Real women have curves film analysis - Assignment Example

[Your “Real Women Have Curves” is a movie made in 2002 starring America Ferreira. Known by her role in “Ugly Betty”, this time America played the character of Ana Garcia. Ana is a teenager with Latina roots who is in the crossroad of her young life. Beleaguered by social pressure, bound by family traditions and thirsty to find her worth, Ana is torn which path to choose thus her story unfolds. The female gaze is the discourse of ideas or concepts how women are viewed in a capitalist and patriarchal society through the means of popular culture.

There were several lines and scenes how the female gaze is illustrated in the movie. Ana’s mother is fat and feels depressed about it. Her mother wants Ana to share her depression thus constantly telling her “You are so pretty but…” or “If you lost some weight…”Another scene that illustrates this is when his boyfriend or love interest tells her “You are not fat. You are beautiful.” As if you cannot be beautiful and fat but rather you can only be beautiful by not being fat. Media and pop culture help shape public opinion and social standards and with the onslaught of unrealistic physical images, it leaves a haunting impression to teenage girls that are sometimes self-destructive.

However Ana’s robust physique and Latina roots doubles the burden of her struggle. Schooler claims that “Contextualizing Latina girls body image development requires an appreciation of these two sets of values and an understanding of the process by which Latina girls traverse the borders between them. Girls who are more acculturated into mainstream American culture may be more likely to endorse the dominant thin ideal; because this ideal is unattainable to nearly all girls, regardless of ethnicity, these girls may feel worse about their own bodies than girls who are less acculturated and who endorse a Latino/a body ideal” (136).

Physical attributes are crucial factors in teenage girls or young women of today. It is a common misconception that a female’s progress in life is solely on based on her physique and attractiveness. Contrary to this, the movie depicts how Ana struggled from fitting in to accepting her flaws to embracing and celebrating her image. She even encouraged her friends to do the same. Women are commonly portrayed in films as submissive characters. However, we see more movies or TV series nowadays that women take charge of their destinies or play significant roles in society.

Examples are Hermione Granger of Harry Potter, Daenerys Targeryen in the popular TV series Game of Thrones, Queen Elsa in Disney’s Frozen and Merida from Pixar’s Brave. Ana is not different with these women. What makes her unique from the rest is that her fresh perspective in life is like a ray of sun in a gloomy Sunday morning. In a capitalist and patriarchal society, it’s not easy to break the chains of inequality and oppression where women are judged accordingly to their looks. With every trip and fall, Ana dusts herself off and tries again.

REFERENCE:Schooler, Deborah. "Real Women Have Curves: A Longitudinal Investigation of TV and the Body Image Development of Latina Adolescents." Journal of Adolescent Research (2008) 132-154. February 10, 2014 retrieved from http://jar.sagepub.com/cgi/content/refs/23/2/132