Women "Blow"

Blow follows the life of George Jung, a key player in the American cocaine trade from the mid 1970’s to the mid 1980’s. At the beginning of the film George was a young boy that lived with his parents (Fred and Ermine) in a small town in Massachusetts. George’s dad ran a small pluming company, but still struggled to support his family. George’s mother was unemployed, but yet she still always yelled at her husband about never having enough money. When George grew up he moved to southern California with his best friend Tuna. The duo decided to sell marijuana so that they wouldn’t have to get real jobs. They did very well for themselves selling weed until George got arrested with 660 pounds while on a business trip in Chicago. At that point George skipped bail and went on the run. While on the run he visited his parents in Massachusetts. During a serious heart to heart with his father the cops showed up at his house, because evidently his mom snitched on him. After that George was sentenced to a 3 year stint in Federal prison where he met Diego Delgado. Diego convinced George to get into the cocaine business, and after their release they started moving cocaine together. They did exceptionally well smuggling Colombian cocaine onto American soil, quickly amassing a large fortune. At a party George met a beautiful woman named Mirtha and eventually the two got married and had a daughter. After he was betrayed by Diego George decided to get out of the business. However his wife was not yet ready to give up the high life, so she threw George and extravagant party for his 38th birthday. The cops raided the party and arrested George for all the cocaine there, so he went on the run again. While George was driving Mirtha snorted some cocaine and then jerked the steering wheel out of George’s hands because she was fed up with their financial situation. That resulted in them getting pulled over by the police, and subsequently with George’s arrest. After serving 3 years in jail George was release to find out that his daughter, Kristina, wanted nothing more to do with him. To get on better terms with his daughter he promised to take her on a trip to California, but he really couldn’t afford to do so at that point in time. Therefore he decided to make 1 last deal to make enough money for the trip, but his old accomplices set him up. The movie ended with George serving a 60 year prison sentence after being arrested with a large quantity of cocaine. Throughout the film the indecency and immorality of many female characters was used to depict women in a negative manner.

Ermine, George’s mother, always yelled at her hard-working husband because she wanted to be more financially well off. In addition, she regularly left him because she really wanted to marry into wealth. Furthermore, she betrayed her son by turning him into the police for no legitimate reason. These actions served to depict her character as a selfish, heartless, and unreasonable woman. Mirtha was another female character that was used to portray women negatively throughout the film. It was her continued habit and her insistence that George and her indulge in living the highlife which got George arrested. Furthermore, she had no problem intentionally getting him arrested simply because she was upset about not having a lot of money. That particular instance depicted her as a wild, hot-tempered, out of control, and incomprehensible female with a hot-temper.

Throughout the film, Blow, a number of female characters effectively portrayed women in a negative manner. Specifically, it was Mirtha’s wildness and Ermine’s heartlessness served to depict females as greedy and treacherous people with no sense of loyalty or appreciation.

A Fighting Man's Club

Fight Club tells the story of an unnamed everyman, who finds himself unable to match societies’ requirement for happiness, and therefore embarks upon a unique journey to find enlightenment. At the beginning of the movie the unnamed protagonist (who sometimes refers to himself as Jack) was suffering from insomnia, so he asked his doctor to write him a prescription to help him sleep. However his doctor refused to do so and instead he recommended that Jack attend a group therapy session for men with testicular cancer so that he could see real pain and suffering. At the group meeting Jack cried like a baby, and when he got home that night he slept like a log. After that Jack was hooked. He attended a group therapy meeting everyday of the week until a woman named Marla Singer ruined it for him. Eventually the Narrator befriended a man by the name of Tyler Durden on an airplane flight. After the flight, Jack returned to find his apartment and all of his worldly possessions on fire. Having no one else to turn to he called up Tyler, and after a long night of drinking Jack asked Tyler if he could spend the night at his place. Tyler agreed on the condition that Jack punch him in the face, so Jack punched Tyler in the face, Tyler punched him back, and then they fought. After attracting a crowd the two men decided to start a fight club. Their fight club prospered and in time it grew into Project Mayhem, an underground terrorist organization focused on destroying corporations. Eventually it became clear to the audience that Tyler wasn’t a real person, but rather a figment of Jack’s imagination. At the end of the movie Jack had to shoot himself in the face to get rid of Tyler Durden once and for all.

The Narrator’s character didn’t exhibit many masculine traits at all. He was shy, subordinate, weak, skittish, unimposing, and a shopaholic. During a conversation, Tyler suggested that the reason that Jack never learned how to become a man was because he never had a father figure around to teach him. As a result Jack’s subconscious created Tyler as a way to compensate for his lack of masculinity, and teach him how to become a “real man”. Tyler’s character embodied masculinity, depicting to the audience what it meant to truly be masculine. He was strong, handsome, courageous, outgoing, confident, and ambitious. As the movie progressed a change in the Narrator’s character became more and more apparent. The more time Jack spent with Tyler, the manlier he became. By the end of the movie, the Narrator had become a man and therefore no longer needed Mr. Durden. Tyler’s death symbolized Jack’s completion of his quest to attain masculinity. In conclusion, Fight Club examined the effect of a fatherless childhood on an individual’s masculinity and utilized Tyler’s character to depict masculinity to the audience.

"Sling Blade" killed a manly man. Umm Hmm.

The movie “Sling Blade” tells the tale of Karl Childers following his release from a psychiatric hospital. Karl was a mentally retarded man, who had been confined to a psychiatric hospital since he killed his mother and her lover when he was a 12 years old boy. Early in the movie, Karl befriended a young boy named Frank Wheatley. After meeting Frank’s mother, Linda, and her best friend, Vaughan Cunningham, Karl decided to accept Frank and Linda’s offer to live her and her son in their garage. Before long it became apparent that Linda’s boyfriend, Doyle Hargraves, was a violent alcoholic with a short fuse, and that he needed to be dealt with. Eventually Doyle decided to move in with Linda so that he could torment frank and get rid of Karl. Fearing that Doyle would inevitably harm Frank and Linda, Karl killed Doyle with a lawn mower blade.

Although Frank, Karl, and Vaughan were technically males, they were not masculine men. Frank was just a boy, and Karl was just a boy trapped inside a man’s body. They were still learning right from wrong. They had not yet developed a concept of what it meant to be masculine, let alone exhibit such traits. In addition Vaughan was a homosexual, and a very feminine one at that. Doyle was the only important masculine male character in the movie, and therefore his character was used exclusively to depict to the audience what it meant to be masculine.

Doyle treated Linda poorly. He worked construction so he made a pretty good living, but he didn’t help Linda out with any money though. He had his own house so that he could cheat on Linda with other women, and he was disgustingly mean to her son. He was always drunk, and regularly threatened Frank and Linda’s health and safety. On one occasion, Doyle demanded that Karl and Vaughan get out of his house because he doesn’t like “cocksuckers and retards.” However they were at Linda’s house, and when Linda reminded him of that fact and suggested that he get some of his other girlfriends and go home, Doyle replied, “You know better than to talk to me like that when I'm hurtin', Linda. Don't make me knock the piss outta you.” At that point Linda told Doyle that he needed to go home and sober up or she would leave him for good, to which Doyle replied, “If you even think about leaving me, Linda, I told you: I'm gonna kill you deader than a door nail.” In addition to that, he was just plain rude to her. He ordered her around like his own personal servant. For instance, he interrupted a nice family dinner by demanding that Linda go get his guitar immediately, and on another occasion he even had the nerve to ask Linda, “What am I supposed to do about supper while you're out runnin' around with that fag?” because she had made plans to spend time with her best friend that night. In conclusion, "Sling Blade" exhibited a negative portrayal of masculinity by depicting the sole masculine character, Doyle, as a horrible person.

Manly Guy

Family Guy is an animated television sitcom centered on the dysfunctional Griffin family. The show mostly focuses on the shenanigans of Peter Griffin, the father of the family, but it certainly doesn’t overlook the rest of his family; which is comprised of Luis, Peter’s wife, Chris, their oldest son, Meg, their only daughter, Stewie, their youngest son, and Brian, their dog. The show also features a large cast of reoccurring minor characters from the small town of Quahog. The most notable of which would be Peter’s best friends and neighbors: Joe Swanson, Cleveland Brown, and Glenn Quagmire.

The show utilizes most of its characters to illustrate traditional gender roles. For example, Peter is a working class father with a job at a local factory and Luis is a stay at home mother, while Joe Swanson is a paraplegic cop and his wife Bonnie is a pregnant school teacher. The only major exception would be the Brown family, in which Cleveland is subservient to his wife, Loretta. In addition, the show establishes a traditional definition of masculinity by associating conventionally masculine traits and pastimes with male characters. For instance, Peter and his friends regularly congregate at their local pub, The Drunken Clam, to drink beer and watch TV.

Family Guy portrays male characters in a negative manner in an effort to belittle the traditional ideals of masculinity. This practice is readily apparent throughout the show. For example, Peter is depicted as a fat, lazy, stupid, irresponsible, and childish alcoholic, Chris is portrayed as an overweight idiot, and Quagmire is made out to be a womanizer with no inhibitions. The only significant exception would be Cleveland Brown; whose character is depicted as a nice, mild-mannered, and calm individual with no notable vices and/or character flaws other than his decidedly submissive nature. Fascinatingly, Cleveland is the only male character that doesn’t fulfill a traditionally masculine gender role throughout the show.

In conclusion, Family Guy illustrates customary gender roles, and negatively portrays conventionally masculine characters in an effort to convey traditional masculine ideals in a negative manner.

The 40-year-old, well-meaning, virgin.

The 40-year-old virgin is a drama-comedy film about an awkward 40-year old man named Andy Stitzer who is still a virgin. Andy worked at an electronics store along with a colorful cast of characters; including David, Cal, and Jay. Early in the movie Andy’s coworkers invited him to a late night poker session, at which they discovered that Andy was still a virgin. From that point on David, Cal, and Jay took it upon themselves to “help” Andy lose his virginity. They tried speed dating, teaching Andy how to spot drunken girls at the bar, convincing Andy to wax his chest, and several other schemes but each and every time they failed to get Andy laid. Eventually Andy met Trish, a hot grandmother with three kids that worked across the street from him, and they hit it off immediately, so they started going out. Throughout most of the rest of the movie Andy struggled to find a way to tell Trish that he was still a virgin, but eventually he built up the courage to do so after a big fight with Trish. At the end of the movie Andy and Trish got married, and Andy finally lost his virginity on their honey moon.

The movie portrayed men as pigs who were only interested in women for the purpose of sex. The characters of Andy’s friends, especially Cal and Jay, were used to depict the character of the common man. They were both average guys. They had average jobs. They liked sports, beer, and poking fun at one another. Cal was a funny stoner, with too much facial hair, that wrote novels on his free time; and Jay was a self styled ladies man who spent the majority of his free time cheating on his girlfriend or lying to her about cheating on her. Both Cal and Jay encouraged Andy to pick up drunken women at the bar, but when Andy suggested that doing so seemed wrong to him, both of them adamantly vindicated the practice by informing Andy that they both did it regularly and by telling him that every guy does it. Jay even went as far as to say, “All you got to do is use your instincts. How do you think a lion knows to tackle a gazelle? It's written, it's a code written in his DNA, says, "tackle the gazelle." And believe it or not, in every man there's a code written that says, "tackle drunk bitches."” The entire movie men were portrayed as mean, cheating, lying, and sexist pigs.

Andy was an extremely nice person but he didn’t seem to be interested in anything an ordinary guy would be interested in, such as sports and beer. He was so nice in fact that on one occasion he showed up at Trish’s house to surprise her only to find Trish arguing with her teenage daughter about whether or not she was old enough to have sex yet, so Andy actually drove Trish’s daughter to Planned Parenthood to attend a sex education class with her. Andy’s unique character was used to present the audience with an example of uncommon kindness which provided a stark moral contrast to the indecency of the average male.

June, the Month for Feminists

Juno is a coming-of-age, comedy-drama, film about a uniquely independent teenage girl named Juno and her struggle dealing with an unplanned teenage pregnancy. Juno was impregnated after having sex with her timid, long-time friend, Paulie Bleeker.

Female characters in the movie were depicted as being cleaver, funny, sharp, and independent women; which adheres to feministic beliefs of what women should be like. The film depicted Juno’s character as a confident and intelligent teenage girl, which broke the stereotype of raging, hormonal,and image-obsessed teenage girls that is so prevalent in movies today. Her character is unlike that of any other teenage girl from any movie that I’ve ever seen. She is strong, honest, confident, cleaver, funny, charming, and frank, while still managing to maintain her femininity.
The movie also portrayed Vanessa as a stereotypical feminist. She was an intelligent, strong-willed, and career-minded woman; and the film’s positive depiction of her and Juno's characters inadvertently expressed support for femininity.

In addition to it's positive portrayal of femininity via strong female characters, Juno also expressed support for femininity by depicting feminine ideology throughout the movie, specifically the belief that a single women could successfully raise a child without any help from any men, and the belief that women should have the right to choose what they want to do with their own bodies regarding abortion.

"Blood Diamond"s are Not a Girl's Best Friend

A few days ago I watched “Blood Diamond,” a movie about diamonds that are mined from African war zones and sold to finance the horrific Sierra Leone Civil War during the 1990’s. Although the film seemed willing to go to great lengths to call attention to the plight of black (African) people, it seemed as though it ignored the struggle of black women.

For instance, the movie featured 3 main characters; a white male mercenary named Danny Archer, a black man named Solomon Vandy, and a white female Journalist named Maddy Bowen. Interestingly enough there was really only one black woman with a speaking part throughout the entire movie and that was Jassie Vandy, Solomon Vandy’s wife, and her time on screen was incredibly brief. It basically consisted of her screaming out in terror for Vandy to come save her, which portrayed to the audience the weak and helpless nature of black women in African society. In addition, the extreme extent to which black women lacked a voice in this movie illustrated to the audience the degree to which they were marginalized in Africa during that time period.

Justice and the not so Silent Feminists Strike Back

"Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" is a hilarious movie about two stoners from New Jersey who go on an action packed adventure to Hollywood to save their good names, after learning that people on a popular movie review website were talking trash about the main characters of the movie "Bluntman and Chronic," of whom Jay and Silent Bob were the inspiration for. While on their way to Hollywood they met a girl named Justice , who offered to let them hitch a ride with her friends and her. Shortly there after Jay and Silent Bob were introduced to Krissy, Missy, and Sissy and Brent.

The girls told Jay and Silent Bob that they were part of the Kansas City Chapter of SACC (Students Against Animal Cruelty) and that they were headed to California to protest the use of animals in medical testing, but in reality they were a group of professional thiefs (with the exception of Brent) on their way to California to pull off a major diamond heist. Along the way Jay threw Brent out of the car, which put the ladies in a tight situation because the only reason that they brought Brent along for the ride was because they needed him to be their patsy and take the heat off of them after the diamond heist. As a solution the girls decided to convince Jay and Silent Bob to take Brent's place as their patsy, but unlike the rest of her friends, Justice was very reluctant to do so.

At that point in the film it became readily apparent to me that two, very different, ideas of femininity were being portrayed via Justice and her her friends. Justice was used to portray societies' ideal view of femininity. Her character was kind, caring, beautiful, and understanding. Opposingly Krissy, Missy, and Sissy were used to portray femininity from a feminist's perspective. Their characters were all strong and independent women.

However, because "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" was both written and directed by a man, as opposed to a women, the girls actually portrayed a feministic view of femininity from a Male's perspective. That masculine perspective became increasingly evident to me as the movie progressed and more and more of their character traits were revealed. Their characters were manipulative, greedy, and cold-hearted which provided the audience with the impression that all feminists are dangerous and are not to be trusted.

With that in mind I would like to mention that Krissy, Missy, and Sissy all ended up in prison, while Justice received a severely reduced sentence and was permitted to go to a concert with Jay at the end of the movie even though she committed the exact same crime as them, which left the audience with the perception that feminists never prosper.

Knocked Up By A Sexist

"Knocked Up" is a movie about a 23 year old Jewish Canadian man's struggle to come to terms with the fact that he will soon be a father, because he accidentally got a women pregnant on a drunken one night stand. Ben Stone's (the main character) situation is made all the more difficult by the fact that he has basically nothing in common with Alison Scott (the women that he impregnated), but that appears to be the norm through out the movie. In fact it appeared to me that every couple in the movie had nothing in common with one another, whereas every guy in the movie seemed to get along famously with one another. After some consideration, I decided that this phenomenon could only be explained by the fact that this movie portrays women in a rather sexist fashion in comparison to men.

For example, when Alison discovered that Ben didn't really read the baby books that he promised to read she confronted him about it. However the ensuing argument left her looking like the bad guy because after Ben explained that he was sorry and that he simply forgot to read the books she was still upset. But she had a good reason to be angry, because Ben was being an irresponsible person, and that scared her because it made her question whether Ben could ever be a good father to her child. Similar instances occur through out the entire movie time and time again as we watch the "fun-loving, goofy, and lovable" guys slip up and get yelled at by the "humorless and uptight" women.

Notoriously Masculine

Over this last weekend I saw "Notorious," a movie detailing the life and times of the famous rapper Christopher Wallace (a.k.a. "Biggie Smalls.") The film creates a complex and dynamic view of what it really means to be masculine as we watch Christopher grow up and learn what it really takes to be a man.

At the beginning of the movie the audience is provided with an impoverished young man's perspective of what it means to be masculine as we watch the little Chris Wallace grow up in Brooklyn. Biggie's father left him and his mother when he was only a baby and his mother never remarried. As a result of never having any father figures around as a child Biggie had to learn how to become a real man on his own by watching and learning from other men around him, but all he saw on the streets of Brooklyn was drugs and money. Therefore, Biggie thought that having a lot of cash would make him a real man, and that belief became clearly evident to me as I watched the young little Biggie Smalls make money by selling crack of the streets.

After the (not yet) Notorious B.I.G. found out that he was going to have a baby his view of masculinity changed slightly. At this point in his life he was still selling crack to economically prepare for the birth of his first child. However, before his daughter could even be born, he was arrested for possessing a firearm, which his best friend, "D-Rock," took the fall for. After that event Biggie realized that being a real man meant taking care of his daughter, which he couldn't do from a jail cell, so he stopped selling crack and started rapping professionally under the guidance of Sean "Puff Daddy" Combs.

Once Biggie released his first album and got rich his view of masculinity changed yet again. As Biggie's fortune and fame grew he became an idol. Therefore he was viewed as an ideal portrait of masculinity by many young males who were trying to learn how to become real men. The now rich and famous Biggie Smalls began living out his dream. He lived how he always thought that a real man would live. He did whatever he wanted, he bought whatever he wanted, and he got all the women he ever wanted.

At the end of the movie, after his divorce with Faith Evans and after the death of his long-time friend Tupac, Biggie had an epiphany while sitting in a club in Los Angeles. He realized that being a real man meant taking care of your own responsibilities. He realized that being masculine meant spending time with your kids, taking care of your mother, and always treating women with respect. Sadly however, Biggie Smalls was gunned down and killed later that night after leaving the club. Christopher Wallace died young, at the age of 25, but not before he learned how to be a real man.