Feminist Criticism - Tootsie (1982)

  The film Tootsie is about an actor named Michael who is having a tough time finding work as a male actor. Every audition he goes to they need someone different. Michael gets fed up with not being able to find work as a man, so he gets the idea to cross dress and act like a woman. In doing this he actually does get a job as an actress on a soap opera. His new identity is now Dorothy Michaels. 

  Through out the film I feel like it challenges and messes with gender roles and then finally towards the end puts them back into place. As Michael acts as Dorothy Michaels longer he seems to inherit more feminine traits as well as his personality and way of thinking becomes more feminine. Even though he's just doing it for the money. He pays ten times more attention to his appearance than  he did before by wearing make up and doing his nails and even shaving his legs. Michael also becomes much more sensitive and seems to be more independent as a women than as a man.

   When Michael is cross dressed as Dorothy Michaels it comes along with some complications with his sexual life. Since he is dressed as a woman he cannot show his feelings for a certain woman the he is very fond of. Also other men are attracted to him which im sure he's not very happy about but he can't do anything about it since he has to stay in his character. One man even try's to propose to him.

To compare this film with Thelma & Lousie, both have the same basic feminist message that women are strong and independent and can overpower or overcome dominant male stereotypes. I feel that Thelma & Louise does a better job at this since both actors are actually women themselves, whereas Michael is not really a women and is just dressing up as one. Even though he does put on a convincing role and still stands up for himself as being independent. But still I feel like Thelma & Louise does a better job, not only because they are actually women but because they overcome greater obstacles than just standing up for oneself against an angry director. 

Bryan Film Studies

         Feminism in Film - Thelma & Louise

The Film Thelma & Louise was an exciting and surprising movie. It does a great job at adding twists to the story when you least expect it. It also makes you care for and even hate certain characters. It shows you how strong women can be as he overcome some crazy obstacles an come across some very perverted and overpowering men that try to take advantage of both Thelma & Louise. 

In my opinion, I personally hated Thelma throughout most of the movie. It was basically her fault that they had to go on his huge run away from the Police, even though I guess that's the whole point of the movie. From the beginning Thelma wanted to have fun and "let her hair down" but by wanting this, it lead to her getting drunk and flirting with some guy that appears to be nice, but then in the end, the guy ends up almost raping her. Which then led to him getting shot, which was the start of them running for the law. If she was drunk and the guy was obviously flirting with her, what did she expect was going to happen? 

Throughout the film Thelma messes up a lot of things. She puts too much trust in guys that she has never met in her life, and is too open about her personal life to strangers. She also doesn't have a lot of common sense. Thelma again lets some guy that she doesn't even know into her hotel room and then he takes advantage of her and also even steals the money that they desperately needed. He even told her that she was a robber. Again, what did she expect to happen?