In the movie Billy Elliot, Billy challenges society’s beliefs based on sex during his time, as he rebels against male stereotypes and follows his passion for dance, without he’s fathers consent. Billy faces many obstacles throughout this movie, including when Billy tries to show his father that he can dance, but his dad takes it sensitively and shuts him off. Throughout the movie, She’s The Man, Viola fights against societies expectations again and fills in for her brother, who ditches school randomly to travel for a couple of weeks, to play soccer despite her mothers’ thoughts. The issues of stereotypes that will be explored throughout this essay are, the specific cultures and social situations which create strict stereotypes, the power of the family towards the individuals’ actions and also the marginalisation of those who rebel. The first issue that will be introduced are the specific situations that separate society and create stereo types. …show more content…
Society puts so much pressure on us to fit in with the rest of the world, when in actual we should be focusing on bringing out the best in us. For instance, Billy Elliot illustrates this issue when he finally tells his family about his dancing, his father and brother, both in the field of mining, quickly react with the instincts that they have grown up with, which is that boys don’t dance. This is stated by Billy’s father, “boys don’t dance, they box, or play football, or do wrestling, not friggin ballet”. Another instance of this pressure put on us is present in the movie, She’s The Man, where Viola’s mum states, “How can I wind up with a daughter who only wants to kick a muddy ball around a field all day.”, “Oh my little girl, finally becoming a lady.” And “Viola Hastings, why is it that I always find you in the middle of a
Scattered throughout our history books, you can find countless examples of wars being fought and conflicts that boil down to simply power and who has it. As a general statement, everyone wants to have some power and ability to control their own lives, if not the lives of those around them. If the two stereotypes that we are presented with about the relationship between race and food could be reduced to their most simplistic explanation, you would be left with the idea that by treating African Americans as food or comical relief, Caucasians are stripping their African American counterparts of their power to control their own lives and showing their supposed dominance. There is no doubt that Chesnutt utilizes these stereotypes in both “The Goophered Grapevine” and “Dave’s Neckliss,” however, he goes past and complicates these stereotypes when he introduces characters that slyly take back some of the power that they are stripped of.
In the short story, The Fall of a City, by Alden Nowlan, Teddy’s dreams are crushed by his uncle when his dreams should remain true till the day he achieves his dreams and his uncle’s stereotypical behaviour influenced teddy is a negative way. It is important for children to pursue the personality and dreams they want to take with them into their future. Firstly, adult’s stereotypical behaviour can influence a children's future choices, but children should have their own dreams and goals to pursue so they get the life they deserve. “Paper dolls and doll houses. An eleven-year-old boy!” (Alden Nowlan, 133). We see how gender stereotypes come in the way of children achieving their goals and dreams since society tend to follow stereotypes every
A large portion of contemporary film and theatre has been lacking in substance. More often than not, we are presented with a “been there, seen that” scenario. One such exception to this rule is Hedwig and the Angry Inch, a film by John Cameron Mitchell that was released in 2001. Set primarily in post-Cold War America, Hedwig is a film that characteristically breaks convention. Our story follows Hedwig, a forgotten and confused homo…trans…well, human being. Growing up in East Berlin during the Cold War, Hansel Schmidt (John Cameron Mitchell) lives what I would call a horrible childhood in the bleak landscape of communist occupied Germany. He falls in love with an American soldier, and undergoes a sex change in order to marry him and leave East Berlin. The operation is botched, leaving him/her as a physical contradiction. Not quite a man, but not yet a woman, Hansel (now Hedwig) has what she describes as an “angry inch.” When describing it in lighter terms, she calls it a “Barbie doll crotch.” Upon arriving in America, the soldier leaves her the same day the Berlin wall comes down. Destroyed, Hedwig spends some time discovering her new self and eventually finds a soul mate in a young boy named Tommy Speck (Michael Pitt). They collaborate musically and romantically, but upon discovering Hedwig’s secret he leaves with all of their music. He becomes a huge rock star, living Hedwig’s dream while simultaneously leaving her in the dust. From then on, Hedwig and her band “The Angry Inch” follow Tommy as he tours the nation while Hedwig tries desperately to gain the notoriety she deserves for her music. Viewing this film through the lens of a feminist gender perspective, I find that Hedwig is a pioneer on the forefront of changing the gende...
Within this film the sociological concept based around sex & gender is hit quite a few times. Missy, a new comer to her current school, tries out for the cheering team. She is put under lots of scrutiny from some of the members of the cheer squad. She is underestimated due to her appearance and she proves herself to the team. They already had a candidate in mind, but the captain lets the other two team members know that Missy will be on the team. Hearing this noise infuriated them and they called Missy an “uber dyke” which is a sex and gender stereotype. Missy was treated this way all based on the way she prefered to
Gender and culture are two concepts that were principally shown throughout the film. The film revolves around Toula’s traditional Greek family and how they exemplify gender roles, gender stereotyping as well as gender stratification. The film also epitomized on subcultures, countercultures, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism and lastly, cultural
Gender and the portrayal of gender roles in a film is an intriguing topic. It is interesting to uncover the way women have been idealized in our films, which mirrors the sentiments of the society of that period in time. Consequently, the thesis of this essay is a feminist approach that seeks to compare and contrast the gender roles of two films. The selected films are A few Good Men and Some Like it Hot.
Throughout the history of history of television, the creators of the show are trying to always portray certain people a certain way. In television show “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne” Curtis Payne, the father, and Ella Payne, the mother are portrayed based on their negative racial stereotypes of African Americans, the traditional gender roles, as well as the time period when the show takes place.
Education is a potent institution used to reinforce gender differences. In our reading we found that children are much more likely to separate themselves at school in gender categories than in their neighborhoods. As Barrie Thorne points out in her book Gender Play, “Apart from age, of all the social categories of the students, gender was the most formally, and informally, highlighted in the course of each school day” (pg 34). I feel that many experiences in elementary school have reinforced my gender outlook. I spent much of my time in elementary school racing the boys and biting my nails to show I wasn’t scared to “break a nail” and never wearing a dress. Recess was a fight for me half the time. I didn’t like the connotation of being called a “girl.” Now I realize that I was trying to oppose the gender role I was expected to perform, yet eventually I grew out of that “phase” of fighting against the norm and joined the ranks of the girls. I moved from the field, to the bars and jump rope. I see now that the change I went through was just giving in to the reinforcement around me to be feminine. Instead of fighting against the grain, I chose the easy road by...
In today 's society, gender stereotyping of men and women has influenced the society’s actions and how it has reflected in recent years. Everyday stereotype is being used whether if it’s on movies, workplaces, playgrounds, homes, or even magazines. There is gender diversity in the movie Grease which took place in 1978. This movie focuses on several different types of stereotyping throughout the movie. Two specific characters in which we are able to use as an example of gender stereotyping are Sandy and Danny. There has always been a specific boundary between a male and a female gender. The femininity side that is shown in the movie Grease of how it is described by the character Sandy of how women were once portrayed back in the day has changed
Literature normally touches on traditional gender stereotypes and the role of the society in building those gender biases. From earlier centuries, gender stereotyping is closely intertwined with every aspect of the social fabric. The play, A Doll 's House by Henrik Ibsen presents a critical reflection of marital norms of the nineteenth-century. This three-act play revolves around the need of every individual, particularly women, to discover oneself, and how they have to strive to establish their identities. This aesthetically shaped play depicts traditional gender roles and the subsequent social struggles that every woman encounter in a stereotyped society. Though, Nora fits rightly to the nineteenth century social norm of submissive housewife
The old and new attitudes toward sexuality and the proper behavior of women is very apparent in the play called A Doll House. The play shows how each woman has sacrificed who they were for the men and the other people in their lives. The play also shows how men see women in general. Several characters give up who they thought they were meant to be, because of the social aspect in their lives. Society has always placed a burden on women as who they are supposed to be as wives, mothers, and as adult women. Women were seen as the inferior sex in the past and in the present. Things have changed over the years as women earn more and more freedom and rights that men have had for a very long time. The sacrifices that are made in this play speak to how things work for women in society. Women give up their right to happiness because they feel obligated to change who they are to help someone else.
“Master Harold and the boys” written by Athol Fugard is play set in the apartheid of South Africa in the 1950. This reflect the racism abuse black people suffered from white people. Regarding the effort that was being made by the community, they still lost the discrimination and inequality kept growing until a point where people started to fight for their liberty. I this essay I’m going to focus on the different ways ballroom dancing reflects and describes the constant roughness there was in South Africa from to different communities, how Fugard connect both culture with one same motif and the relationship between the culture, starting from the friendship Harold and Sam establish at the begging of the book.
In Brenda Cooper’s article “Chick Flicks,” she argues, the film, Thelma and Louise employs mockery as a narrative tool, and functions to produce a defiant narrative which fiercely confronts and denounces patriarchy. Societal norms are able to create a kind unconscious compliance, resulting in self-imposed coercion and oppression. A film like Thelma and Louise brings consciousness to women’s own complicity in social norms like patriarchy, so they can no longer blindly follow these norms. This leaves women in either a state of denial and resistance or a state of evolution and change. Through mockery this film sheds light on accepted norms, and in some, causes a defensive response, as it
During the late 1800s, gender inequality was one of the common issues that existed in the society. Men and women were often distinguished among themselves. Men were regularly portrayed as the one who had power and strength, whereas women were supposed to do all the household work and they were seen as weak and trivial. Henrick Ibsen shows a prefect illustration of this example in the play A Doll’s House. Ibsen develops a notion of how the existence of gender roles in society affected one’s lives. The protagonist Nora, whose identity is shaped after seeing her husband’s actions, which depicts his beliefs of gender inequality, demonstrates this idea.
We may be personally responsible for our own misconceptions of gender and masculinity. Our actions about these topics speak louder than words. Sociologist, Ann Oakley argues that parents often mold their children around certain behaviors, with positive and negative consequences, to adhere to the standards that are socially acceptable. Oddly there is a strong back lash to this sort of treatment in females. In a study done conducted by Michael Messner, when asked who was a tomboy and who was a sissy as children, women raised their hands more often to identify with the tomboy image. The tomboy trait celebrates masculinity and restricts femininity. Often children explore many traits about themselves, as Allen explained to Pascoe, “When you’re younger…you’re a kid. You are wide open…You just do what you want” (Pascoe 118). Darnell, a football player, stated “Since you were little boys you’ve been told, ‘hey don’t be a little faggot’” (p 55). Darnell showcasing that males are conditioned very early like females about their roles of masculinity. These children are taught about how masculinity works. In the school Pascoe researched, a faculty member, Mr. Ford, reminded males students through his reply to a backhanded comment made to him from another student that men should engage in sexual actives with women, not men. Another...