"Girly"-Men and "Manly"-Girls

The other day I found myself watching How To Train Your Dragon and though I entered the movie a bit late, I soon began to notice something odd yet familiar about the plot - it featured an effeminate and bumbling lead male who captures the jealous eye of a hyper masculine lead female, who is portrayed in every scene trying to prove just how tough she really is. My mind ran to other films where I've seen this: Ratatouille, Kung Fu Panda, The Lion King, Toy Story 2... A good number surely for off the top of my head I thought, but is there more to this pattern?

I'll be the first to admit that my film repertoire is lacking and so I can't really provide a good sampling of movies to examine. Something that is immediately noticeable though about the group presented is that they are all animated children's movies (a.k.a rated G) although they are made by different companies. Interestingly enough live action films with this same theme don't appear as readily to me as the animated one's do. Finally on another note my formal knowledge of feminist theory is narrow, so bare with me on that. Given these disclaimers I'd encourage you to respond with films of all varieties that reinforce or negate this theme.

So what's the problem here exactly? Well at first glance there isn't a problem per se, but there is a mighty obvious story-line that keeps popping up. The audience is introduced to the male protagonist and he's not really what we've come to expect out of a hero. He's usually clumsy, awkward, and in some cases has trouble proving his worth as a son to a widowed father figure. Enter the female lead; she's spunky, great at whatever it is that she does, and doesn't take flack from anyone. She looks down on the "girly" protagonist and is comfortable in her position of power. All of that soon changes when the awkward male lead finds a way to finally be good at something, at which point the female becomes jealous and overly competitive. He usually saves the day with a bit of her help and in the end she always falls in love with him, resigning herself to be tough but sensitive chick who can be found at the side of her newly admirable boy.

All of that is fine and some (including myself) would even say it's progress. At least were not showing women to be these subtle creatures who are in constant need of saving (*see most old children's films for reference), but there's still something funky with this new formula. I can't help but parallel it to second-wave feminism, which advocate for equal rights in the most literal sense of it. It was their belief that women should elevate their status as citizens to that of men (as opposed to 3rd-wave feminism, which argues that woman's worth should not be placed in comparison to that of a man's). With it's decline in the 1980's I think the trend can be well pictured via that then ever-present fashion fopa: the shoulder pads. Because you know, women who want to be taken seriously should just imitate men...

Well it looks like this movie genre is a bit behind critical theory and I think that the never changing reality of it, but here's my go at what it was that really got to me while watching How To Train Your Dragon. Although the female lead is shown in a position of empowerment, we're still relying to heavily on those same gender binaries. It's either one or the other and some how in the end the characters manage to fall back to those comfortable gendered roles. This is a critique however without a solution, because I'm not a writer or a story-teller. I couldn't tell you what would have been a better plot, just what makes me uneasy about the current one.

Reflections on Israel

Well I recently was asked to talk about Israel to my parent's congregation while I was back home for Thanksgiving break and the whole situation felt a little uncomfortable for me. I hadn't been to synagouge in a long time so having to stand up in front of over a hundred temple-goers was not in my vocabulary of ideal ways to spend a Friday night. Further, I've only been to Israel once and feel no more "connected" to it than, well I say this with hesitance, but than your average Jew would. Still, the whole ordeal was important to my parents and so in order to appease I drafted up something to say on the topic of a single moment from our Birthright trip there that had a lasting affect on us... (Warning! Like most things I write, this too comes off as unbelievably corny. Deal with it!)

Growing up having attended Hebrew school, probably just like many of you, my teacher’s would constantly be reminding us that one day we would visit Eretz Yisrael, "the land of milk and honey." It sounded pretty magical to a third grader, but as the years went on and as I slowly ex-communicated myself more and more from Judaism, my dreams of one day visiting Israel subsequently also faded - to the point where if someone had asked me, would you like to take a free trip to Israel? I would have said “no” just out of principle.

Well, things changed in college. I was no longer living in boca raton, a city which tricked me thinking that the world’s Jewish population was more like 30% rather than the meager .01% that it actually is. For the first time in my life being Jewish was something unusual and for the first time I wasn’t forced to stay at home on Friday nights for Shabbat dinner instead of going out. Sound familiar? But despite this newly found independence I missed the traditions and I soon became active in our school’s Hillel - where I was told about birthright and how to sign up.

Well that first summer I found myself on a plane across the world with my sister. So thinking about one of the most memorable moments from my trip, my mind automatically drifts to our visit to the Kotel, the last standing wall from the second holy temple. For whatever reason growing up, whenever I pictured Israel that iconic image of the Kotel would appear in my mind. And you what they say about some places, how they don’t live up to your expectations? Well this experience definitely went above and beyond what I thought it would be. Standing in front of the wall I felt the weight of history upon my shoulders, like thousands of crying voices barring down upon me. I fell apart, it was the closest thing to a “spiritual” experience that I've ever had. But for me personally it wasn’t the divine that gave this location its power, instead it came from humankind. I stood there in that spot which has been so important to so many people’s for so long, it was hard not to feel the force of it.

There at the kotel I saw the past, present, and future of Israel before me. The religiosity, I stood with sobbing women all reaching to touch the small portion of the wall that we were allotted to stand before in prayer; while the men stretched out in their large section. Behind me were Israeli soldiers my brothers and sisters, my age, awkwardly sporting guns. On the other side of the wall which we stood before were arabs also my brothers and sisters. And surrounding us all, on the outside looking in, were tourists from around the world.

And that’s the way I see Israel. A beautiful country, with the collective energy and spirit of a race’s - a human races - love concentrated into a small piece of land. Israel, you kind of remind me of what my parent’s would always tell me in times of tension, “we are so hard on you only because we love you so much, only because we expect more from you.”

Re-Discoveries 1

The wind was blowing really hard and I struggled with my bicycle against it as if having to fight it off. "Man against the elements, ain't it the truth!" I thought. Well a moment later I looked down and saw a squirrel mid-battle with a bush and re-discovered that we're not so different after all. --

I was sitting by the bay and thoughts flooded into my mind, despite the purpose of the journey having been to actually pour those thoughts into the water. But clearing my mind has never been one my strong points and so I stood looking down at the bay whose inhabitants were looking back up at me... The water was particularly clear that day and so I saw sea grass blowing as the waves gently pushed up against the shore; the sand rhythmically swaying in tune with the motion of this wholly different world I was witnessing below me. I thought, "Everything moves underwater," it's always in flux. Then I looked up and felt the sun on my cheek. As I spun around to check that my unlocked bike was still there (after all, one stolen bike is one too many!) I saw the palm trees nod in the direction of the wind, the tall grass following in suit and re-discovered that we're not so different after all. --