Blogg Eight: Female-Male Relationships - She's the Man

I actually don’t absolutely love this movie, but for the sake of this blogg I’m going to use it. In this clip of She’s the Man, Amanda Bynes’ character, Violet, is learning how to act like guy – she’s pretending to be her brother at a new school so she can play soccer. Watch the video and look for the stereotypical ‘dude’ things that she has to learn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_9aGm7PrRc

There are many differences when it comes to the way males and females communicate nonverbally, and Violet has to examine each one in order to successfully pull off this identity swap. First she starts with appearance, asking her friend to help disguise her femininity with a wig and facial hair.

Then she moves to gesture and movement, following men on the sidewalk attempting to mimic each one’s walk. It’s pretty obvious that men and women have distinct gaits. In fact, some research has shown that “people are astonishingly accurate when asked to judge the gender of walking human figures, even when they are represented by 15 small dots of light attached to major joints of the body.” The Salk Institute for Biological Studies say humans have certain neurons in the brain that detect feminine gaits and male gaits. Whether or not this is true, like I said, men and women walk and move differently for whatever reason, and Violet knows she has to walk like a guy in order to be accepted by the guys at her new school. Anyway, Violet practices her more masculine behaviors and sets out for Illyria. After convincing her mother that she is going to learn how to become the perfect debutant, Violet arrives to school as Sebastian. Her mother is excited that Violet is finally going to be a “lady,” which to her means dresses, make-up, smiles, manners, philanthropy, and gushy emotions.

At Illyria, Violet practices her voice, making it deeper. A man’s masculinity can be questioned if his voice is too high, so Violet needs to speak much lower than what is normal for her. Our society responds negatively to a male who has a feminine-sounding voice because a deeper voice is the norm. If Violet wants to be a typical guy, she has to have a typical guy voice. The voice adaptation is a constant struggle for Violet throughout the movie, because she often forgets or gets carried away in a situation and her feminine voice is revealed.

After showing off her voice, she struts and spits in typical male fashion. Throughout the movie, she realizes more nuances of behavior that she must change to fit in socially with her male roommates and friends. She gains new insights on male-female relationships as she is involved now on both sides. This is quite advantageous in the end.

This entire movie plays on male-female stereotypes, and is therefore pretty entertaining. Although many cases are the extreme, it is interesting to investigate the behaviors of men and women and attempt to discover the origins of such stereotypes.