the importance of female voices and the need for women to be heard, regardless of their background or social status (Filmzie, 2018). The film also uses this adaptation to show how women are undermined in society through language and how they can fight back against that by speaking up for themselves and demanding respect.
In this adaptation, the characters are all women and must fight against the patriarchy to get what they want. They do this using their words, as they have no other power over men. The language they use to speak their minds shows how they can stand up for themselves and what they believe in. Antigone uses her words to explain why she refuses to bury her brother’s body after he has been killed by Creon, the ruler of Thebes (Bushnell, 2019). She tells Creon she will not obey his law because it goes against everything she believes in justice, family ties, and loyalty to her uncle Polynices.
Antigone also uses her words to explain why one person should not be allowed to make decisions for everyone else. It illustrates how women should be able to make decisions for themselves without having someone else make them for them. It also shows how women can gain respect from men if they stand up for themselves and their beliefs instead of backing down from them when faced with threats from males who think they are superior beings just because they are men.
Overall, the documentary aims to challenge the overarching assumption that women are more critical than men, shifting the focus away from females to examine gender roles in society. The influences of feminism throughout Greece helped trigger change for modern-day gender equality, which ancient Greek texts such as Antigone by Sophocles have documented (Bushnell, 2019). The film explores how Creon exiled Antigone because she challenged his authority (Bushnell, 2019). Through this process, one can see how Creon fails to fully recognize her as an essential character, allowing Sophocles to illustrate issues of gender inequality contrary to conventional norms at the time.
Critical Analysis
In the documentary, the filmmaker explores the theme of female authority in a modern setting by examining how women are treated as they attempt to assert themselves in their daily lives. It can place the idea of female authority within a modern context and demonstrate that it is still a relevant problem. It is not just because it has been around for thousands of years but because it continues to be an issue today (Filmzie, 2018). The film is a powerful piece of art that uses documentary filmmaking techniques to bring these stories to life. It also addresses one of the more significant issues raised in Antigone (by Sophocles), which is how female authority is often framed as a rebellion against the patriarchy (Mahler, 2018). These young women are fighting back against a law that men in power have imposed. Therefore, they are rebelling against male authority by asserting their right to self-determination over their bodies.
This connection between ‘We Are Not Princesses’ and ‘Antigone’ highlights how both works deal with female agency and power within an oppressive system. In both cases, female characters attempt to assert themselves as leaders within their society (Mahler, 2018). However, they must do so despite being oppressed by forces outside themselves—forces that attempt to constrain them from doing so. In Antigone, Creon is faced with a difficult decision: whether or not to allow his niece’s body to be buried next to her husband’s, as she wishes (Bushnell, 2019). Creon decides that her wishes should not be respected and that she should instead be buried outside the city without a proper burial. Creon’s sister who is Antigone’s mother, Eurydice, is upset that she hangs herself rather than live under such oppression.
The documentary takes a similar approach to this issue by examining how women are treated when they take up leadership positions in society and how they are punished if they do not conform to society’s expectations of them. One woman has been raped, and another woman whose son was murdered by police officers after being suspected of selling drugs (Le Guern-Camara, 2019). Both women have turned their lives upside-down by forces beyond their control that left them powerless over their destinies. In both cases, these women are fighting for justice for themselves or others who have been wronged by systems designed to protect those in power.
Conclusion
The documentary reframed and recontextualized the central message of Antigone. Rather than being an individual tragedy, the stories of families from various countries highlighted how the issue of female authority is universal and insidious. It looks at how society will often portray its female citizens in submissive roles and puts them in circumstances where they cannot display authoritative power over the men around them. Throughout the film, the filmmakers attempt to illustrate the connection between the oppression of women in modern society and that seen in ancient societies. The film is provocative about how such tales can still be read as examples of female dominance.
Overall, the filmmakers demonstrate that the cultural construction of femininity and its overvaluing by women themselves can be a massive distraction from righting the many wrongs in our world. Classical texts like Antigone can help to understand why and how this is, but people can only move forward when we acknowledge these problems. In that spirit, then, one could think that ‘We are not princesses’ could be one tool that would allow us to refocus and start to fix some of the pervasive injustices for which we, as women, have constantly been responsible.
References
Bushnell, R. W. (2019). Prophesying tragedy: Sign and voice in Sophocles’ Theban plays. Cornell University Press.
Filmzie. (2018). We Are Not Princesses (Video). YouTube. Web.
Le Guern-Camara, G. (2019). Princesses in Wondertales: From Traditional Representations to Contemporary Reappropriations. Sociopoétiques, 4. Web.
Mahler, G. S. (2018). The Arab-Israeli conflict: An introduction and documentary reader. Routledge.