The House Bunny is an interesting movie since it presents a recent American
female issue of female sexy body which is taken into account as women source of
empowerment. Yet, this movie brings different perspective which is to challenge the
idea that sexy body can truly empower women to achieve goals. Thus, this research is
conducted to describe how the idea of employing sexy body as girl power is
constructed in The House Bunny and to explain how The House Bunny challenges the
idea of employing sexy body as girl power.
This research is a descriptive qualitative research that takes The House Bunny
movie as source of data. The primary data consists of movie scenes, movie dialogues
and movie narrative. It is also supported with supporting information taken from
articles, e-books, journals, and others related references.
This research is conducted under American Studies framework. Thus, it uses
various diciplines in the forms of theory and approach in analyzing the movie. It
applies gender and post-feminism theories, semiotics theory and socio-cultural
approach in answering the research questions.
After conducting the research, finding shows that The House Bunny
challenges the idea of employing sexy body as girl power. Women are constructed
being empowered to get family, achieve high self-esteem, gain popularity, attract
male attention and love, however, they encounter some issues in the enactment of
employing sexy body as girl power. The issues are in the form of self-objectification,
slut shaming, body as temporarily source of empowerment and the sacrifices in the
enactment of employing sexy body as girl power. Furthermore, to emphasize the
movie stance on challenging the idea of employing sexy body as girl power, this
movie offers the key of true empowerment in the embodiment of “be yourself” value.
Keyword: women, sexy body, girl power, construction