Were you born yesturday?
Do you ever notice how in every romantic movie there seems to be a man and a woman that are suppose to have a cute love story and then fall in love? Well some movies are so not idealistic it drives people insane. A few of those are generally the male saves or some how “rescues” the woman from whatever dangerous situation they’re in. When movie producers use a male and female character in a movie they take the perspective of the situation the woman was in and use that as the background story; purposely to make a plot to the movie.
In the movie, Princess and the Frog, that kind of shows how the women actor, Tiana, wants to build a future for herself; which is her own restaurant. The prince that is portrayed in this movie seems to have troubles with taking responsibility. These two characters obviously are conflicting in the movie plot, since the male is now needing somebody to help him with responsibility, which Tiana has. The main difference between the two characters, Tiana is more of a women desperate for a successful future with her dreams of opening up a restaurant. She wants something for herself. The prince is very un-loyal to his standards and he just doesn’t keep them as high as Tiana does. In this essay, I will briefly go over the different movies that show this exact type of trope of how the men and women are portrayed in movies. I also want to show how women are degraded as the “born yesterday” characters but in some movies referred to as the strong independent women that won’t take less than they deserve and introduce those types of female characters in movies.
To portray a female character like she was “Born yesterday” is a huge deal. Men are often played as the intelligent hunk who is suppose to be the perfect human for the female. Despite the flaws they carry out for this character, it’s not so noticeable for this role as it is for the female role. For example, in the movie Pretty Woman, it’s about a female who is a highly paid escort to a man for business, she’s actually a prostitute, and he treats her to almost everything luxury. Both of them being in completely different worlds, they seem to grown fond of each other throughout the movie. She is more used in the movie as the women who “needs saving”. As I begin to explore more about this Pretty Woman movie, the two characters Edward and Vivian, it literally has such a harsh standard in the title of the movie.
When it’s explained as a women being “pretty” is basically saying that’s all you need. To fufill the standards for this male character in the play, she must have the appropriate body type, face looking pretty, and hair not mangled. Even though her character is a prostitute. When he offers her $3,000 for her to stay with him for the next 6 days. He begins to change his views of her as he offers her an exchange of lifestyle. As Edward gives this “pretty women” a new life to been seen differently then her actual one, things start getting serious. Instead of him becoming in charge of her, he begins to have a liking for her. He takes her to a theatre play about a women falling for a rich man, and Vivian is touched that Edward is so charismatic towards her as they begin their lives. As they continue to enjoy each other, since Vivian isn’t very wealthy much at all, Edward wants to get her place to stay so that way she can get off the streets. Once Vivian takes this to heart, he’s basically telling her to get off the streets and to stop being so disgusting, she of course like any other women get’s pissed. If a man told me that I had to “get off the streets” I would be absolutely disgusted. Even though this woman is a prostitute, she still is a human. Some people take this job as their life, so if he was so “in love” with her he could of gave her a husband too.
As they were sitting at the table, he tells her he could get her into all the fancy store, restaurants, everything. He then asks her, what she wants in her life? And she then explains how her step-mother would keep her upstairs and abuse her so she would pretend she was a princess locked up in the tower by a wicked queen and that a night would come charging up and get her and rescue her, then she explains how she never dreamed that a guy would put her in a fancy condo, give her all the money she can ever want, and let her live a lonely life. This movie portrays how a man with all the power and comfortable money, he still needs a women to complete his life. Without Vivian coming into his life, I don’t think he could love somebody like he did with her.
In the movie, Legally Blonde the main female actor, Elle Woods is a petite blonde woman in college. In the beginning of the movie, she is introduced as this soriority girl among other blonde pretty girls. Of course this movie portrays Elle as a typical pretty soriority girl who every girl wants to be. As the movie continues, she has this tall, handsome, guy named Warner. He of course is the McDreamy guy in this whole movie.
As her and Warner go on a date, which him being the typical douchebag of a guy dumps her in front of the whole restaurant. As Elle starts crying he pretends this isn’t normal for a girl to sob and be upset. As the scene continues, it shows Elle walking back to her room and Warner in his car driving along side of her. His reasoning for breaking up with her is she isn’t smart enough for him, since he’s going to law school. This type of theme that is basically saying women who care more for looks are rather stupid and not wife material. Law school is difficult, and this movie shows how difficult it is to get into law school. But the fact that they made the guy dump the girl in this movie is exactly the “born yesterday” trope exemplified.
The way that the character, Warner, is portrayed is he acts like his shit doesn’t stink and that he is cooler than anybody. I feel like this type of character is seen all throughout movies, but Warner shows more of that annoying side in the movie. In the first part of the movie, after the breakup, Elle has a motive to become smart and go to law school so she can be with her Warner. She then takes the task upon herself, she has her friends help her get the job done. She stays up studying all night and focuses hard on taking the law school exams, she really works for it. This type of change in the character shows that even though she is just a “dumb sorority girl” it doesn’t mean she can’t prove her worth of becoming a smart intellectual woman.
Although Elle proves herself in the movie that she does want to succeed not for herself but for Warner, she does get in to Law school. The more that this movie goes on the more lessons Elle gets taugh by her friends and people she has never met before. Once she arrives to law school, thinking she will just win Warners heart over, she discovers her worth and that she has the abilities to succeed into becoming a lawyer, not just for the sake of winning the guy, but she does it for herself. This movie brings upon that women can be just as powerful as men, that she isn’t just a “dumb blonde” she is quite intelligent.
In the movie Clueless, the main female character Cher, is portrayed as a spoiled girl by her rich dad. She of course is suppose to make the title make sense. Considering this high school movie shows the typical life of high schoolers, Cher is shown as a dumb student, but smart in creating love for others. Her character isn’t suppose to really make sense. Throughout the movie, she makes it seem like she is determined to become smart, but she is just acted as dumb. Of course her being the blonde, her key to keeping up with the stress of school is…of course…shopping! As she has her problems with her teachers giving her bad grades, she wants to dig in on what else she can do to help them. She wants to give her teachers a makeover. She tries to set up two of her teachers together so maybe they will be happier in class and give her a better grade. Instead of Cher putting in extra work, her character is shown as she would rather take the easy way out instead of putting in the work.
In the movie Clueless, the main female character Cher, is portrayed as a spoiled girl by her rich dad. She of course is suppose to make the title make sense. Considering this high school movie shows the typical life of high schoolers, Cher is shown as a dumb student, but smart in creating love for others. Her character isn’t suppose to really make sense. Throughout the movie, she makes it seem like she is determined to become smart, but she is just acted as dumb. Of course her being the blonde, her key to keeping up with the stress of school is…of course…shopping! As she has her problems with her teachers giving her bad grades, she wants to dig in on what else she can do to help them. She wants to give her teachers a makeover. She tries to set up two of her teachers together so maybe they will be happier in class and give her a better grade. Instead of Cher putting in extra work, her character is shown as she would rather take the easy way out instead of putting in the work.
As the depiction of Cher’s character, she is the type to help people look pretty. She finds this girl who she wants to”makeover” and help her get a guy. This girl, Tai, is kind of a loser student at the high school who Cher thinks she can turn her into a completely different person. As the movie goes along, she literally is transformed into a different person. She acts like a complete bitch towards Cher and says some pretty harsh things.
Overall, this movie shows lack of dignity within the character Cher, and showing how much she cares about other people and their reputations, she sure doesn’t have it for herself. Clueless is a movie explained how misguided Cher is and that whenever Tai becomes more popular than her, Cher then seeks to want better for herself.
In the movie, Twilight, the main character is a female, Bella. Her character shows no dignity, no personality, really no soul if were being honest. I’ve seen Twilight about a million times, and I can’t get over the fact that she is just plain boring and to herself and not really alive. Her character seems like she’s missing a spark. As we meet Edward, he’s of course a vampire, so that big detail makes things a little entertaining.
Jumping into the movie analysis, Bella has never really shown that she can care for herself. It’s almost as if the movie guides the audience to believe that she needs somebody in her life to make that spark within her glow. Every instance Bella is in, she seems like she is that “damsel in distress” I talked about earlier. It seems like this movie wants to show that Bella needs Edward, meaning a girl needs a guy to protect her. In this case, this non-fiction film of course she would need protection from weird vampires and werewolves from attacking her. But in real life? No.
Women can defend themselves in realistic situations, besides the point that Bella’s character makes it seem like the women in the movie, who are humans, can’t defend themselves, and the fact that this movie not only shows the “born yesterday” trope that Bella can’t function without a guy but she literally relies on Edward. When a woman is relying on a man to function that’s not acceptable.
In the movie, Mean Girls, the four main characters are all females. They of course are part of a clique called the plastics, Regina, Gretchen, and Karen are the plastics. The new girl, Katy decided to join the plastics in help to revenge for Janice, which was former friends with Regina. As the movie goes on, Katy is a sweet and innocent character who is a new student so she doesn’t have many friends except Janice and Ian. Those two influenced her to become a part of the plastics. The more fake these girls are in this movie, the more fake Katy becomes. These girls are literally so mean to one another, its rude and kind of cringy worthy.
This movie introduces a different view of the trope “born yesterday” considering the plastics only worry about popularity and looks for the male figures. In an argument between Regina and Katy they fight over, wait for it….a guy. Shocker I know, but this particular argument is more passive aggressive. They don’t actually fight, they just do things to piss each other off intentionally, but still remain fake friends.
At a Halloween party in the movie, Regina is Aarons ex girlfriend and tells a bunch of lies to Aaron to freak him out about Katy. Previously Regina told Katy that she would help her out, which depicts Katy’s character that she is putting herself in a weird situation to try and get the guy. This movie not only shows that Katy dumbs herself down, but also the character Karen. She is the true representation of a dumb blonde. Her character is shown how she just makes her looks show and not her brain.
Overall all of these movies show the characters of women make themselves look dumb and that they are completely clueless to how life is. Each female character in these movies are simply “born yesturday” and think that they need a man in their life. I picked these movies particurally for one reason, and that’s because in the ending, they all choose a better life for themselves and NOT FOR A MAN.
