Between Genders, Chapter 2.
Due Wednesday, September 12
How do current romantic comedies feature/portray male-female characters and gender relations
that show our culture as it really is? Or have you recently seen a film or show that inaccurately represented or distorted actual current gender roles in our society? Cite a specific movie or television show you've viewed in your response and specify the gender role dynamic presented within.Your thesis should intend to
analyze and use specific support from a film/show that you know well.
Refer to "A Fine Romance" (pg. 85) in your textbook to help you with
your support and help you to formulate your thesis.
this is a test
ReplyDeleteIn the romantic comedy, "I Love You, Man," directed by Ivan Reitman and John Hamburg, gender roles in our society have been inaccurately represented. Peter Klaven proposes to his girlfriend, however he doesn't have a best man for his wedding. He begins to have dates with men, which almost all of these dates seem to be very awkward. The idea of having "man dates" doesn't really represent his gender as an engaged man. It's a little imature for an engaged man to have to go on "man dates" in order to become close friends with someone before the wedding, so that he could find someone suitable as best man during his wedding.
ReplyDeleteA recent movie that i've seen that accuratley portrays male-female characters that shows how our culture really is would be "He's just not that into you". I chose this movie because it shows how the internet changed how male and women interract today. The movie shows several differnt relationships and how they work out but one that caught my attention is the one by Mary played Drew Barrymore. She is desperatley trying to find a boyfriend so she is constantly trying to meet men through facebook but she comes to find that the only guy she met that was good for her was the one she met in person. Another good example would be the one by Scarlett Johanson who kind of portrays the modern women today. She's free, and single and gets to do what what she wants where as back then women always had to be quiet and sophisticated.
ReplyDeleteIn "A Fine Romance" David Denby speaks about how movies today show that male and females go through scary life experinces and how directors add a funny twist to it all. He speaks about the movie "knocked up" which show how a couple is awaiting a baby due to a one night stand and how they struggle to prepare for the baby since they are two totally different people who have different ways of doing things. In the end they both realize they need each stay together for the child. This is is a serious matter and if that was to happen to anyone in real life it wouldn't be as funny as the movie portrays it but the director got the point across. Female and male gender relations have changed but in most cases have remained the same.
One romantic comedy which broke away from traditional gender roles and gender characteristics is "The 40 Year Old Virgin". Traditional gender roles portray men as confident, macho, and smooth with women. In this movie however, the main character Andy is childlike, insecure, and virtually incapable of communicating with the opposite sex. The woman playing opposite him can be seen as breaking traditional gender roles as well. While women in romantic comedies are usually "a corporate executive, or a lawyer, or works in TV, public relations, or an art gallery" as quoted in "A Fine Romance" by David Denby, Trish works at an almost unknown and quite unsuccessful shop called "We Sell Your Stuff on eBay".
ReplyDeleteRomantic comedies change as much as every generation does. Characters are now portrayed as someone that they're not known to be. Roles between different genders may vary. Males are lately seen as the more emotional one and women are now seen as independent people who can take charge of anything. For example in the movie Knocked Up, as explained in "A Fine Romance", the woman played a very successful TV interviewer in Los Angeles trying to make herself up to the top. The man was a slacker who didn't even have real job and no education. In the romantic comedy, 500 Days Of Summer, the man was very emotional after his girlfriend broke up with him and that's not what the audience usually sees. When a man gets dumped they just move right along. The woman in this movie was in charge and didn't believe in falling in love but in the beginning of movies woman always dreamed of falling in love with their prince charming and having a white picket fence house with kids and simply the perfect life. Today some woman don't even want to get married or have kids and it's not seen as out of this world but normal. Woman feel as if they don't need someone to share their lives with or they can rely on themselves and become single mothers. Whatever the case may be gender roles change over time and they're original role will soon be forgotten.
ReplyDeleteThe movie Because I Said So is definitely a romantic comedy that shows inaccurate gender roles. Milly Wilder, played by Mandy Moore is trying to find a guy to fall in love with except she has no rush. Her mother however goes behind her back and puts her on an online dating site. She then mistakingly meets another guy on her own but once she meets the guy from the online dating site she realizes she has feelings for both. However, the guy her mother secretly set up with her daughter is rich, well dressed and has a stable job he is not the guy for Milly. This role in the movie is showing that meeting a guy offline isn't always successful and also that most rich guys are arrogant. But the truth is the internet makes it so much easier now to find someone who is compatible to you and all rich men are not rude or arrogant. Its just what most women seem to assume. The right man for Milly turned out to be the guy who she met on her own who has a kid, lives with his dad and is not rich. The role of this man is almost like the roles in "A Fine Romance" in that the guy wasn't too successful and the women was successful, Milly was a well known chef and baker.
ReplyDelete"The Proposal" is a great movie that shows inaccurate gender roles. In this movie Sandra Bullock plays a very success business women whose Visa is about to expire so to keep her from getting deported back to Canada she proses to her young male assistant. In society today and back in the day women are not the ones to propose usually it is the men who do the proposing. Also to show a women who is very successful with a man as an assistant is very different. When seeing most movies you'll see the man being the CEO of the company and the very pretty young women as the assistant, but this movie shows the complete opposite. In this movie gender roles are completely flopped just like how "A Fine Romance" talked of the movie "Knocked Up." In that movie the women also is the bread winner while this man doesn't have a steady good job, but he is the father of her child so she needs to keep contact with him. In both movies you see how gender roles are inaccurate to how society actually is.
ReplyDeleteThe image of the modern male is in disrepair. Most family sitcoms produced in the last twenty-or-so years portray fathers who are lazy, dim-witted, ineffectual, laughable characters. Examples that come to mind are: The Simpsons and Married: With Children. In each of these programs we meet father figures who are uneducated, work blue-collar jobs, often the butt of jokes, and have a proclivity for the consumption of cheap beer. It seems that writers, whom in the cases of these shows are mostly male, have been raised in a climate where it is unfashionable and impolitic to portray strong, positive male characters, opting instead to create male characters that degrade the image of what it means to be a man. What’s more, these undesirable traits are taken for granted with no expectation that the characters are going to change or even that they ought to. We are never asked to question Homer’s drinking habit or Al’s lack of motivation. This type of abasement of masculinity will never produce gender equality, but only reinforce negative stereotypes, and perpetuate the machismo attitude which serves to keep many men ignorant of their own true and authentic selves.
ReplyDeleteCurrent romantic comedies feature male-female characters and gender relations that show our culture as it really is. This is their way of relating to the audience to draw them in. A movie i recently have seen that portrays this is "Friends With Benefits". While the two "friends" are trying to avoid the cliches of a romantic relationship they soon discover that adding the sex into their friendship does then lead to complications. Women these days are so focused on becoming professional's instead of focusing on a relationship or even entertaining the idea they even want one. Women will do whatever in their power to not let a man know they want to be exclusive, then they will be jeopardizing their highly valued "freedom". To some women, like Jamie (Mila Kunis), it is easier to be friends with benefits than to be in a relationship and hinder her single way of living. She may think education and work are more important then husbands and family. All depends on how we grow up, how we mature, and how successful we become that will determine whether we want to settle down or not. As described in "A Fine Romance" the professional woman in "Knocked Up" now has hindered her freedom and professionalism because she has to take care of two babies, her boyfriend and now her child. This is a major fear for many professional woman these days. They are so powerful and educated that we fear we may meet a man that is not as educated or professional as we may be. That would be a dynamic that could alter the balance in your relationship. Funny how that now works, we didn't need educations back in the day we just needed husbands so we could make families and that was considered success. Women now are so focused on themselves instead of families mainly because we feel we have something to prove. We as women don't have to settle just because we "need" to have kids, women in these days can be mothers, fathers, professionals, coaches, taxi drivers, and all those things that both men and women provide together. This gender role dynamic is proven more and more everyday as us women continue to educate ourselves and men are going out to just work and make a paycheck.
ReplyDeleteKevin Darrah
ReplyDeleteToday romantic comedies portray male and female characters as equels, traditional gender roles in movies portray the man to be very mature, confident, and dominate. Ive recently seen a movie called "The Lucky One" and its about a man coming from the marine corps in search of this woman that he found a picture of during a war. This movie shows how current romantic comedies changed alot, it shows the male character as a smart, sensitive, and strange man instead of the "traditional male". As for the female in this movie she was a stronge, independent, and friendly character. In "A Fine Romance" they portrayed the woman as "good-tempered, honest, great-looking and seroius" which breaks current traditions about females in romantic comedies. Usually the female characters in these movies are insecure about themselfs or in general, plays tough to get, and is very uptight.
In today's society, romantic comedies often portray male and female roles to be fairly accurate depending on which film you are watching. In the story "A Fine romance" by David Denby, it talks about how the woman in "Knocked Up" is successful and ambitious while the man doesn't have a real job or a good education. David Denby identifies how this "slacker-striver" dynamic has been a trend with romantic-comedy's for the past few years. The stereotype used to be that men become the successful money maker with ambition but society is looking past that and showing that women are just as equal. This is a big change from movies that came out 30 years ago, which predominately featured men as the ambitious, successful role in families.
ReplyDeleteHowever, this is not always the case. In the TV show "It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia" the women "Dee" is portrayed as the slacker. She is always looking for the easy way out, and tries to get rich quick with schemes and such.
Movies and shows today predominately display men and females roles to be accurate. There are many cases where the women is successful and ambitious and the man is the slacker, and there are many cases where the man is successful and ambitious and the women is the slacker. However, some are distorted to make the movie or show funny, but generally they are based to be non biased towards one gender.
Gender roles in today's media perpetuate stale gender stereotypes thereby feeding into various forms of destructive sexism. In the series Sex and The City, the audience watches as four neurotic, insanely superficial, self obsessed women define themselves based on the quality and quantity of men they manage to have relations with. Often applauded for being a show that represents liberated, single women living alone in the city, Sex and the City manages to simply follow four main characters single-mindedly fawning over men. When we view the character "Mr. Big" as a metaphor, he represents, essentially, the ultimate penis. He appears in the first episode and throughout the seasons he is in and out of Carrie's life, and the two end up together at the end of the last movie. "Mr. Big" serves as a phallic beacon around which, Carrie and her friends revolve.
ReplyDeleteToday current romantic films that potray male and female characters and gender relations from our culture today is a movie I've recently seen called "Friends with Benefits" this movie is about two friends who in they're relationship do not believe in getting serious about committment. Rather what they do is "fool around" involve sex into they're friendship. Although the character named Jaime does not want anything serious because work and education is the most important thing to her.
ReplyDeleteToday women are more in control about they're future and well do not want a "man" to ruin it all. Compared to the past women of course, did not get much of an education because of discrimination. Women have always been required to work at home, clean, cook and so forth. Now women take stand and are successful. So as for the movie the character Jaime desires that she rather have a relationship that is not serious rather then getting committed and losing her ability to succeed.
Gender roles are not always represented fairly or unfairly in current media. Sometimes the things that are expected of men can be displayed through the action of women or vice-versa. A good example of this would be the film “The 40 Year Old Virgin” written and directed by Judd Apatow. The film depicts a character, Andy, who is a very non-masculine nerdy appliance store salesman. The earlier half of the film depicts Andy’s friend’s exploits to get Andy to lose his virginity, while the second half of the film depicts his relationship with woman who owns a business across the street from where Andy works.
ReplyDeleteThroughout Andy’s relationship with the woman we see how Andy’s virginity has emasculated him in so many ways; quite contrary to the tough guy roles that most romantic-comedies have for a male character. The two eventually develop a romantic relationship where the female character becomes very dominant over Andy, again, very contrary to the Male vs Female roles in most romantic comedies. By the end of the film Andy has not changed in any significantly large ways besides the loss of his virginity. He is still interested in the same things and has the kind and caring persona he had when the film started. There is one point in the film, where Andy is heavily inebriated and comes close to committing an act of adultery. This evening features a completely different type of character than the one we’ve watched throughout the film. The evening however does not result in an act of adultery but rather failure on Andy’s part. This is the film trying to say that it is okay for men like Andy to exist, that not being the stereotypical “tough boyfriend” type of man is not a bad thing. As soon as Andy tried to be a person that he is not, he failed and risked being ostracized.
This film and the study is conducts on modern male and female roles in relationships teaches quite a few lessons, but the most important one is rather obvious. Not everyone has to be the same or act or the same. Different people like and dislike different types of things; it is only when they try to be something they are not that they will begin to fail. “The 40 Year Old Virgin” delivered both laughs and lessons when it was made and reveals some of the many ugly truths about the roles of genders in modern society.
When describing the unbelievably similar story lines throughout romantic comedies over the last decade or so David Deneby basically sums them up with one phrase, "an unsuitable suitor becomes a proper suitor; and so on." He begins the passage with a lot of generalizations about the men in these movies, being slacker, who maybe smoke pot all day, have a terrible job that doesn't require a lot of effort and so on. Deneby mentions several movies that have premiered over the last few years that share this theme. Though when he mentions how in most of these recent romantic comedies the couple had previously been divorced or separated and the plot involves the rekindling of their relationships. the first movie that came to my mind when i read that was Fools Gold, directed by Andy Tennant.
ReplyDeleteThe two main characters in this movie i felt fit Deneby's descriptions perfectly, Kate Hudson plays Tess, a strong willed woman who works as a Steward on a huge yacht owned by a millionaire, it doesn't seem like a fantastic job but she still has her life together more than her suitor. Mathew McConaughey plays Finn a wild manored treasure hunter. in the beginning of the movie the two of them get divorced until Finn smooth talks the owner of the yacht Tess works on into financing his treasure hunt. the couple ends up spending all of their time together again searching for this treasure that they eventually find, then they live happily ever after.
Although this story line does bear a common theme in media today i do not necessarily still think that this is actually how love works in the real world. i still believe that the idea of the male "bread-winner" concept is still alive today. I do agree that there is a lot more women working full time jobs in society today for sure, as well as a lot more men subsequently slacking off in the world but i wouldn't consider that the majority. men still seem to feel that they have to provide for the family, although i could see that becoming a dieing art.
In the movie "Knocked Up" they show how male and females react the girl gets pregnant. The male character gets worried and is in denial when he finds out. He smokes alot of weed and has no job so he is worried he cant provide for the child. He grows up and matures and is ready to be a father. The female character is worried about her job and having a baby. She is ready for a child though. This movie shows how males and females react when a girl gets pregnant.
ReplyDeleteThe movie i can relate to is "Get rich or die tryin" because in the movie the actor 50 cent got a girl pregnant and he took his responsibilty and took care of that baby even when he got shot he made sure the baby was alright and the mother make sure that the family was in line at all the time.
ReplyDeleteIn current romantic comedies feature portray many male-female characters and gender relations, one good example is the movie Hitch by Will Smith who plays a professional date doctor who coaches other men in pursuing women. Hitch coaches Albert Brennaman played by Kevin James, who is infatuated with his client of his investment firm Allegra Cole played by Amber Valletta.In spot of Albert's relationship with Allegra, Hitch seems to find a difficult time pursuing Sara Melas played by Eva Mendes Hitch finds that none of his tried and tested methods are working for him. Though both reconcile, the truth is Hitch doesn't really do anything significant besides allow his clients to get the attention of the woman and giving them confidence,in this movie its all about being yourself and having the right set of mind of how successful you may be in pursuing the right woman.
ReplyDeleteMost current romantic comedies that are shown on television in todays world portrays genders wrongly ,In the romantic comedy "how to lose a guy in 10 days" the director Donald Petrie portrays the male actor as a typical "macho" guy who has made a bet with a friend that he can stay with a girl for more than 10 days.The director portrays the male actors in the movie as guys who do not treat women right and moves from one partner to the next. The director portrays the female actress as a "typical" anoying and "bimbo" type girl who is doing a peper for her job about what guys like and dislike in women and how they do not stay with girls who are certain ways such as "clingy". In this movie both actors are made to seem like the "norm" of genders in todays society. This movie portrays gender roles as most of television entertainment does.
ReplyDeleteOne romantic comedy that I think switches gender roles differently is No Strings Attached. In the movie the male character is a man who is more interested in love and finding a woman and less caring about work and more macho manly things. While the female character is very work oriented and busy, she is much more interested in her job life than in love and finding it. She is also a commitment phoebe. In the movie the major part in which we see a gender role swap is in the female asking the male to be friends with benefits and have a casual sex relationship. This is normally a mans dream but the male character ultimately ends up falling in love and acquiring feelings for her. Thus making her break it off. this role reversal of a woman being less caring about love and more interested in work is very accurate of what we expect from men while the male character shows female type emotions and qualities. Yet i feel like this is not a purposeful and joking role reversal but an attempt to show that women are now becoming more self aware and independent than they used to be and aren't the weak and lovey dovey females of the past.
ReplyDeleteSome current romantic comedies represent gender relations and male-female characters that show our culture as it really is. A movie that I've seen recently that shows this is " he's just not that into you " . One of the main characters Anna portrays an confident, independent and modern woman. She is someone who gets to do whatever she wants and is free. This is a character that we do not really see in real life, because men are mostly expected to be this way instead of women.
ReplyDeleteWe potray genders in very spacific ways, in the sence that the man should always be the bread winner and the protecter and were the woman is a stay at home wife in need of support by a man. However as time is changing so are the way genders are in real life. That man maybe isn't so tuff and cries sometimes and that woman is independent C.E.O. In the moviee night of the musaem 1&2, which isn't a romance you still find gender rolls played. The ex-husband is in the first movie is ruled out by the new and improved boyfriend, the bread winner and the tuff guy. Mean while our other guy has a hard time finding ends mean and is alone. In the secound movie Amilea Airheart is a wax character that comes to life saying that woman are just as strong as men and can be just as tuff if not tuffer. Showing brain and courage that wasn't portrayed for woman in older movies. "A Fine Romance" illustrates the diffrences between what was expected and what is real in this time frame. Men can be weak and may be the ones who depend on woman and woman can be the bread winner. Not saying that the rules have completely flopped and that is what happens now, but it is something possible of happening and is realistic.
ReplyDelete