Stephanie Velona-On McKee-Trivialization & Movie

McKee is saying that by bringing topics that are considered trivial out of the private sector and bringing them into the public sector, marginalized groups are attempting to make them less trivial. The examples he uses most is that of the feminists bringing matters that were considered domestic to the public sector to try to give them more importance and to allow these marginalized groups have more of a voice. He does point out that there are certain topics that were very important to bring to the public sector, such as physical and sexual abuse by spouses. But at the same time with those important topics come not so important topics that tend to take away from the important topics of the time. People are less interested in politics for instance and more interested in what is going on with celebrities lives. I have to admit right now I find it disgusting that most everyone can tell you what is going on with Britney Spears but of those who can tell me about Britney probably only half of them can tell me all of the names of the people who are running for President. Not that I have anything against Britney, but lets leave the poor girl alone and let her get well and then worry about who is going to run our country.

Now on to the movie I have chosen for the topic of conducting gender roles. To be honest the only movie I have had a chance to see this weekend is the “Veggie Tales Pirate Movie”, you all know I have a 3 year old rightJ Anyway it is possible to discuss gender roles in this movie, mainly because there is only one main female character in this movie. It is basically a movie about 3 men who are waiters at a Pirate Dinner Show place and they are transported through time by a hero finder to a real pirate time. They are there to help a princess and her butler save her brother a prince while her father the king is away, she is the one who sent out the hero finder. This girl is a typical about 14 year old girl from the 16th century. She has blond ringlets in her hair pulled back in a bow (kind of like my daughter but her ringlets are natural), she is to be protected at all costs. Her brother has her hide in the hull of the ship so that she is not found when their ship is boarded by pirates. He is the one who goes out to fight the pirates, she is not to come out until she is sure they are all gone. It was very typical, almost to the extreme of what McKee was talking about in his chapter when he was discussing the typical roles of women in the 50’s. This was very typical of what you would expect in the 16th century, except she was a very confident little lady. She was able to push people to keep helping her find her brother; she was even at one point going to go on her own to rescue him. She was working on the ship just like the other men, even more so. So other than that there were no real exciting or different roles presented in regards to gender roles in this movie.