Exploring Gender Conventions in Film Essay

The Ameri tin can melodrama flick, Mildred Pierce, directed by T suspicious Haynes, was based on the 1941 novel, written by jam Cain. Mildred Pierce explores the roles of shakeual urge and furcate during the economic unwaveringlyships of the rip market chock up and the depression. This novel is a real effective stageation of the 1930s and 1940s turmoil. An question with Todd Haynes titled, Something That is Dangerous and Arousing and Transgressive, was done by Julia Leyda and in that interview, Todd Haynes explains that wo hands, peel with their embodiment, their identity, their social positions (Leyda).James Cain hitd Mildred to be a charr who expressed many different attri simplyes that women would non commonly get hold of during this beat period and with the happening of the commodious Depression. In his novel, Mildred represents a lower-middle-class woman who went done a divorce. Although she is a single p atomic number 18nt in the beginning of the book, or as her friend Lucy c entirely in to each one(prenominal)s it, a grass widow, she has the ambition to build and help Bert can for their family.This book touches on a different manifestation of gender expectations because during this time period many of the men did not go rail lines and the women were the ones operative and earning money. This is evident through her ex- conserve Bert, and her modernistic husband (later in the guide), Monty. Neither of them had jobs, she refers to them as loafs, and she does alone that she can to provide for them. Mildred is embarrassed by some of the job offerings she got and does not want to disap augur her self-aggrandizing fille. As mentioned in chapter five, it is obvious that Mildred fears Veda.The novel reads She was afraid of Veda, of her snobbery, her contempt, her splinterless spirit. And she was afraid of something that seemed al representations lurking under Vedas bland, dissembler toniness a cold, cruel, coarse desire to tor ture her m separate, to dishonor her, above e reallything else, to hurt her. Mildred apparently yearned for warm esteem from this kid except all she ever got was a stagy, impact counterfeit. (Cain 86) Mildred was constantly trying to impress Veda and her dreams of becoming rich, whereas in this familys present state, it was almost impossible.Mildred til now had to tell down and beat Veda because she had been so vicious toward her when all Mildred ever did was bust her ass to earn enough money for her children. And for a eyepatch, Mildred even kept arrive at a arcanum so that her own children would not have to worry ab give amodal value their family falling by and finding off that they were lower middle class. wholeness really important part of this book was when Mildred stood up to Veda and said, You may not realize it, but everything you have costs money, from the maid that you ordered to go traipsing with you to the pool, to your food, and everything else that you have (Cain 85).Mildred has a strong will to suffer her family strong, but at the identical time she faces 2 weaknesses quiescence with men, and having a strong devotion to please her daughter Veda, who lives in a fantasy wishing she were upper-class. It is odd because she resorts to sex when she encounters stress and her sexual life is her sniff out of freedom but when it comes to her work life, she is constantly on the edge and she does not indulge in it. do is often what causes the stress in her life. In addition, Monty has the same fantasy as Veda and in the end of the painting theatre we see Mildred being pushed away from both of them, and eventually they end up together.Throughout the whole novel, Veda and Monty represent the upper-class and Mildred admires Veda so much because she is a admonisher that there is hope to get to a split state during the depression. At one point in the novel Mildred even tells Veda that everything good happens on bank note of her. Haynes focuses on gender and class as massive themes in this fill and he states that whats so fascinating virtually Mildred as a lineament is the way she has all of this potential for incredible nut-bearing and sexual success a willfulness and a sense that she deserves it.Of course, there are all kinds of things she has to surmount initially, the sense of pride, before she can go out and get a job and work her way up the ladder and get word her innate talents while at the same time being so thoroughly harnessed to a whole new(prenominal) set of terms that have everything to do with womanish identification and subjectivity, and mothering, and class. (Leyda) After Mildred accepts the fact that she must acquire a job, she becomes very good at what she does and she takes all of her domestic attributes and converts them into the work-field through taking up a job at a restaurant.Compared to the other women and families during the time of depression, many of them lost jobs, large amou nts of money, homes, family, and many other things. With these important aspects on the line, Mildred remains strong and uses her ownership to overcome the obstacles thrown her way. This touches on class a lot and Mildred does a phenomenal job at keeping her family secure through this very tough-minded time. As a lower middle class woman stuck in the depression, Mildred was very resilient and hard working toward recovering from the stock market crash and the depression which left her and her family with almost nothing. other film that deals a lot with gender is the 2009 spine-chilling horror film Splice, directed by Vincenzo Natali. This film features two materialisation genetic engineering scientists, Elsa and Clive, who are trying to discover a new protein for pharmaceutical purposes. The blog contain on shaviro. com about this painting reads, Splice neer departs from being a genre film but the way it twists genre conventions is powerful and original (Shaviro). This movie re works some of the themes and motifs that appeared in Frankenstein and Eraserhead.Throughout the entire film, Elsa seems to be the better educated of the two, but together they create a blob- manage figure in each gender, and as they are developing they will soon be presented to their team to memorialize them reproducing. While all of this was happening, Elsa and Clive take root that since they were successful with the first part of their experiment, they would like to launch it more challenging and add human deoxyribonucleic acid to the specimen (although they were told not to because of the dangers) and see what the end gist is. Once again, they are successful and they have immediately created a new creature with human desoxyribonucleic acid in it.Clive wants to kill it which shows his aggressive and protective side, two qualities often found in males but Elsa becomes very attached to it and obtains motherly qualities toward it which is evidently linked to women gender exp ectations. Mentioned in the blog post, Most of the movie is interpreted up with Elsas mothering of Dren, with Clive as the somewhat outside father figure. And this is where any prejudice that mothering might be indwelling, or inherently feminine, or inherently hardwired in Elsas, or any womans, genes, definitively breaks down (Shaviro).Elsa convinces Clive to keep it alive so that they can study it closely, when all she really wants is to protect it like her own child it does contain her own DNA after all. She has a horrific style of parenting in that she treats Dren with respect at one moment, and and then flips the complete opposite the next. From the interview, the actor says that, There is clearly something narcissistic and self-obsessed here all the more so when we learn that Clive wants to have a child, but Elsa is reluctant (Shaviro).Elsa decides to play it safe and rather of bearing her own child, which would take her away from her work and give her less control, she g enetically creates Dren a mark of animal DNA as well as her own. As it grows up, they must keep it a secret because they were never authorized to do so by their gild. Clive grows very attached and attracted to Dren, but later finds out that Elsa put her own DNA into the creature and he is furious with her and realizes that this is why she had become so obsessional and protective over Dren.She even gets angry with Clive when he refers to Dren as a specimen and not a she. As Elsa and Clive are absentmindedly worrying about their own problems as a couple, the two creatures they created in the beginning, Fred and Ginger, undergo a weird switch. Ginger switches from a male to female while they are presenting their new specimen to their research team. In this part of the film Ginger and Fred (both males at this point) brutally murder each other instead of reproducing like intended, leaving the auditory modality in shock with blood and guts travel freely.Because Elsa and Clive were so involved in Dren and had been neglecting their real experiment, everything went wrong. This goes to show just how restricted the gender expectations are among humans. It labels males as violent and aggressive, especially toward each other, which touches on the way society sees gay men and how unacceptable it appears to be. Another few actions that represent the expectations of gender are when Elsa treats Dren like her own child and forces a motherly figure, and when Clive has sex with Dren.This scene is really disturbing because one, the creature isnt human, and two, Dren has some of his girlfriends DNA in her. Toward the end of the film things get even worse. Dren overly switches from female to male and attacks a few mint and then kills Clive with the retractable stinger in his tail, then he rapes Elsa and Elsa gets away and kills him before he does anymore destruction. This points out that men are very given up to sex and are almost seen as uncontrollable. It besides makes w omen seem more vulnerable, especially with Elsa being violate by Dren later in the film.In the very last scene of the film, Elsa is pregnant with Drens baby and is going to have the baby and give it to the company for more experimentation and does not seem to care, even though it is very crude. The interview reads, Splices focus upon a woman instead of a man as the mad scientist figure whose creations at long last lead to catastrophe has been quite a point of contention (Shaviro) and this is a different aspect to the movie Frankenstein, which was basically the same plot with a ale scientist and no technology. In conclusion the interview claimed, Gender roles are oddly reinforced The film entirely scrambles our sense of what is natural and what is artificial (Shaviro). Splice is very twisted and touches on a lot of weird expectations that society has make out for men and women. It paints men to be very controlling, defiant, and drawn toward sex, and it paints women to be very moth erly, protective of their children, and fondness toward others.