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November 18, 2005
Cultural Myths
I am troubled by the cultural myth played out in both My Fair Lady and Pretty Woman. Both movies are, for their respective eras, heart stoppingly romantic and I know I often get caught up in this and forget to "read" the text and subtext of the movie in the way that our class is teaching us to do. On Wed when we watched excerpts I was struck by the signs, icons, representation etc contained in the movies and what they said about women, women's innate abilities and intelligence, the sex trade, rich men, poor people and love.
I believe and hope that through this class and our whole Simmons education we'll learn to challenge these stereotypes and see not only the truth in the myth but also the untruth.
~ Nanette
P.S. I was thinking on the train that what bother me is that we're able to "read" overt forms of racism, sexism, classism, ageism and act against them. But it's the forms that are subtle and wrapped up in things like romantisism, like these movies, that are hardest to "read." These are often the ones that we as woman perpetuate and that troubles me.
Posted by lcissavides at November 18, 2005 09:24 AM