Gender Roles In The Wizard Of Oz
Sample (Extract) Section C – Comparison of American Films
What have you found interesting in the representation of gender in your chosen films.
Gender roles are central issues within the musicals The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) and Hairspray (Adam Shankman, 2007). The differences between the representation of males and females may, in part, be as a result of the shifting ideologies in the USA in two different historical periods.
In the Wizard of Oz, the central protagonist (Dorothy Gale) is a female. At the start of the film, Dorothy is shown to be “in the way” of the male farm workers. This could suggest that the female realm within the film is confined to the domestic sphere of the house. This is further supported by Dorothy being trapped by the tornado but possibly more significantly in her farm house. It is possible to argue that the context of the film - pre- second World War and the civil/equal rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, both of which arguably changed the ideology of female roles – is reflected by …show more content…
Her vocalised desire to ‘fly…over the rainbow’ could therefore be an allegory for the frustrations of young females who believed that their destinies were mapped out for them by the expectations that they would become wives and mothers, ultimately confined to the domestic sphere. Ultimately, however, the resolution of the film delivers a crushing blow to the notion that Dorothy may well be something other than a housewife as she accepts “There’s no place like home”. It could therefore be argued that, just as Dorothy leans this lesson in the course of the narrative, the film encourages viewers to accept the ideology that a woman’s place is in the home; which could be problematic for an emancipated female audience in
What have you found interesting in the representation of gender in your chosen films.
Gender roles are central issues within the musicals The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) and Hairspray (Adam Shankman, 2007). The differences between the representation of males and females may, in part, be as a result of the shifting ideologies in the USA in two different historical periods.
In the Wizard of Oz, the central protagonist (Dorothy Gale) is a female. At the start of the film, Dorothy is shown to be “in the way” of the male farm workers. This could suggest that the female realm within the film is confined to the domestic sphere of the house. This is further supported by Dorothy being trapped by the tornado but possibly more significantly in her farm house. It is possible to argue that the context of the film - pre- second World War and the civil/equal rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s, both of which arguably changed the ideology of female roles – is reflected by …show more content…
Her vocalised desire to ‘fly…over the rainbow’ could therefore be an allegory for the frustrations of young females who believed that their destinies were mapped out for them by the expectations that they would become wives and mothers, ultimately confined to the domestic sphere. Ultimately, however, the resolution of the film delivers a crushing blow to the notion that Dorothy may well be something other than a housewife as she accepts “There’s no place like home”. It could therefore be argued that, just as Dorothy leans this lesson in the course of the narrative, the film encourages viewers to accept the ideology that a woman’s place is in the home; which could be problematic for an emancipated female audience in