One filmmaker examined the impact of hypersexualization on women and young girls in a lecture Monday.

Jennifer Proctor, associate professor of journalism and screen studies at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, came to Iowa State to unpack gender appropriation in films in her lecture entitled, “Gender Fluidity: The Unstable Meanings of Female Representation in Appropriation Films.”

Proctor screened her two films titled, “Nothing a Little Soap and Water Can’t Fix,” and “Am I Pretty?” Her films are award-winning and have been screened internationally.

Proctor said when creating her films, she took into consideration Sister Corita Kent’s 10 rules of teaching creatively. Another inspiration for her was “Home Stories” by Matthias Müller. Proctor said she often uses narrative supercuts and found footage compilations in her work.

Proctor very often uses “détournement” in her work, which is using a medium in itself to critique that same medium. She does this in her own work by “using cinematic language as a way to critique cinematic language and cinematic tropes.”

Proctor said she draws on the archive effect created by Jaimie Baron. This effect is “the sense that certain sounds and/or images within these films come from another time and served another function.”

“Part of what I’m interested in doing in both of these films is deformation of feminine space,” Proctor said.

Through this deformation, she edits her films in a way that gives a different meaning to the space each scene takes place in. For example, in “Nothing a Little Soap and Water Can’t Fix,” she notes how a woman’s bathroom and bathtub is normally a place for women to escape to relax, but are often over sexualized and makes it a vulnerable space for women.

When reviewing “The Shining,” Proctor said, “It becomes a sight in cinema where women are nude and at no escape … it becomes a way to portray a woman being murdered, but in a highly sexualized way.”

Proctor also concerns herself with the notion of the gaze, specifically the male gaze upon women, and how harmful this can be when appropriated and normalized in film.

Proctor said appropriation of gender in film can be harmful especially among younger female audiences, affecting the way they view themselves, their beauty and worth. Proctor touched on how film also displays women in a very limited number of ways, creating unworthy tropes and stereotypes over and over in film.