Labor In Nothing Film Analysis

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In order to understand how labor is invoked in film, it is imperative to provide context to how labor influenced the culture around filmmaking. Labor in itself refers to the act of work, especially hard physical work. There is a high propensity for labor to be exploited due to varying external factors like financial crises and Hollywood is no exception. With the onset of unionization, the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences created by Louis B Meyer, which eventually gave way to the formation of guilds for actors writers and directors to protect them. With a granting of the right to unionize, Hollywood itself was going through the need to protect labor. This then manifested in the movies that were made around the nuances that influenced the …show more content…

The movie forces us to think about power dynamics that manifest on several fronts. On one hand Duff is faced with racial prejudice which is made worse by his structural employment, but on another, Duff shoves his pregnant wife to the floor as she comforts him when he can’t get a job. This scene amplifies not only his frustration with a racist world that he is forced to look for a job in, but also with himself. It also leads the audience to believe that even though she is a school teacher and a pregnant mother, she is still at the whims of her husband. This theme is again addressed in Salt of the Earth (Biberman, 1954). The intercutting between the scene of Esperanza giving birth and Ramon getting jailed shows how both genders are equally strong and vulnerable in the same space of time but that eventually Ramon still discredits her strength. As Esperanza tries to protect her husband from getting arrested by picketing for him, she is initially forbidden to picket by Ramon. This goes into the nuances of how wives taking their husband’s place in the picket line was met with notions of impropriety and

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    Many are confined in a marriage in which they are unhappy with, and are reductant to make a change. Some are committed to make a change for themselves. Esperanza ponders each one of these women's lives. Through each role model Esperanza gains crucial life lessons on how to overcome different life hardships. Through some women like her great-grandmother and Ruthie, Esperanza learns she must take control her fate, to avoid marrying young, and not let a male figure dictate her future. Other women like Alicia, Esperanza learns to keep pursuing goals in life and to take control of her destiny no matter what obstruction may lay ahead. From Esperanza’s role models, the moral lesson that can be taken away is to be proactive about your life and to shape your own future. Everyone is a role model to somebody in their life. Strive to leave a positive message behind for the ones shadowing in your

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    Throughout The House on Mango Street Esperanza learns to resist the gender norms that are deeply imbedded in her community. The majority of the other female characters in the novel have internalized the male viewpoint and they believe that it is their husbands or fathers responsibility to care for them and make any crucial decisions for them. However, despite the influence of other female characters that are “immasculated”, according to Judith Fetterley, Esperanza’s experiences lead her to become a “resisting reader” in Fettereley’s terminology because she does not want to become like the women that she observes, stuck under a man’s authority. She desires to leave Mango Street and have a “home of her own” so that she will never be forced to depend on a man (Cisneros 108). During the course of the novel Esperanza eventually realizes that it is also her duty to go back to Mango Street “For the ones that cannot out”, or the women who do not challenge the norms (110). Esperanza eventually turns to her writing as a way to escape from her situation without having to marry a man that she would be forced to rely on like some of her friends do.

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    Esperanza is a very strong woman in herself. Her goals are not to forget her "reason for being" and "to grow despite the concrete" so as to achieve a freedom that's not separate from togetherness.

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    In the Book women are looked upon as objects by men whether they are boyfriends, friends fathers or husbands. The girls in the novel grow up with the mentality that looks and appearance are the most important things to a woman. Cisneros also shows how Latino women are expected to be loyal to their husbands, and that a husband should have complete control of the relationship. Yet on the other hand, Cisneros describes the character Esperanza as being different. Even though she is born and raised in the same culture as the women around her, she is not happy with it, and knows that someday she will break free from its ties, because she is mentally strong and has a talent for telling stories. She comes back through her stories by showing the women that they can be independent and live their own lives. In a way this is Cinceros' way of coming back and giving back to the women in her community.

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