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.