The Longest Yard

We watched a segment of the movie, The Longest Yard, in class.  It displayed masculine characteristics throughout the movie by using items such as cars, a football game, and an all-male prison.  Even the soundtrack was very masculine.  The inmates were separated into groups by race and crime.  Most of the inmates found the need to act rough and tough to make people fear them, but the guards always appeared to have the upper hand.  The male guards would bully the inmates to make sure they knew who was in charge.  The guards and inmates were going to play a football game against each other.  Paul Crew, coach of the inmates, was trying to recruit inmates to play on his team.  Once the inmates found out they would be playing against the guards, they all wanted to play.  Since some of the inmates had certain guards they did not like, they thought the game would be the perfect opportunity to get even with the guards.  As you watched the inmates practice, you realized that some of them were very athletic while others didn’t seem to have any athletic ability at all.  As a female, it was easy for me to notice the masculine characteristics that the characters used in the movie.  A lot of them displayed these characteristics through the things they said or the way they talked, their body language, and how they acted towards others.

Midterm Exam

In our class before spring break we had our midterm exam.  On our exam we had to know the basic understanding of vocabulary and how we could apply the words to examples.  I thought that this was an interesting way to give us an exam because as a psychology major I like to apply things.  I enjoy doing work that makes me think especially when it comes to people acting, feeling, and thinking a certain way.  This is not how I expected our midterm exam to be so some parts were a little difficult.  We had two parts to our midterm and the second one consisted of watching an episode of NCIS and writing down examples of the gender and class.  I found it easy to find examples of these since we have been studying them both a great deal this semester.  We could also write about the race of the characters if we saw any that stood out to us because we have also covered that a little bit as well.  I enjoy criminal justice shows and trying to figure out the crime scene myself.  This has always been an interest of mine so I would have to say that this was by far my favorite part of the test. 

The Women

In our last class we watched the movie “The Women.”  The movie was interesting to me because throughout the whole film you never once saw a man.  You hear the women speak of men, but we never get to actually meet who they are talking about.  This movie is big on expressing feminine gender.  I found the movie easy to relate to because I’ve either reacted like they did to something or I’ve known someone who has reacted like the women.  I thought this movie did a good job on pinpointing how women stand up and protect their friends.  The way the writer of this movie made the characters act was very similar to how a lot of women act in today’s society.  In the movie, we learn that a woman named Mary Haines was being cheated on by her husband, Steven.  I thought this was almost a stereotype to the male gender.  It was pretty much saying that if a rich man sees a pretty, young girl, he will flaunt his money to try to get her attention.  Mary found out about his affair through gossip from the woman who was doing her nails.  I believe when this movie was being produced, it was definitely being directed towards a female audience.