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Topics about gender roles in latin american societies
Predominant gender roles for men and women in the latin american culture
Gender roles in latin american culture
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Latin American Events Analysis
During the course of this semester, I attended many events with Latin American content. Although I both heard lectures and viewed movies, the continuity and popularity of certain recurring themes in cinema interested me the most. Among the many themes addressed, money, violence, the role and importance of women, and the evolution of government were prevalent and interconnected. Over the years, Latin America’s image has changed from a valuable source for raw goods, to a rebellious child of colonial powers, to a region struggling to cope with oppressive governments from within. At the same time that these phases have occurred, social norms have also evolved. Despite the fact that women’s roles have changed in some areas, they remain important to the society as a whole, in whatever capacity they fulfill. While nations of the region may lack ethnic, linguistic, or cultural ties, they share similar historical experiences. As such, the common use of these topics was not surprising, because of their prominence as important topics throughout Latin American history.
All of the films I saw—Cidade de Deus, La Sexta Sección, Plata Quemada, Maria, Full of Grace, and Mujeres Insumisas—feature female characters, each of whom has a different function in the individual contexts. Overall, expectations of women are high, even though the resources available to them are inadequate. Often portrayed as victims, women receive insufficient respect for all that they manage to accomplish, especially given their dismal circumstances.
In the Brazilian film Cidade de Deus, Angélica—the main female character—is simultaneously depicted as both powerless and powerful. She accepts gifts from Tiago, Rocket, and Benny, a...
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...uments for a philharmonic band, a kitchen for the local kindergarten, a basketball court, and a church for the town. Money and poverty are obviously very prominent issues in Boqueron, as well as numerous other Latin American towns, and the men are again depicted as the breadwinners.
The Latin American films that I saw this semester have many thematic ties. Among these are the importance of money, the role of women, the existence of violence, and the prevalence of corruption. The frequency of the occurrence of these topics is not coincidental, but rather a reflection of the issues and difficulties faced by many Latin American nations. Film provides a unique arena in which to address social wrongs and change, national and international dilemmas, and other topics of interest, and these movies provide connections in Latin America when they may not otherwise exist.
Burns, E. B., & Charlip, J. A. (2007). Latin America: an interpretive history (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Both of these films took place in the back stage of the Mexican Revolution. During 1900s women role was a submissive one and not a very visible one. Social constructions such as women role was to get married and reproduce were very pending. However, the situation started to transform. Some women from all around the world started to break free from such behavior and decided to become more noticeable.
Henderson, T. "Modern Latin American History Lecture." Auburn University Montgomery, Montgomery, AL. Sept. 2011. Lecture.
Filmmakers are one of the social interpreters reflecting and commenting about society and the times. Motion pictures can highlight social issues from economic and environmental justice, racial lines and discrimination, violence against women, worker rights, homelessness, and poverty to all forms of human rights abuses. Good films can raise awareness and be a start to addressing local and global issues. They can educate about cultures, and give a broader political, religious, or social context. For example the movie “Blood Diamond”, starring Leonardo Dicaprio, depicts a country torn apart by the struggle between government loyalists and rebel forces on the control of the diamond mining market. After the movie was released
Burns, E. B., & Charlip, J. A. (2007). Latin America: an interpretive history (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall.
For the past few decades, women’s positions improve significantly due to feminist movements, which can be presented through contemporary films. Instead of focusing on male-only heroes, an increasing number of filmmakers tend to create female heroines. Nevertheless, women have not yet achieved reproductive rights. In other words, different from men, who can freely express themselves, female’s actions are still limited by societal norm. Thus, female characters, as a reflection of contemporary females in society, demonstrate the fact that females are attempting to challenge gender stereotypes under societal pressures. Katniss, the heroine in Hunger Games, is presented as a role model. However, Marieme, the working class girl in Girlhood, seems
In films, female characters ‘reflect and perpetuate the status and options of women in today’s society’ and play
All four women are educating us on this stigma in film, photography and the arts, to allow future directors to think of a different way to teach us about women than in just the male gaze approach. Women are becoming more involved in movies as a whole and adding new perspective, that sheds light on the unjust past.
Azuela shows these impacts by the progression of Camila, from a sweet innocent woman, to joining the rebel forces, and lastly to being killed. Symbolically, Azuela kills off Camila almost immediately upon her rise to power and drops her from the novel’s plot. This shows the how insignificant of an impact that women had on the battles, and how easily they were forgotten after death. Women still struggle today with gaining equal rights and treatment within the Mexican culture. It has taken nearly 70 years for women to gain equality with men in the workforce, gaining rights such as voting, and having a shared family responsibility with the male figure (Global). Unfortunately, many women within the working-class household still suffer from the traditional norms and values regarding the roles of men and women. In addition, these women were often subjected to control, domination, and violence by men” (Global). This validates Azuela’s stance on how women should stay within their traditional roles because fighting for equality has been ineffective even still
In this role, because of her sex, the woman is seen as an object. Traditionally women have been viewed as the weaker sex and because of this stereotype we see women imaging an inferior person, bowing under oppression from men. Perhaps this role is most vivid in the life of Sally in The House On Mango Street. " Sally doesn't tell about that time he hit her with his hands just like a dog, she said, like if I was an animal" (Cisneros 92). We are left to believe that Sally is being abused physically as well as emotionally and sexually.
The 216-page book is organized in an unconventional manner, trading chapters for sections in which Maio includes five or six notable movies relating to the subject of each section. “A Fine Romance,” “The Lost Race of Hollywood,” “The New Woman’s Film,” “Losing Out and Getting Even,” “Motherhood in Patriarchy,” “With Friends Like These,” and “A Real Class Act.” Maio described the organization in her preface and decoded the subjects of the seven sections “The first, A Fine Romance explores the problematic aspects of current film romance…” and so on. Each section is denoted by its title on a blank page, which is a helpful element of the book's design for readers. The blank page among its densely worded neighbors is a nice change and I found it encouraged me to pause and absorb what I had just read in the previous section before moving on to the next.
The content of the film wakens public to concern about domestic violence and woman’s right in Spain. The movie is full of instructive, it can let people to rethink their idea, behavior and also the culture of a country. Women begin to receive attention, they can play some important role on the society and the society become equality of the sex. This is very suitable for everyone to study, and I like this movie very
This essay will discuss Almodóvar’s portrayal of motherhood in the films of ¿Qué he hecho yo para merecer esto? (1984), Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1987) and Carne trémula (1997). Also, this essay will answer the question, are ‘bad mothers’ treated more positively than ‘absent fathers’? Pedro Almodóvar has a unique way to portray certain subjects in his films, as Brad Epps and Despina Kakoudaki describe him, “Pedro Almodóvar is something of a paradox, scintillatingly so. Celebrated and denigrated by critics as serious and superficial, political and apolitical, moral and immoral, feminist and misogynist, experimental and sentimental, universal and provincial” (2009:1). One of the main subjects he portrays in his movies is family
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the way women have been represented and characterized gives us an idea of how the female gender are treated differently from the male gender as well as children in Latin America during the 1950s. The husbands were given all the authority, also known as machismo, whereas women weren’t allowed to take charge of anything, and were portrayed as weak and impotent.
...en can understand the concepts of individualism, and they can probably understand it at a higher level than men, showing women's power and potential in society. Mama Elena and Rosaura are characterized as the traditional, suppressed Mexican women. Rosaura is mocked by Esquivel because she portrays her as the dumb sister that has no control whatsoever over her choices and that can't change, and think for herself for once.