“Experience! That’s what separates the girls from the girl scouts.” - Ryder
“Girls like me weren't built to be educated. We were made to have children. That's my ambition: to be a walking, talking baby factory. Legal, of course. And with union labor.” - Tuggle
“What can be more interpersonal than Backseat Bingo?” - Merritt
“Dean Caldwell, I-I'd say there were probably a half a million co-eds in this country. I imagine 98% of them are overly concerned with that problem. So in that respect I guess I'm fairly normal.” - Merritt
Merritt: "A little, yes. No girl enjoys being considered promiscuous, even those who might be."
George: "Now that's a pretty old-fangled notion, Merritt. Sex is no longer a matter of morals. That idea went out with the raccoon coat. Sex is part of personal relations."
1. Clearly, the gender roles in this movie are very defined and somewhat antiquated. One of the characters expresses her wish to be a “walking, talking baby factory,” and the boys in the film constantly gripe about girls. There’s a clear dichotomy between “good girls” and “promiscuous” ones, which is reiterated throughout the film. Despite this portrayal of women, however, there are parts of the movie that are arguably very feminist. Merritt’s speech at the beginning of the movie, while humorous, touches on some deep issues regarding female sexuality. Conversations throughout the film reexamine these questions very candidly, and we see the girls exploring their notions of sex and sexuality as the plot unravels. Do you see this movie as mostly sexist? Feminist? Neither?
2. In a conversation with Merritt, Ryder claims, “Experience! That’s what separates the girls from the girl scouts.” Do you think Esther would agree with this quote after her affair with Irwin?
3. Based on your own observations, what has changed in the past 57 years in terms of the way we teenagers talk about and think about sex? Are 98% of us still overly concerned with the problem of sex? Is promiscuity “an old-fangled notion,” or still a common epithet assigned to women?
1. Clearly, the gender roles in this movie are very defined and somewhat antiquated. One of the characters expresses her wish to be a “walking, talking baby factory,” and the boys in the film constantly gripe about girls. There’s a clear dichotomy between “good girls” and “promiscuous” ones, which is reiterated throughout the film. Despite this portrayal of women, however, there are parts of the movie that are arguably very feminist. Merritt’s speech at the beginning of the movie, while humorous, touches on some deep issues regarding female sexuality. Conversations throughout the film reexamine these questions very candidly, and we see the girls exploring their notions of sex and sexuality as the plot unravels. Do you see this movie as mostly sexist? Feminist? Neither?
2. In a conversation with Merritt, Ryder claims, “Experience! That’s what separates the girls from the girl scouts.” Do you think Esther would agree with this quote after her affair with Irwin?
3. Based on your own observations, what has changed in the past 57 years in terms of the way we teenagers talk about and think about sex? Are 98% of us still overly concerned with the problem of sex? Is promiscuity “an old-fangled notion,” or still a common epithet assigned to women?
Also, while finding these quotes, I found out that Dolores Hart, who portrays Merritt Andrews, later went on to become a nun and cut off contact with the outside world. Just a fun fact.
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ReplyDeleteThanks for that little fun fact, Emma. I was going to mention that in class. People lead such interesting, surprising lives sometimes.
ReplyDelete1. I find the movie confused in its investigation of sex and sexuality—which, in its defense, it is putting front and center and at least articulating the confusing nature that, as Plath points out, existed for Esther and other women in The Bell Jar. Merritt talks frankly about gender roles in her class, espousing a clearly liberal view of a woman's right to experience and experiment with sex before marriage. But from there she discovers experience is a much different case—and she doesn't know if she believes in what she said in class. Tuggle wants a chaste relationship; Melanie wants a well-connected husband and will do what she has to get one (with help from alcohol); and Angie just wants to be, it seems to me, desirable to a man. They strike me as archetypes of young women's positions in America at the time, of the ways women were taught to view the struggles within trying to figure out sex, desire, love, marriage, and self-worth and self-image. At the end, I think the movie takes a conservative—sexist, I guess—position. Merritt will wait, and so will Ryder. But at the same time, the movie is on the side of the young women; how Melanie is raped is treated as the horror it is—and crime, as Tuggle gives the cops the address of Willis (?)—and no matter how many times the characters say Melanie will be all right, the emotions the movie show all the women having to the rape (which struck me as very raw and real and unexpected given the movie it had been up to this point) says something else to me. Of course I'm reacting as a 21st century viewer. The movie seems to value the questions Merritt asks at the beginning and throughout the movie, but also cautions following through on them. Feminist, no; but I'm not totally convinced sexist.
2. I think Esther would agree. Esther certainly feels surer and more confident than she did before she had sex with Irwin. I think that Merritt is more conflicted than Esther is about being a "girl" or a "girl scout." Being a "good girl" matters more to her than she thought it would; more so perhaps than it did to Esther. But if Merritt doesn't make the same step toward experience that Esther did, she still makes a decision based on the experiences she had. I—we—may not like the conservatism of her decision, but she did so with knowledge of the world she didn't have back in college.
3. Well, talking as a beyond middle aged man (a fact Donna always reminds me of), I found myself thinking about being a teenager in the 1970s (I was 19 and a freshman in college in 1977), and at least in my experience, I would have to agree that there was a big preoccupation with sex; and promiscuity was not an old fashioned notion, particularly in high school. There was still the good girl/bad girl dichotomy; young women were very conscious of how they were seen based upon these labels; and girls who you heard weren't playing by the right rules were talked about behind their backs by boys and girls. The "free love" of the counterculture and 1960s didn't always make its way to small town America.
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ReplyDelete1. I think this movie was probably slightly feminist for its time. The ideas that sex shouldn’t define a woman and that women could be promiscuous were likely controversial. At least the movie shows that women can be intelligent, and it starts to introduce the possibility that virginity shouldn’t make or break a woman’s reputation. However, overall, this movie is incredibly sexist. I really enjoyed the movie. I thought it was funny and entertaining, but after thinking about it, I must admit that it simply is super sexist. The women are portrayed as only having one part of their life: marriage. Even if women of this time were extremely focused on marriage, they still had other issues that arose in their lives. I cannot recall a single time in this movie that women were talking to each other about something other than men or something that didn’t directly relate to men (it fails the Bechdel test). Even if truthfully their main goal in life was marriage, they still cared about having fun with each other, or schoolwork, or activities, or something! Their intelligence was presented as a fun quality for men- not something to truly be impressive or useful to them. They were judged almost completely on looks. The portrayal of men was also problematic. They were shown as sex obsessed. They only cared about getting these women in bed and really had no other depth of character beyond being smooth or silly.
ReplyDelete2. For Esther, her sexual “experience” s was important to her. I think in terms of the actual experience of having sex, there is a change in a person, but that isn’t what catalyzes the most major change. The literal experience varies for different people (depending on the situation). Losing virginity can feel very different to people depending on who it is with, what virginity means to someone, and the circumstances of their experience. So the simple act can have a changing effect. However, much of the time it seems like the real separation does not occur because of the literal learning of what sex is like, it happens because of the views of society. That “experience” of sex separates the girls from the girl scouts in the eyes of society, or in a person if they have internalized the perspective of society. I think Esther has internalized the perspective of society. She views herself differently because she has had sex, so I think to her, experience can separate the two. It doesn’t matter that she knows the physical feeling, that’s almost irrelevant. Now that she has been labeled as “not a virgin” she has been separated from “girl scouts” in the eyes of society and her own eyes.
3. This question is funny because it touches on one of my first thoughts about the movie. I have been on spring break with a bunch of girls at a beach before, and even though this movie is a bit dated, it truly captures a lot of my spring break experience with extreme accuracy (don’t take that too literally, we didn’t break that many rules!). I think that teenagers still are overly concerned with the issue of sex. This movie dramatizes it to the point that we literally never see them think about anything else, whereas in real life, even if you think about it a lot, you still think about a whole lot of other things. However, to an extent this movie is correct. Our culture and society still emphasize the “importance” of being attractive to the opposite sex very heavily, and this causes teens to be very concerned with that. Promiscuity remains a stigma causing topic for women. It has changed from the time of this movie, but it still exists. Derogatory words for promiscuous females are still much more taboo and hurtful than words of similar meaning directed at men. However, nowadays the expectation of virginity until marriage has been drastically reduced, and promiscuity is defined in a different way.
1. I think I see this movie as neither sexist nor feminist. After all, the whole premise of the movie is that these women need men in their lives (perhaps they need men to be considered true women), which is not a feminist notion. This notion, to me, seems pretty engrained in the movie. Even if the women do have more progressive ideas about sex (like Merritt expresses at the beginning of the movie), they still ultimately feel as though they need a man in their life (although I could be misinterpreting something). I also think that wanting a relationship or a husband is different from believing that you need one, and I think the latter is what these characters feel. I also remember one comment that Tuggle makes about starting a family, and the breeziness with which she addressed not needing an education in order to do this. She says something about how her mind was not made for school. This comment stuck out to me because I didn’t feel like the movie was being ironic or satirical, it was echoing the mentality of that time – that women could not have both careers and families (while men could). On the other hand, the characters seem to have progressive views about premarital sex. And I think Melanie’s rape scene is not to be brushed off and is to be taken seriously by the audience, especially considering Merritt’s response and her exhaustion with women being treated as men’s playthings. I think this scene is what dampens the movie’s ending and lends it a more serious note.
ReplyDelete2. I think Esther would agree with Ryder’s statement. I think her opinion on this is part of what prompted her desire to lose her virginity, but I also prompted her disgust for it. Esther realized that having these experiences would change her but that change has both negative and positive aspects. I think Esther likes the idea that experience can, literally, make you more experienced, but she disliked the thought of becoming more impure (and she applied this last negative connotation especially to Buddy and other characters in the novel).
3. I still think that women, especially, face a really tough double standard when it comes to sex. Girls – teenage girls - are considered sluts or prudes, with very little in between (both these words also have negative connotations). There’s no wiggle room to just go out and have experiences without it being judged by society, or being labelled or put into a box. I can’t say for certain, but I do think that this judgment isn’t nearly as intense for boys. I think the ideas behind pre-marital sex for women are less strict now than they once were. In my experience at least, the judgment isn’t about women having sex before marriage, but rather how much sex they have (but this could very much have to do with the before-marriage part). I do think that overall teenagers are very conscious about sex, in part because I think it’s a big part of our culture. I think that sex has been almost magnified in our society, it’s a big deal when you lose your virginity but it’s equally as big a deal if you haven’t yet. But at the same time, I don’t think it consumes most teenagers’ lives.
1. I think that it's a little outdated (which would make sense, considering when it was made) because the issue of relationships is so clearly defined and intense, whereas modern issues tend to feel more varied, less intense, but much slipperier (harder to pin down and discuss, rather than an elephant in the room) - but overall I'd say it was a very feminist movie, ESPECIALLY considering the time period. It started off introducing the idea of women having sex before marriage, and throughout the film depicted the concerns of women looking for a man. There were two scenes that focused on the issue of marriage that tackled the issue well: the first, when Tuggle said she wanted her occupation to be a baby factory, and the second showing Thomson and Ryder griping how women can only think about marriage, when really relationships are about sex. It recognized that for men at the time sex and relationships and marriage were only one facet of their lives, while for women in the same period, sex was marriage, and your marriage was your career - your marriage was your entire future. The film then deals with the horrific aspects of male-female relationships when Melanie is attacked - the men stand awkwardly in the hospital, looking strangely cowed as the women cry, and yell, "Have you men any good [men], lately?!" The fact that this movie brought such issues to the surface, rather than being two hours of light-hearted flirting with a fairy-tale happy ending, is what really makes it a feminist movie for me.
ReplyDelete2. I think Esther would agree because of her own experience with virginity and her sexuality - or, rather, the importance she placed in it. Her experience with Irwin was transformative for her only because of her own feelings about sex. She thought of it as a milestone - first, its absence was the basis of her "purity," and then when she did have sex, it was her becoming part of a great tradition. I'd argue that sexual experience in of itself isn't nearly as defining or definite as many people seem to think, but rather the fact that people THINK it's important is what causes people to define "girls" and "girl scouts." (I also find it interesting that Ryder defined the two "categories" as "girls" and "girl scouts," rather than "girls" and "women." I think women here are being infantilized; regardless of experience or lack-there-of, he still refers to them as "girls.")
3. The social expectations surrounding the matter have been drastically relaxed to the point that "saving yourself for marriage" seems nearly unheard of in modern America. Whenever I've had adults talk to me about sex it has always been centered around being safe and smart about it - a far cry from the teacher in Where The Boys Are sending Merritt to the Dean's office for even mentioning such a thing. That said, I also understand that sex education is not everyone's reality; there are many communities in the US that would gawk at the very mention of female sexuality. I think the compulsion that people have to divide women into categories based on their sexual experiences and availability (the dichotomies of "prude" and "slut," and of "virgin" and "de-flowered") is proof to me that we still have a long way to go. It's no longer forbidden, but it's extremely stigmatized; no matter what a girl does or does not do, her very existence seems to permit public scrutiny and judgement.
1. I definitely do not see this movie as a feminist movie. That may be because of who I am and the world I live in now and how that is different from the world in which the movie was created. Whatever the reasons, in my opinion the movie is not feminist. Women are portrayed as sexual objects for the entire film: we begin with a college course about marriage and how to be a good wife; half of the film is women in bathing suits on the beach; most of the female characters have no substance and spend the entire film trying to get a guy; and the film seems to look down upon sexual freedom for a woman. I did not dislike this film—despite my negative impressions at the beginning it turned out to grapple with some real issues. Those issues—rape, sexual freedom, independence—are female issues and arguably feminist issues. However, I don’t think that the film was arguing a feminist perspective. It condemns rape, but it also portrays a woman who has been raped, who has had sex at all, as dirty and undesirable to men. Merritt’s speech at the beginning of the movie seems feminist but she does not act upon what she professes to believe in (I’m not saying that she should have had sex with Ryder, but she seemed to not want to because of societal pressures, not because she didn’t love him). At the end of the movie, I did not get a sense that these women would have been content to just study and enjoy being single and independent, but would continue looking for a man until they got married and were fulfilled by their lack of responsibility because a man would own them.
ReplyDelete2. I do. Esther sleeps with Irwin because she wants experience. After the sex, she feels more confident. She is in a better mental state, good enough to leave the hospital (I think we at least managed to agree on that). However, I think that in the movie Merritt was not quite as open to this idea. She did not choose experience, and it is not suggested by the film that she should have (at least I don’t think so). Esther has a wisdom that Merritt does not because of her experience.
3. I have had a unique experience, I think, because my parents work in HIV/AIDS prevention. So I grew up discussing sex at the dinner table. I am fairly comfortable talking about sex, and I think most of my peers are as well. We still think about sex probably just as much as the people in the movie do (well, maybe not quite as much…), but we do not think of it as a dirty, forbidden thing. However, promiscuity is still a negative label that women are given. “Slut” and “whore” are derogatory terms that are also fairly common terms. But at the same time, women are considered “prude” if they are virgins. Now, we are not forbidden from having sex before marriage, but we can’t have too much sex or too little sex.
I think this is a movie that we need to view in its historical context. Yes, the almost comical emphasis on a woman/girl's need to find a man and Tuggle's desire to be a baby factory seem conservative even for the early sixties, but it isn't far off. In The Bell Jar, Esther feels similar pressures to marry Buddy, and my own grandmother first married when she was 19(although this was in 1948). The lens the movie gives us seems steeped in traditional gender roles, but the themes and questions the movie has and asks are forward thinking. It critiques the poor sex ed in the higher education system and shows the psychological effects of rape. In all conscious aspects, it seems more feminist than not feminist.
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. Esther seemed to treat sex with Irwin as just another box she needed to check off in order get one up on Buddy Willard. Esther didn't even dwell on the experience much past her comment on “joining the ancient tradition.” Esther seems to me completely disinterested in “experience,” she didn't care about kissing Buddy and she didn't really care about having sex with Irwin. It is possible that Esther would agree with this sentiment, for if she did feel strongly that somehow having sex and “joining the ancient tradition” made her a new woman, then she would.
I don't think there is much debate over whether or not should or should not have sex before marriage. Most people do. And if a person doesn't want to, that is their decision, and other people should respect it. The feminist movements have done a great deal to change sex from another part of marriage to something that each individual has control over throughout their married and unmarried lives.
Promiscuity? Unfortunately, a lot of people still call women “sluts” and “whores” if they happen to get around. Maybe it isn't so much of a stigma as it used to be, but there are still pernicious comments that float about. I think most people, however, don't care.
1. In this movie, we see an argument for a more conservative approach to sex and to gender. Initially, Merritt puts forth some rather progressive ideas for her time, but the story we see tries to disprove her. Melanie, who decides Merritt was right, is ultimately raped. Meanwhile, Tuggle, who is a "good girl" ultimately wins TV back from Lola, who is in no subtle way implied to be promiscuous. Merritt, who was the first to put forward the idea of it being okay for girls to have premarital sex, ultimately finds love through abstinence with Ryder. Not only does it have a conservative outlook on sex, but this movie shows strict gender roles. Though it shows smart young women, particularly in Merritt, they have limits put on them. Merritt has an IQ of 138, and still she struggles with school. Tuggle even says she wasn't made for education. Also, though Merritt has a 138, Ryder has a 140. We see the movie's opinion on the role of women demonstrated clearly in the relationship between Angie and Basil, particularly after his glasses break. He needs her to guide him. The movie states that men would be lost without women, and that women have an important role in society. That said, it shows a world in which that important role is just to support men. The movie tells us at the beginning why there are women here: "It's where the boys are".
ReplyDelete2. Yes. Just relating to sex, Esther definitively sees a change in herself after sleeping with Irwin. Outside of sex, she also talks about how her experiences under the bell jar have changed her, and that will never go away. Quite simply, experiences change you. She would agree.
3. In some ways, not a whole lot. There are a few changes I do see. Mainly, I can only think of one teenager who I know firmly believed premarital sex was unhealthy. The idea of "saving yourself" is all but obsolete. People are certainly still concerned with the problem of sex. You do still hear people called "slut" or "whore". That said, sex generally and casual sex in particular is definitely more acceptable.
1. I viewed this movie as really feminist because of how it seemed to deliberately focus on how unfair the world was for the main characters and for women as a whole. The movie was clearly promoting the idea that women should be as free to express their sexuality as men are. It started with the scene at the college which to me had the main purpose of showing us how sexist the world was and how it was also changing at the same time. The teacher looked old and weak and the students seemed young and powerful. Each of the individual characters’ situations at the beach deliberately seemed to highlight the issues that women face in this sexist society. I viewed the line about becoming a baby factory as a line that was meant to show how messed up the world was for these women. And Melanie’s collapse at the end did not seem like a collapse that would have much of a place in a movie that was not trying to be feminist. I thought this movie was feminist in a way that was similar to the way in which The Bell Jar was feminist. I could be completely wrong about all this because this movie was made in a time where it might not be seen as feminist at all but promoting the current societal values towards sex and women.
ReplyDelete2. I’m pretty sure Esther would agree with what Ryder said because she definitely views losing your virginity as something that separates people into two very distinct groups. She believes strongly in this herself and she also thinks that her society believes in this. Right before Irwin has sex with her, Esther says, “I lay, rapt and naked, on Irwin’s rough blanket, waiting for the miraculous change to make itself felt.” (229) This change is miraculous, it is magical, she has an almost irrational belief that she will become an entirely different person the moment she loses her virginity.
3. I think a lot has changed in the 57 years since this movie was made with how we think about sex. Marriage is no longer tied to sex like it was back in 1960. However, I think the views towards female sexuality have been slower to change and women are still judged in a similar, though maybe less extreme way to the movie.
1) I think this movie is satirical. I agree with John in that the movie gets confused in its criticism’s, but it definitely does try. This movie came out in 1960, and it seems to be very progressive for that time period. The movie definitely tries to question gender norms and sexist ideas. Most of the work was done in the opening classroom scene with Merit, and the rest of the movie just seems to play off of that. I think I the end this movie suffers from its time period. In 1960, you could probably only go so far in your criticisms of patriarchy before it was unacceptable. All things considered, I will label this movie feminist. Not 2017 feminist - 1960 feminist. Not Elizabeth Warren feminist; Betty Friedan kind of feminist. This movie does have a “The Feminine Mystique” quality to it. The movie wants to challenge stereotypes, but doesn't really know where to go. But just like the Feminine Mystique, they didn't know what to fix/criticize, just that something was wrong, whatever that thing was. As a result, the movie poses a lot of question but never really gives any answers. It seems content just making satirical relationship and sex jokes, which it does it really good job with. But when the movie tries to tackle a more serious issue, like the one with Melanie, it falls flat in the end.
ReplyDelete2) Very interesting question. I think Esther would mostly agree. She definitely feels more sure of herself after losing her virginity, even after suffering from the hemorrhage. Whether she would agree with the “Girls to Girl Scout” analogy, I'm not sure. That seems like the kind of corny metaphor that Esther would be quick to make fun of. A lot of Merritt and Ryder’s conversations reminded me of how Esther would interact with men. Esther never hesitated to get down to the dirty questions. She'd ask directly about affairs the men had, almost without hesitation. Ryder and Merritt also talked about some serious stuff, even though they had only known each other for a day.
3) In some ways our time period is exactly the same, and in some ways we have moved past it. It is way more culturally acceptable to have sex before marriage, even among a lot of Christian communities (less catholic, more so baptist). In some areas it's almost expected teenagers will lose their virginity in high school, as schools have moved more towards safe sex education. Having sex is a much less threat to your innocence, purity, and marriage potential than it used to be. Sex in general is much more open and accepted. While women and men are generally equal on the sex battlefield, I would say there's still a huge difference between how we view women who have a lot of sex, and men who have a lot of sex (younger people specifically). Way to often are women labeled sluts, while men are studs. Women still have a lot more to deal with when having sex, as well. Their virginity is taken a lot more serious; there is a lot more danger and risk (pregnancy, first-time pain, etc.). I think they're expected to have less sex in general compared to men, which isn't fair to them, either. Most of these questions apply mainly to our teenage and college years as we start moving towards marriage.
1. I don’t this this movie was particularly sexist, if anything I thought it had some feminist qualities about it, but I also had my issues with the fact that all of the girls’ vacations were centered around meeting a man. I get that was the point, and perhaps it was trying to draw attention to the absurdity of it all, but the fact that the “happily ever after” of the movie was each girl (except for Melanie) finding the perfect guy didn’t sit well with me, especially in the case of Angie and how her prince charming had to be blind to be attracted to her. And, honestly, even with Melanie, it was her father that she cried out for, her father who could save her. That irritated me to no end. Then there was Tuggle, so quick to settle and so quick to forgive—that relationship is in for some issues. I even had problems with Merritt. I mean, one of the main appeals of Merritt to Ryder was that she was different from other girls, and how was she different? She didn’t put out. What if she had wanted to sleep with him? Would it have been so wrong for her to give in to whatever sexual inclinations she might have had? Would she have become like Melanie?
ReplyDelete2. No. I don’t think Esther would agree because her having sex with Irwin was not some solitary act of independence and maturity. So much time and therapy went in to Esther being able to have sex. If she had done it with Constantin, I don’t think it would have made her any better in the head. Just experience alone is not enough to become wise and adult; you must also be able to stop for a moment and reflect on those experiences. Esther was not healed because of sex; she was healed because of her relationship with Dr. Nolan. Just look at Melanie.
3. I think sex in the case of female sexuality is still a big issue. Slut shaming hasn’t gone away and neither has notion of purity and chastity equaling one another. Sex is still so dirty, or at least that’s what it seems to me. I think, though, that people recognize female sexuality more now, and that there’s sort of an active effort to change the way we view it. I can’t actually say any of this with much certainty, however, because most of my information comes from movies and tv shows, which have their own problems concerning the acknowledgement of female sexuality. I also think that the different parts of the world treat sex in ways the US just can’t quite fathom yet. Take Scandinavia, we had to watch a documentary in ninth grade about how parents talk to their children about sex there versus here, and over there they seemed much, I don’t know, like realistic about the inevitable. Sex isn’t just some dirty secret, nor is it a sacred rite of passage. It’s just something that’s bound to happen.
1. I think that this movie is hard to define as sexist or not sexist, because of the stance it takes on love.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is important to acknowledge that the film does espouse liberal views, like withTuggle's dilemma with TV shows how the movie does undermine -- slightly -- sexist currents, showing how men thinking that they can do whatever they want without hurting women is complete bs. Melanie's rape, too, shows the seedy underbelly of patriarchy. But at the same time, the film shows women as fully buying into the Victorian mindset - that their sole purpose in life is to find a husband and have children. Tuggle and Connie's willingness to settle with anyone, and Merritt even being willing to have sex with someone before marriage just to stay in their favor all show women completely surrounded by the system. Except - then there's the problem of love. Because if you're like Merritt, it seems like you love Hamilton. Does it make it worth buying into the system then?
2. No, not at all. I think Esther sees sex as something to get out of the way, something she has to do to get on with her life. While she does await for a transformation to occur, she knows that she isn't any different after sex. She simply sees it as an item to check off her list.
3. Definitely an issue - we slut shame girls all the time. We ask girls, especially young girls, to be as sexy as possible, bombarding them with advertisements about how they should look. They are constantly struggling between being called a tease or a slut - there's no real way out. Guys get kudos from their friends when they have sex, girls get shamed for it.
1. I didn't see it as either. I just think it was a product of its time. There were definitely elements of the movie that were sexist/feminist, but I don't think the intention of the movie was to explore this. I think the movie was more a story about young people in love and the trials and tribulations we go to to find the one we want to be with.
ReplyDelete2. Most definitely. The reason she has sex is so that she can be apart of some "great tradition." Esther distinguishes herself from other women because she doesn't want or aspire for the same things. Once she has sex with Irwin she's finally able to connect with other women in a way she never has before essentially making her one of them. We also see Esther constantly putting other people down because she doesn't see herself as able to achieve the same thing. She denounces their lifestyle and finds a way to make them see inadequate because she doesn't feel like she can relate.
3. I think sex is a lot less taboo. People talk about it freely and even encourage others to have sex. I think that there are still people who shame others and make them feel bad for being too promiscuous, but I don't think that this is seen as commonly. I think especially with programs like Planned Parenthood were able to overcome this stigma and to integrate younger generations into them in an attempt to make the conversation flow more easily. While everything feels more progressive than not, a double standard still exists and it's still sometimes apparent that women and men aren't seen as equals.
1. I don't see this movie as a being sexist, but it isn't what I would call a feminist film today. It was probably intended to be a feminist film with many of Merritt's scenes challenging the status-quo. I thought the movie used Merritt's views on female sexuality as a driving force being with her rant in class and really cementing it with her relationship with Ryder. There were quite a few instances in the film that contradicted what Merritt was saying which makes it hard for me to except it as a feminist film.
ReplyDelete2. I think this was part of Esther's idea of what losing your virginity meant. She wanted to lose her virginity for so long that I hardly think it was only to know what it would be like. There was a goal and though she might've had more than one reason, I think this was definently a big factor. Even after the fact, she said something along the lines of feeling like she was apart of this group of women who came before her. I can only take that to mean that she felt like she crossed over from being a girl to being a woman.
3. I think teenagers are still concerned with sex but I don't think it's to the extent of the teens in the film. That stigma of sex before marriage is slowly fading away which in turn takes away the mysteriousness of sex. I don't think there are as many teens that are “overly concerned” with sex or even that they're even “overly” concerned with it. As for promiscuity, women are still very much affected by being labeled as so but its definently impovedd since the 60s.