Manipulation and sex

When Andie walks into Ben's apartment she immediately asks where his bathroom is so she can do the "girly" thing of scoping out his toiletries while she calls a friend to update her on what her next move will be. Within minutes of this scene Andie portrays a couple feminine attributes of being nosy and constantly need to be on the phone. In this conversation Andie tells her friend that the is going to "dangle the bait out for him". In this sentence she objectifies herself making herself just some bait, the means for an end to get the guy. She is also portraying another female characteristic of being manipulative by using sex or the possibility of sex to get her way.

Outside of the bathroom Ben is putting on Nelly's "Hot in Herre" and lighting candles to set the mood. He soon changes the music and blows out the candles when he realizes that "a diamond is a long term relationship". He needs to win over his diamond by more than just making her feel like another score so he decides to win his diamond over so he can win his diamond contract. Both try to use or not use sex in order to keep the other interested which is often portrayed in pop culture. By the end of the scene each want to ignore their previous decision and let go, however Andie leaves before things go too far and continues with her plan to draw him in by leaving her purse behind showing that she always kept her manipulative plot in mind the whole time.

Couples Therapy

This movie is definitely the typical romantic comedy, however, it does have a bit of twist. Instead of the guy being the macho, bachelor man he is the one who is "looking for love." While she is trying to ditch the guy in 10 days. The scene when Ben and Andie go to couples' therapy does show two different extremes of men and women. He becomes the extreme man who feels the need to prove his masculinity, while she feels the need to know that he wants a serious commitment.
Andie seems to have multiple personalities and is the control freak girlfriend who is only satisfied at the idea of meeting his family. The two almost reverse what they are trying to do until the end of the session. In the beginning, Andie wants to fix the relationship,while Ben seems to try and push her away, the typical male/female roles in a romantic comedy. Then the "shrink" suggests a family weekend and all of sudden the roles are back to what they were trying to do in the first place, Ben trying to make Andie fall in love with him and Andie hesitant toward too much closeness.
Couples' therapy shows extremes to both ends of the masculine and feminine sides going from macho man to commitment man, and commitment girl to the girl afraid of commitment.

Snow White...Mommy Syndrome

To be quiet honest, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was never one of my favorite movies. It took me three sittings to finish it....the first time I fell asleep after the dwarfs returned home. Still not one of my favorite movies, but it did a great job giving the stereotypical thought of a young lady at the time in history. Yes, young girls were expected to help around the house. I do understand the misconception of evil step-mothers is still prevalent in children's minds today. However, the older girls were expected to take care of the children, no questions asked. Also, during that time frame women were supposed to know how to cook, clean, sew and be very docile.
Now, I do see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as a womanizing video. I do agree with the others that when viewing videos as young children one does not think of things like this. Come to think of it how many people really analyze the movies they see now, even at our age.
The problem with the obvious gender expectations isn't particularly offensive even now when I am an adult. I am not extremely feminist, I am actually very old fashioned. This movie sometimes, I feel portrays how I live in reality. I am expected to watch my siblings, cook, clean and run errands for my parents. My brother is 11 years younger than me so I have been the 'little mommy' for a long time. My mother is great, but when she worked evenings, I was the person to call on to watch my brother and I was never paid, and never asked for payment; it was just something you do in our house.
I did see the typical knight in shining armor facade when the prince comes along. The implications of this to small children are huge. After the girls come out of the 'princess' phase they all dream about their prince charming, or their knight in shining armor. It almost sets up an alternate reality.
I hope this is how a blog is kinda supposed to sound like...I'm new to this!

Snow White-Seen and not heard, unless she's singing...

I as well thought this was unbearable to sit through. Even though I am told that this was my favorite book, princess, movie, etc. as a child. It was very simple in many ways yet very complex in a whole other context. The scene that stuck out the most to me and offended my feminist sensibilities was when she was in the forest apologizing to the animals for "making such a fuss". I am well aware that this mentality was common place in the 30s and 40s. My grandmother who is still here at 81 has always thought and never kept it to herself that a womans place is in the home. Her responsibilties includes but are not limited to cleaning, taking care of the children, and dinner is on the table at 5pm. You only speak when spoken to, and never and I mean never cause of scene.

Snow|White became responsible for taking care of these "children" and the home they lived in. As if it was her sole purpose in life. And that misconception is still around today. In my late twenties I am asked by peer, family, clients why am I not married and why don't I have children. As if it is the only thing worth doing. I have never bought into this ideology and have spent most of my life rebelling against it. It is very disturbing that these are the underlying messages/images children are absorbing.

Snow White Blog

Okay, first of all, I would like to know if Walt Disney was on something when he created the scene when Snow White runs through the woods and all kinds of crazy monsters are attacking her! I remember as a child being terrified of that part, and I can see why! But I digress...

Re-watching Snow White for the first time in so many years was quite an experience. I actually remembered the beginning part of the film so well, that it felt as if I had watched it just yesterday. I even remembered all of the words to Snow White's first song! What I did not notice as a child was how incredibly sexist this film is and how prominent gender roles are. Snow White was your typical idealistic woman who cleaned house, fluffed her hair, fixed her dress, picked flowers, etc... The prince was a manly man that rides around on his horse all of the time (seriously, does he ever do anything else but sing and ride his horse?), and rescues the helpless woman who cannot live (literally and figuratively) without him. And of course, the Seven Dwarfs are your typical men who do not do any housework, cannot cook for themselves, and do "man's work" all day. It was actually quite disturbing to see what Disney was filling my head with when I was young and impressionable.

I also noticed how the film reflected the time that it was made in. Snow White's short, curly hairstyle, singing voice, and female stereotypes were typical in the late 1930's. Also the style of the music in the film was reminiscent of composers like Irving Berlin and Cole Porter (both extremely popular during the late 1930's). These are just a few of the things I noticed that represented the time that Snow White was created.

Although I still love this film, it was not the same magic that I experienced when I was a child. I am an extremely strong, independent woman and I quite insulted at how they portrayed Snow White and her step-mother. Apparently women either have to be happy little housewives or vain and a total bitch (for lack of a better term!HA!). Also, can someone tell me where I can find a handsome guy who randomly rides up on a white horse and beautifully sings to me? Because I've been waiting for one of those since I was about 5 years old, and it still has not happened...

Snow White

This was like the first time I've watched this movie in so long and, although it is a little annoying, it is much darker than most early Disney films. The evil queen is obsessed with be the most beautiful in the land that she orders a hit man to bring back Snow White's heart in a box. The idea of beauty to drive someone to murder another is an extreme of today's society. With shows on television that are driven by those who are beautiful, it seems that in today's world in order to be somebody you have to be beautiful. If, in a Disney movie, the villain is willing to cut out Snow White's heart to be the most beautiful person in the land, what would be today's equivalent of extreme measures to be number one? To measure a person by beauty before knowledge and personality is very shallow and in the end will get you no where. And in Snow White it will get you killed.

Snow White as a Political Allegory

OMG! I love Disney films for a couple reasons, one being that as a child you never understand some of the jokes until you watch the movie as an adult. In Snow White Doc has speaking issues and at one point he says to Snow White “What are you and who you doing?” LMFAO! However the movie has some good rules of life, such as wash b/4 dinner, work can be fun, and democracy will rule? The Queen represents anything but democracy, which is represented by Snow White. Even Grumpy comes around to loving Snow White, therefore the rest of the world will too and the Queen, I assume will fall. When the Queen threatens Snow White the forest animals pull the dwarfs towards the house in hopes to save Snow White from the evils of the Queen. I see this as Communism, or Marxism, threatening democratic states and overrunning them, and the animals as the interventionist policy of democratic states to help those countries who need help. Snow White was made in the 1930’s when Hitler and Mussolini were coming to power, therefore this representation makes since to me.

Snow White

As some others have already posted, it is so unbelievably weird to watch a kid's movie for the first time in like 15 years. The thing I think that stood out most for me was how prevalent song was in the movie. I thought it was weird how every single time something needed to get done (a house cleaned, food made, going to work etc.) all the characters randomly broke out in song. I'm not really sure why this stood out to me, but it was really strange to me and it kind of bothered me. It made it seem like if you are ever in a bad situation all you need to do is sing and everything will be fixed.

I thought that the way Snow White was presented was pretty funny as well. As a couple people have already mentioned, she was utterly clueless. She could not make a decision on her own and was completely reliant on her surroundings to make her decisions for her. The amount of trust she had in people was sickening, but I guess this is probably just a reflection on the type of movie Snow White is. Snow White is clearly a movie meant for children and therefore it isn't surprising that Disney would present the world as a good place to live in and that people are generally very trustworthy.

Get in the kitchen and make me a Grumpy Pie!

It's amazing the little things you notice when revisiting a movie you first saw over 20 years ago. Like others have pointed out Snow White is completely and utterly helpless and at the mercy of those around her. She also has a bad habit of mothering strange, creepy old men, one of which is apparently mentally handicapped.
It's a shame that there's no Halloween in Snow White's era, because then she would know not to accept gifts of fruit from hideous old hags with questionable intent. She seriously comes off as completely vapid and ultra-feminine, swooning incessantly whenever romance or love comes up as a topic, as if that's all girls should be concerned with. Another interesting thing I picked up was how Snow White is devoid of curves compared to other Disney princesses, particularly Jasmine from Aladdin.
While goofy as hell the movie showed a pretty straight-forward and typical damsel-in-distress story, and actually reminded me a bit of the ending of the movie Pretty Woman, with the Prince sweeping the Princess away to live happily ever after. Now I just need to find something to wash the disgustingly sweet taste left in my mouth.

That movie was ridiculous

Under the assumption that I'm supposed to blog about Snow White here I am posting away. That was the goofiest shit I have ever sat through. Total lack of character development and boredom led me to throw up in my beer glass. I also couldn't find much symbolism with politics or the American home in the movie so take that as it is. And I'm still not sure if this is what I'm supposed to talk about or if this is even where I'm supposed to post it.... soooo deal with it

Women in Snow White

I was surprised to see that Snow White was so dependent upon others. In the entire movie she never made one decision herself, when the hunter told her to hide in the forest she ran until the scenery scared her so badly she fell to the ground and cried all night, had the woodland creatures not come to her rescue and bring her to a house full of men I think she would have laid there and starved to death. Throughout the movie she was obsessed with the idea of waiting for her true love to come find her and take her away to live a perfect life together. This really turned out great for her because she allowed herself to be naive enough to eat a poisoned "magical apple" in hopes she could wish her prince to find her. When he eventually found her, she barely stuck around to say goodbye to the dwarfs who built her a beautiful coffin and who devotedly looked after herup until the day the prince took her away.

Welcome to the course!

Hi everyone! Welcome to the blog for COMM201H, Politics in Television and Film.