Gender in the movies

The discussion of gender can be a quite complex topic.  Let’s start by defining what gender is.  According to Judith Butler gender, is “continually made and remade through performance” (Brown 2013).   Meaning that gender is social things that we do and learn from what society teaches us we should be.  For example girls should wear pink and boys should wear blue.  This differs from the idea of sex.  Whereas sex, is the hormonal or anatomy of an individual, such as, genitals they were born with.  Society tells us based upon the genital, how we are supposed to label gender.  Although people may be born with a penis they may identify themselves with the female gender.  In Lorber’s “Gender as a social construct”, Lorber uses an example of a man holding a baby who has on “neutral clothing” (1994).  Two things stick out, one the man is carrying the child in a holster, which may be seen as a women’s work; he is doing gender.  Another thing is the baby has on neutral clothing leaving the audience to guess what gender it may be.  Judging from the baseball cap, you may assume it’s a boy.  Alas, when taking a closer look Lorber notices lace socks, earring in her ear, and a pink blanket; it’s a girl!

                This is just one example of how society labels gender, by doing this we become socializers.  One of the most common ways people often identify someone is through gender schemas.  This is simple a group of things we make connections to about someone’s sex.  Things such as, feminine or masculine are common labels.  For example, if you are feminine then you are seen as tender, nurturers, and passive(Brown 2013).  If you have masculine traits consist of being aggressive, boisterous, and strong (Brown 2013).  These traits are not at all exclusive to one gender.  Research has found that in both sexes both feminine and masculine traits can be found in both; and most people are on a spectrum.  No one is completely masculine or feminine in other words most individuals are androgynous (Brown 2013).

In Wexlers’ “shame-o-phobia” he talks about the shame that men feel when dealing with feelings.  He elaborates on two terms to describe the conflict, one is relational dread.  This is when a man dreads expressing his feelings; keeping him out of therapy and connecting in intimate relationships (2010).  Instead men should embrace feelings, and express the awkward thoughts genuinely and bravely, by practicing relational heroism (2010).  This also occurs in everyday life.  Just earlier this week my son’s dad and I took my son to see a movie.  We arrive at the theatre and we agreed upon “Epic Movie”.  

Once the movie began I noticed gender difference and how they intersect with race, as well.  The queen, was an African American woman, who was portrayed as calm and tender.  These are the typical gender schemas; women are categorized as in general; however for an African American it is more likely to see them as loud or ghetto.   It is also likely for the media to show lighter skinned black women which the queen was (Brown 2013).The queen played many roles socializer, objectification, role-model, and ideal body image.  The queens role as a socializer was both intentional and unintentional (Brown 2013).  The intentional was her role as the queen modeling leadership.  The unintentional aspect was the way she carried herself, girls and guys admired her.  The queen appeared as human from the abdomen up, but from the waist down there contained a bed of flowing pink pedals that swayed when she walked.  This is known as objectification.  The form of her body served a bigger purpose than just beauty; she displayed authority and power. The queen was a role-model who showed women how they should act; soft and as a nurturer.   All the girls wanted to be just like her, she was for the sake of nature “the ideal body image”. 

There were several men in the movie whose main goal was to “protect”.  The role of protector, also a gender schema, was one of the re-occurring themes throughout the movie. The guards were fast, smart, and attentive.  At the first sign of danger they immediately came to attention fearless and attacked anyone who appeared as the enemy.   The younger guard was often upset that he could not take on the big challenges and was constantly trying to prove himself worthy.  These men were the ideal role-models in his eyes.  They wore leaf men costumes which were very masculine. 

One part stuck out to me, in the movie.  The man was having a conversation with is nephew after a battle, they expressed how much the learned from each other and was hesitant about showing too many emotions.  Then appeared a girl, she walked up and said “why don’t you just say I love you already”.  This was similar to Wexler’s comparison of the characters in the movie “good will hunting”.  The two guys were conversating about a break up and one guy says “that sucks”!  This symbolized a mutual meaning in the conversation that could only be shared by men, the word I love you may not come easy, but they knew what each other meant.  For women we are open to express our feeling and don’t mind using the four letter word; this is how we communicate. Wexler shows that men’s communication is different than females; who wants endless details.

Throughout the movie it was quite obvious how females and male were expected to act.  One of the main characters walk around with a frown and the queen constantly teased him about being so “serious”.  The idea of dualism between the characters was strong (Brown 2013).  What I think the movie was displaying about gender is that men are superior, strong, and protectors, while women are only seen as nurturer, and inferior.   For example there were probably about three women in the whole movie and the rest were dominating males. This kind of idea acting against each other still appears in everyday life. 

References
Brown, A (2013). "Analyzing Gender". Micorsoft PowerPoint SLide 4,10,12

Brown, A (2013). "Gender as a Socializer". Microsoft Power Point Slide 5

Brown, A (2013). "Media Literacy". Microsoft Power Point Slide 5

Brown, A (2013). " The Body". Microsoft PowerPoint Slide 2,4, 6

Lorber, J. (1994). " The Social Construction of Gender". In S.M. Shaw &
J. Lee (5th Eds.),
Womens Voices Feminist Visions (pp.126-129). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Wexler, D. (2010). "Shame-O-Phobia". In S.M. Shaw & J. Lee (5th Eds.), Womens Voices
Feminist Visions (pp. 141-144). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.