For the 40th Lades of Hive contest, I decided to pick a movie which best represents this community. I wanted to pick a movie which represents women pursuing variety of talents, women supporting one another and a movie about overcoming stereotypes around family vs pursuing personal growth, marriage and love. I decided to pick the following movie: Little Women. As per the contest rules, I am inviting @nineclaws ╰(°▽°)╯
Let's get right into why you should check out this movie. The movie dives into the lives of four sisters who attempt to balance their roles as family caretakers and pursue their own goals in life such as painting, writing novels, and playing piano. It is based on the 19th century time period.
While watching this movie, I found myself connecting it to present day. Due to covid 19, it has been a struggle for parents to maintain a work-life balance at home with their children who are attending school virtually. A co-worker of mine recently experienced this. She mentioned that it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to balance her role as a caretaker at home for her kid, colleague, employee as well as taking care of herself. This connects to one of the core themes in the movie: balancing the needs of family with personal wants.
Photo by Elena Mozhvilo
Another topic which the movie brings up is the role of marriage. I have been fortunate enough to make friends from diverse cultures and backgrounds and some of them have confided in me about their struggles with family and culture which deems getting married as crucial. Meanwhile few of them want to pursue more independent endeavors in life. I will leave you with a quote by one of the characters in the movie which will provide you with some insight about how marriage was perceived:
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Photo by Beatiz Perez Moya
"You need to marry to make your way into the world. The only way for a woman to be single is to be rich"
The danger of stereotyping is widely present in this movie. Apart from watching women grapple with stereotypes around work, money and relationships, a male character named Theodore struggles with his family's stereotypical belief that men should pursue family businesses meanwhile what Theo really wants is to get into music which was considered a feminine choice. I have seen this play out with a friend of mine who is a nurse. He mentioned that the past few dates which he has been on have jokingly pointed out that he must face a lot of difficulty because nursing is dominated by women. What started off as a joke later on became a struggle which he experienced in both is professional and personal life.
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Photo by Markus
I hope you give this movie a chance and try to critically think about how some of the themes in the movie connect to our lives today. If you are looking for an engaging movie which will take you on a ride with humour, wittiness, and powerful themes, this is for you.
