Bake a Cake!

Throughout the history of war movies, women have played unique and interesting roles. You might think though that it would be odd for a women to play a major role in a war movie and films like Black Hawk Down (2001) and Saving Private Ryan (1998) heed little or no attention to them. Interestingly the movies that do concentrate on women's roles in war films treat them solely as hurdles that need to be overcome in order to obtain absolute masculinity, or a threat to victory. I should add though that not all war films with women take this perspective, but many do (many films have also portrayed them as healers also).

When the main character in Jarhead (2005) thinks about his girlfriend and the time he can spend with her after his tour of duty is over, it motivates him to finish his tour of duty. But when disaster strikes and she hooks up with another man back at home, he feels as if life itself has abandoned his own body. His girlfriend is symbolic of everything he mises at home (friends, family, and security), without her he has now completely ascended his training and is no longer a slave to his desires back at home. In the film Pearl Harbor (2001) a completely different occurrence happens when two best friends find that they love the same girl. This builds animosity and distrust between the two. In a circle of aggression and hatred one character eventually dies and its not the girl. One of the two friends dies so that the others can live happily ever after, a morbid ending but symbolic of whether the things we fight for are really worth it.

Throughout many war films, women sadly seem to get a bad rap. This is primarily because of the anti-feministic mentality that military service takes. When you go into the army you don't bake cakes and read Shakespeare. You go in too fight for your country and learn to give it your all. Leaving behind things such as desires for love shows a strong sense of dedication for ones patriotism also. Love is not a bad thing, it just become complicated when war is involved.

>_< Pearl Harbor Trailer

The Comedy of Violence

After World War II ended in the 1940s, women had to give back the jobs they had temporarily filled during their husbands leave. This was one of the first major instances in American history where women assumed major work roles equivalent to men. This also marked the beginning of a battle of the sexes in the 1940s where women started gaining political power. The slapstick movie genre reflected this tension by pitting the two against each other in extremely aggressive roles. Sometimes the characters depicted in these films would perform shocking acts that many people thought oddly comedic during their time.

One of the most well known slapstick characters comes from the film The Lady Eve (1941). Throughout the movie Jean Harrington (played by Barbara Stanwyck) plays a con artist who attempts robbing a young rich man with her scheming father. When Jean falls in love with the man and tries to protect him from her father, her lover finds the truth of her identity. In an ironic twist he dumps her and she comes back with another identity she dubs Eve. The character vengefully torments, taunts, and belittles the young man into insanity. To make matters worse his father is fond of Eve and constantly promotes a marriage between the two. This aggressive behavior has other iconic characters such as the destructive Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941), where a couple battles over odd rules and regulations while they live unmarried together in a house. The values these characters display strongly represent many feelings felt by both parties during this time period.

Many of the male figures being abused in the slapstick genre played on male insecurities (possibly that women really were plotting to take their jobs, divorce them, and other unthinkable things of those times). Women would have probably thought that male characters got what they deserved for their actions (which most of them probably did). Since both sexes could go to a film and laugh about these things instead of fight over them, it probably helped the film genres success. Even in today's society where men and womens rights are more equal, slapstick romance comedies, such as Intolerable Cruelty (2003) are still successful. Although the times have changed, it would seem that the subject matters of movies haven't.