Movie in Context

So, I didn't intend on rewriting my entire paper, but for some reason my thoughts were effortlessly flowing last night. That nearly never happens when I'm writing about a paper, so I'm pretty jazzed up about it. I would like to hear your guys' opinions on my guiding question, thesis, and sources. I would seriously appreciate some feedback on this, and I will absolutely do the same for any of you; if any of you would like to send me your rough draft or thoughts at any point and time, feel free to email me @ lknock01@rams.shepherd.edu. Sometimes all you need is to get some ideas bouncing around in order to be successful!
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Alright, so my movie is World War Z. I find it quite difficult to pick out issues from this movie that aren't so broad, because as it goes, the movie is pretty diverse. Austin already seemed to take a liking to the whole Israel bit from the same movie, so I definitely won't write about that, and save Hanrahan the boredom of reading two similar papers. Instead, I am writing about sexism in the movie.

My current guiding question is:
A question repeatedly provoked throughout the movie is whether or not Forster’s film is as sexist as it appears to be, and why exactly he reverted to “traditional” gender roles.

My thesis is:
The clear imbalance of male dominance verses female dominance in World War Z shows the lack of charge in diversifying strong female lead characters, and in turn, reverts back to the standard gender roles of the fifties and sixties, as well as contributes to an already male dominated movie genre.

The sources I'm using for this movie (for the annotated bibliographies) as of this far, are:

1. Max Brooks original novel on World War Z, and the evidence of him listing around 46 characters to speak about the zombie outbreak, and only 5 are women.
2. An online Business Insider article about the Bechdel test, which proves sexism in movies by three simple rules, and explains how action movies are predominately male hero involved.
3. A book about Altruism, which shows kind of the historic reason as to males willingly sacrifice themselves for the greater good.
4. A TED talk from Malala's father, Ziauddin Yousafzai. Evidence shows he is for the equality in men and women alike, and a powerful direct quote shows that they are not as equally treated in the world today.

Now, I think the hardest part about this essay are the two questions that Hanrahan poses. I can't tell you how many times I've had to look back at these.
***How does context/kairos give us a deeper understanding of the film’s message? And how does storytelling, itself, allow the filmmakers to speak about a complex issue, when doing so through other means would be difficult?


The context including sexism gives us the same ideals about how gender roles are stitched in to basically everything relevant in today's society, for the most part.
The most difficult question I had to answer was how filmmakers speak about the issue.
The issue ITSELF is how the movie features a white, male, hero, and really doesn't showcase any powerful women, just women needing to be rescued.

Tell me if my conclusion sounds like it answers these questions!

In the end, the main point of the movie and story alike is to promote the notion that if a zombie apocalypse were to happen, there would be heroic individuals to help save the day. Unfortunately, like the large majority of action movies and Bechdel tests show, the typical dominate male would more than likely be the bread winner transitioned into a hero. Women are frequently shown as needing to be saved in action films as either the backup plan for reproduction, or as damsels in distress who need saving. These gender roles are repeatedly brought to the viewer’s attention throughout World War Z by showing the quick thinking on Gerry’s part towards the aversion of the rape of his wife, and the near death of Segen, a military official. Forster repeatedly, perhaps unintentionally, brings up gender roles and uses real world situations and reactions such as impromptu amputation, or wide spread city panic, in order to apply a sense of realism to the film. The complexity of Forster putting gender roles on display in such a worldwide viewed movie shows that he is inadvertently bringing attention to the large problem of sexism itself, while still grabbing the attention of traditional action movie viewers, and forcing everyone as a whole to view the problematic nature of sexism in movie genres.


Thanks for reading!

Love,
Laura