"10"

                            


This week in class we discusses romantic comedies and sex comedies and everything in between. We also saw clips from the movie "10" (1979) with Dudley Moore and Bo Derek as an example. Dudley Moore plays George, who just celebrated his 42nd birthday via a surprise party thrown by his lover Samantha. This seems to trigger a midlife crisis in George and he begins to become depressed about getting older, no longer able to go after young beautiful women and have casual sex anytime anywhere. He becomes withdrawn and rude to his friends and those around him. He even refuses sex with Sam, seemingly no longer interested in women closer to his age. His mind is completely obsessed with young women. I feel that in showing George pushing away a perfectly good relationship with a witty and charming woman his age in favor of silly daydreams, the movie is telling people to really focus on what they have and be happy. George is not thinking properly. His crisis goes into full swing when he happens to see a bride on the way to her wedding, Jenny. George sees her as the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and makes up his mind to find out everything he can about her. 


Eventually he follows her to Mexico where she is celebrating her honeymoon with her new husband. George is rather going into panic mode, so intent on forming whatever relationship he thinks he will accomplish with Jenny that he is willing to completely leave behind what he has at home and blindly stalk her. It shows incredible irresponsibility on his part. He does eventually run into Jenny and her husband on the beach. And fortunately for him, he has the chance to rescue her husband from floating out to sea and wins a date with her. And the date actually comes to a point where George has the opportunity to sleep with Jenny, despite her being being married. A phone call between Jenny and her husband while George is there reveals that both of them practice an open marriage situation. This apparently disappoints George since part of the thrill he was pursuing during his midlife crisis was the excitement of an affair. This new knowledge takes away the spark that George needed to continue his search for a rejuvenating relationship with a younger woman. He is no longer attracted to Jenny and returns home to Sam. Having gone through the whole experience, George has a new found respect for this time in his life and rekindles his relationship with Sam. He realized how uncaring and selfish he was being and discovered that his supposed real desire for young flesh and the reigniting of his youth was not worth it and not what he thought it would be. He found new ways to improve his sex life with Sam and rediscovered his place at his age. The movie looks to me like a sex comedy more than anything because the romance part does not really come until the end where George realizes he was taking Sam for granted. The entire movie is primarily about sexual desire and George's pursuit of it with Jenny, then finding out it was not really what he expected. There are many innuendos throughout the film and focuses on sexual relationships.

Technology in Films

This week I read "Images of Technology in Popular Films: Discussion and Filmography" by Steven L. Goldman. I enjoyed it immensely because I have always found interesting the popularity of films that portray high-tech equipment and "futuristic" human achievements. People love going to see movies like these because they want to see what the world could be like in the future. They want to believe it will be possible for everything to be done for them one day. For some people, the future is flying cars and jet backs, for others it is robots cooking and cleaning and serving them. There is a fascination with a utopian universe where anything is possible and there is no more war, famine, or violence. However, popular movies have portrayed an entirely different picture of future technology. In them, dystopian and apocalyptic results have occurred after scientists have created new and more powerful ways of doing things. Again and again technology is seen as destructive and anti-human. Robots created to service humans have become sentient and turned against their creators and taken over. Machines have backfired and waged war on civilization, destroying the entire world. It is never the scientists' and inventors' anticipation that there will be negative consequences, but it is the determined outcome. Movies have warned us of becoming too opportunistic and selfish with dreaming of never having to do anything for ourselves one day. It is painting a picture of one of many terrible outcomes to changing the environment too much. Goldman's work states that it is mostly science-fiction films that give this picture of technology being disastrous and killing those that created it. 





A more recent movie that I enjoyed that portrayed this as well is director Shane Acker's 9. In it is the view of a world directly affected by the machines that were supposed to prevent what it ultimately caused. It also brings up one of Goldman's points about movies having a scientist or engineer create something at the request of higher ups (military, presidential). In 9, a scientist is commissioned to make a fabrication machine by a dictator, who eventually uses it to make other weapons to kill his enemies. This leads to the machine becoming sentient and completely independent, making weapons without anyone telling it to. It results in a revolt by humans to destroy the machines, but they fail and the machines kill every human being. The scientist who created the machine regrets ever making such a dangerous invention and uses parts of his soul make dolls that he hopes will finally stop the fabrication machine and allow for life to exist in Earth again. This is a perfect example of the terrible consequences of investing in futuristic technology. It even shows the remorse of the scientist who feels responsible for destroying the world and dies himself trying to rectify it. I loved the movie because it also showed that there is still hope of humans will learn from mistakes and not be so eager to willingly doom themselves.

James Bond

So this week we are preparing to hear from the group presenting Casino Royale and the infamous spy James Bond. We watched various clips of the movie Goldfinger and there were many references that I have heard in pop culture that I was able to see in context, but I also noticed how drastic the dynamic between male and female was in the film. James Bond is obviously represented as the epitome of manly men; a dangerous spy and unquenchable ladies' man. I had no idea how far it went in the actual film, however. The movie begins with Bond successfully completing a mission by destroying a drug lab, then immediately proceeding to seduce a beautiful woman. He makes it look so easy because it is supposed to be for such a suave guy. However, it becomes apparent that the woman means absolutely nothing to him when upon seeing a potential assassin in the reflection of the woman's pupil, he does not hesitate to put her in harms way and use her as a shield to get the upper hand on the hitman. She falls to the ground unconscious, Bond ultimately wins the fight with the guy. As she comes to, he simply grabs his jacket and exits the room with a corny one-liner. 


The blatant sexism continues as Bond uncovers more about the elusive Goldfinger and his gold bullion smuggling ring and ultimate plan to make his own gold even more valuable. Every woman seen in the movie is slim, beautiful, young, and incredibly easy to seduce. All of the women are turned into sex objects no matter what they do. They are also apparently simple to dispose of, as evidenced by Bond's female human shield in the first scene and the suffocation and gold paint-covered Goldfinger accomplice Jill Masterson. It is as if to perpetuate that the only thing women are good for is to look good in a bathing suit and maybe be intimidating with a gun, but not too intimidating. At the swimming pool before Bond spies on Goldfinger cheating at gin rummy, he is getting a massage by a beautiful blond woman. Before she can even want to know what is going on, she is shooed away by Bond because of "man talk" and she even gets a slap on the behind. God forbid a woman would just be curious about the events happening, it is obvious that she would not understand and be wasting their time with her small, infantile woman brain. It was just so interesting to see the representation of gender differences in the genre. It made it look so normal that almost every single encounter with a woman led to sex one way or another, at least normal for a spy. It made all the boys want to become secret agent spies so that they could treat women like crap and still get to sleep with them again and again, especially numerous women without any consequences or silly responsibility at all.