Warriors and Battles

A remake of Homer's "The Iliad," the movie Troy takes place during the Bronze Age. The Prince of Troy, Paris, won over Helen's heart and took her from her throne as Queen of Sparta. Her husband Menelaus could not believe what had happened and wanted to set sail for Troy to win her back. His brother, who he asks for help, takes the situation as an opportunity to gain power of Troy. As Menelaus, his brother, the Spartans and the Greeks head for Troy, they ask for help from Achilles, one of the finest warriors at the time.
Achilles, although very popular for his nearly immortal strength, he is portrayed as a womanizer. The hero in most of the Greek and Roman war stories is usually given this trait as a man who loves to sleep with women and doesn't really have much emotion towards them other than lust. While it may have been the lifestyle of some heroes in history, I'm sure it's not completely true for all of them. Giving Achilles this trait also says that women are more attracted to the hero just because of his popularity, or in this case his looks also. Once again, I doubt that every woman would want to be sleeping with Achilles just because of his social status.

Step Brothers

Step Brothers, starring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, is a film about a family of four, a wife, a husband, and two grown kids. Nancy (the wife) and Robert (the husband) met each other at a convention and hit it off immediately. Coincidentally, Nancy had a 39 year old son who still lived at home and Robert had a 40 year old son who still lived at home. They all end up moving in together and all hell breaks loose.
Immediately after Nancy and Brennan (Will Ferrell) move into Robert and Dale's (John C. Reilly) home, Brennan and Dale are at each others throats. Dale feels like Brennan is going to take over his home and change everything he is used to. Dale is always on Brennan's case about obeying the house rules and staying away from his things. Finally Brennan gets tired of being bossed around and messes around with Dale's drum set. They end up getting into a huge physical fight and destroy most of the room. Before too long, they take it outside while all the neighbors are watching them throw each other across the lawn and trying to hit each other with bicycles and anything else they can find. The writers are saying that men are more likely to express their emotions, in this case anger, through physical expression rather than talking out the situation. It appears in many movies and seems to be very common among writers. It can be considered to be what is socially acceptable, similar to Fight Club.

Coach

I'm sure there are a lot of people who have seen the movie Coach Carter which stars Samuel L. Jackson. I have seen it once before when it was released in 2005, but have never thought about the gender issues that are scattered throughout the movie. The relationship between Kenyon and Kyra stood out the most as a gender related issue. Kenyon is a high school student athlete trying to make a future for himself, while Kyra does not know what she wants to do with her life except have a baby and start a family. The writers of the film believe that young women are indecisive about education after high school and are anxious to have kids. I cannot agree with this statement because women are fighting to be treated as equals in the work place. More women these days are working to create futures for themselves by not depending on men to support them and getting respectable jobs. In today's business world, women are bosses, managers, and CEOs, as opposed to many years ago when they were expected to stay home and take care of the family and household.

Chuck Norris says it all

I woke up this morning to an episode of Walker Texas Ranger called "Lucas", a show I haven't seen since I was in elementary school. The episode is about a young boy named Lucas, who was locked in a room by his mom's boyfriend as the couple fled the house when they heard the police would be coming soon. They find the boy in a cluttered room with pots of food that have been infested with bugs and rats along with multiple syringes and drug paraphernalia. After being in the hospital and taking a few tests, they discover that Lucas has AIDS. Rather than allow Lucas to be taken into foster care, since his mother is obviously incapable of taking care of him, Walker takes him into his custody and chooses to raise him the best he can. Towards the end of the episode, the boyfriend finds the boy staying with Walker and tries to get an access pass from him for a savings or something of the sort. Sure enough, as Chuck Norris does, he comes out of his bedroom and beats the boyfriend to a pulp. Like the title says, "Chuck Norris says it all." By the end of the episode, Lucas' T-cell count becomes very low to the point where he gets extremely ill, and passes away.
The biggest gender issue that I noticed had to do with the mother and her addiction to drugs. Lately, I have noticed that a lot of television shows and movies depict males to be the drunks and drug abusers. Pineapple Express, although one of the most ridiculous and funniest movies I have ever seen, goes along with the belief that only males abuse drugs. From personal experiences, I can assure that there is no way to define someone who abuses drugs or alcohol. Young, old, rich, poor, short, and tall; they are all different. Just because someone is born looking a certain way does not define their future. This episode was out of the ordinary because the woman was the drug abuser revealing to the audience that not everyone has to be stereotyped.

Condemned

Thursday afternoon rolled around pretty fast, and I realized that I had forgotten to write blog for this week. I ended up running up and down the halls looking for a good movie that I could watch for this week's post. I came across a movie in my friend's room called "The Condemned," and thought it would be a scary movie about ghosts or vampires, or at least something like that. The second the movie started playing, I had no doubt that I was completely wrong about my initial impression of the title. The movie is about a group of convicts who are gathered together from all over the world by a rich producer who creates a show where convicts have to survive on an island with other inmates. The only catch to the show is that they are required to hunt and kill each other, because the last one surviving after 30 hours will their earn freedom and a pocketful of cash. IF they choose not to hunt each other down, the bombs that have veen strapped to their ankles will be set off.
Throughout the movie there are not many obvious references to gender. The only two that I observed are the scenes where Conrad (Steve Austin) is in prison and the frame is showing his wife at home while she is cooking and taking care of the kids. The other repeats itself consistentily in the film and is the idea that men are superior to women. All of the women, except Conrad's wife, are physically and verbally abused in nearly every scene. One of the women who gets killed is a convict, and rather than help her when she was stuck inside a burning building, the other just let her die. Also, the producer gets upset one of his employees and slaps her in the face. Even though I could not find many examples of gender related issues, the ones I did find are common and can be found in many movies.

Family Guy

Recently I was watching an episode of Family Guy from season 6 and noticed that even shows with crude humor can have subtle references to the way people see women. The plot revolves around Stewie reuniting with his ex-girlfriend Olivia, and even though they are still babies in the show they manage to get married. Everything goes well at first until Olivia's newly acquired Hollywood attitude comes into play. Stewie does not like Olivia's friends and they end up fighting all the time and possibly get divorced, the episode does not run long enough to really figure it out.
During the episode, and while they are still married, Stewie comes home to his wife Olivia who has been cleaning their cardboard box "home" and making dinner. Under his breath he mentions, "Oh that's what we ate last night, and the night before that also." That line in the episode makes it seem like all wives who stay at home always end up doing the same thing. It also gives the impression that women are supposed to stay home and take care of the household. I disagree with that, especially with today's economy. I feel it is just as important for a woman to work as much as a man, not only does it bring more of an income home and can provide a better living, it can also relieve stress for both parties because one person will not have to work harder to compensate for the other not working at all.

Lakeview Terrace

Lakeview Terrace, released in 2008, stars Samuel L. Jackson, Patrick Wilson, and Kerry Washington. Throughout the film, there are several themes and references to issues that have been present in our country. For example, good cop-bad cop and a reference to Rodney King's "Why Can't We All Just Get Along?" Although it is obvious that Jackson's character, Abel Turner, doesn't approve of the interracial marriage between Chris and Lisa Mattson, played by Wilson and Washington, it can also be argued that the movie is saying that a male is incapable of raising kids properly on his own. Mr. Turner gives his two kids strict rules and keeps them on a short leash. At one point in the movie, he even hits his fifteen year old daughter. Just because it can be hard to raise children as a single parent, it doesn't mean that a single father is less capable of taking care of children than a single mother.