Description
Over the last decade, several female-led comedy films have positioned caring as their central concern. Rather than centring deontology and utilitarianism as the appropriate ethical stances of their characters, films like Bridesmaids, Booksmart, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar, and Everything Everywhere All at Once structure their narratives around caring, with the lack of care motivating conflict and the extension of care resolving it. Adopting an Ethics of Care view of human connection, these films demonstrate that antagonism stems from the failure to care and that care underlies personal, communal, and existential happiness. Thus, these films reject closure that necessitates the antagonist's destruction, isolation, or separation. Instead, these female-led films posit that the fundamental problem within their diegetic worlds, and by extension the world beyond the films, is not evil, greed, or indifferent systems but rather a lack of empathy, care, and support. Notably, these films have their male corollaries (such as The Hangover, Super Bad, the Austin Powers films, and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) in which there are clear distinctions between the in-group and the out-group and those deserving of care. In these male-led films, the protagonists espouse more traditional ethical philosophies, acting out of duty or trying to achieve the greatest good. Yet the female-led films present true power and success as that which comes from alignment with others and coalition building.| Period | 29 Mar 2026 |
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| Event title | Society for Cinema and Media Studies |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Chicago, United StatesShow on map |