Some may argue that the movie The General conforms to traditional patriarchal gender roles. Annabelle Lee, the heroine, is kidnapped (albeit inadvertently) by hostile soldiers and needs the heroic exploits of her lover to rescue her. She is portrayed as submissive to her father and brother, ineffectual in plotting her own escape (such as throwing a stick of wood into the train furnace or failing to stop the engine so her lover can board it), and often exhibiting domestic inclinations ( as when she sweeps the engine with a broom).
Do you agree with this picture of Annabelle Lee -- or is it more complicated? Is Annabelle a stereotypical damsel in distress or is she a more progressive figure? Is there something about her a feminist could admire? What is this film saying about gender roles?
I think that the movie The General does conform to traditional patriarchal gender roles. But I think the female character, Annabelle Lee, is a little more progressive than a stereotypical damsel in distress. The movie conforms to traditional patriarchal gender roles because of how a big part of the plot focuses on a man saving a woman who is in trouble. This is seen a lot in many stories, movies, etc. The woman usually is the one who is being held captive by the bad guys and she is unable to do anything. And then the brave man comes in to save the day. This stereotype definitely applies to this movie because Johnnie Gray continues pushing forward to save the girl. It may not be his intentions at first, but eventually he starts trying to save the girl. The movie also conforms to traditional patriarchal gender roles because of how men were pretty much expected to join and fight in the war. If they didn’t sign up, they would be seen as cowards or less manly. That can be seen when Annabelle Lee leaves Johnnie Gray just because he didn’t enlist for the army. The movie supports the idea that men are supposed to join the army, or else they will be seen as not manly. Finally, the way Annabelle Lee is portrayed is kind of like a damsel in distress, but I think she is a little more than that. Typically a damsel in distress is held captive by the bad guys and just sits there crying for help. And when the damsel is finally saved, the man usually carries her or guides her to safety while she sits around doing nothing. However in this movie, Annabelle Lee doesn’t sit still not doing anything like a typical damsel in distress. She actually helps Johnnie Gray such as working the train or helping him on the bridge. This is not like what a typical damsel in distress would do which is why I think she is more progressive than a stereotypical damsel in distress.
ReplyDeleteAnnabelle Lee confirms typical gender roles. A few that the movie confirms is the women wanting to clean and keep things clean. Another time you can see a gender role is the women doing exactly what her father and brother saying when it comes to marriage and not wanting her to get married to the engineer because he is not brave enough. Then she listens to her father and tell the engineer and tells him that if he becomes an officer in the military then she will marry him. Showing that the idea of arranged marriage for a female stereotype. Although there are these typical gender roles I think that there is one time that Annabelle Lee breaks these gender roles when she starts to get an idea about how to work the train and prove that women can do more than just clean and do the other household things. Annabelle is a stereotypical damsel in distress because she is not able to do anything that helps herself and just ends up getting in trouble and needs saving. The guy needed to break her out of the house/prison that she was being held and she does nothing to help the guy along the way back if anything she just makes things worse, like the time when she threw the wood off the train because it had a hole in it. I don’t think that there is anything about her that a feminist could admire. If there would be one thing it would be that she never gave up on following her heart even though her family did want to. Another thing that a feminist could admire would be that Annabelle is able to learn on the fly. I think that this film is saying that there are gender roles. This movie reinforces the traditional roles that were expected at the time. The only thing that you might be able to infer from the movie is the idea that women might be able to learn some task but men will need to be patient with them because they are going to mess up a lot before they get it right.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie The General, Annabelle Lee is another victim of the stereotypical gender roles seen in earlier movies. For most of the film Annabelle is a classic damsel in distress. In the beginning of the film Annabelle is captured by the Northern soldiers and taken away on a train. She does not try to resist or fight her captors and accepts her imprisonment, a common characteristic of the classic heroine role. Later in the film, Annabelle is held captive in a house and is given her own room. She sits down on the bed and cries. She makes no attempt to escape or yell for help. She simply just gives up and cries. When she is finally rescued she makes an attempt to help but ends up not benefitting their escape. She tries to operate the train but messes up and reverses the train when she is supposed to go forward and forwards when she is supposed to go backwards. Additionally, when they are fueling the train with wood she throws in the tiny pieces and tosses the large ones out of the train. Once again she does not know what she is doing. These elements can arguably be considered simply comedic but the fact that she is a woman changes to analysis, she needs a man to help her find her way and to teach her how to operate the train. The film also touches on some male gender roles. Johnny Gray is expected by his girlfriend, Annabelle, to join the army after the war breaks out. This is an example of the expectation put on men to be brave and fight. Overall, The General portrays both conventional general roles seen in early American films.
ReplyDeleteI would have to say that the picture/character of Annabelle Lee is a little more complicated than some give credit. I would argue that in this film, Annabelle Lee is not a mere stereotypical heroine, but rather a microcosm of all the women of the world/America/the South in this time period. This being so in the sense that, while she did do many stereotypical things that women might have done in this day and age, ie. start sweeping, not know how to work the train (at first), throwing away "bad" wood (the one piece with the hole in it), and more. However, as the film progressed, she began to understand what it was that she needed to do, and how to function the train, as well as coming up with her own idea to stop the Northerners' train. Showing that women are much more capable than some men (AND women themselves) think that they are at this time. We see this specifically when our "hero" of the story tells Annabelle what to do/how to drive the train so he can do something with the track to escape. In this scene, when he tells her to do so she gets very nervous and it is fairly obvious (I thought) from her facial expressions that she does NOT trust herself to perform this task properly. Whereas, the "hero" is very sure that she will be able to perform this, seemingly simple (to him), task. Showing that he doesn't see gender as a capability barrier, rather that she can do the same (to an extent i guess) as he can with just a little bit of instruction - as she has never controlled a steam engine before. Therefore, I do not believe that this Annabelle was portrayed as a typical helpless heroine but rather, as I said earlier, a microcosm of the progression of women's role in society during this time.
ReplyDeleteThe character of Annabelle Lee is a stereotypical damsel in distress, but the movie takes it a step farther. In The General, the movie uses many scenes with Annabelle to show her incompetence like when she throws away good or when she is unable to use the train properly. These examples are purposely in place not only to create the damsel in distress metaphor, but to purposely poke fun at women in general. The General implies that there are clearly defined general roles, especially regarding war, but it also uses the train scene to portray women as unintelligent. The General applauds these stereotypical gender roles, but also takes it a step further by purposely painting an image of women as less then their male counterparts.
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ReplyDeleteAnnabelle Lee is a stereotypical damsel in distress because throughout the movie the viewer seldom sees her doing anything more than weeping on a bed about being kidnapped. In addition, the fact the Johnnie Gray is her rescuer speaks volumes about the minimal level of capability the directors of the film portray Annabelle as having. Johnnie Gray throughout the film is portrayed and considered by the other characters in the film as a klutz, un-masculine, and unintelligent. Since Annabelle “needs” someone like this to rescue her shows that the directors believed that women are less capable then even the seemingly most un-capable man in the town. Throughout the movie she is used as a mere accessory to Johnnie Gray’s evolution into a hero. There is no focus on what Annabelle is going through emotionally and physically, just used to make the men in the film (Johnnie Gray, and her kidnappers) appear powerful. However, at times during the film Annabelle Lee does make an attempt to help the situation such as try to stop the train which could be considered progressive, but these attempts end in failure. This makes her appear useless and unintelligent so much so that she seems to make it more difficult for Johnnie Gray to rescue her. It is also clear that the directors of this film have very clear ideas of what gender roles should be. Johnnie Gray, who is a goof, still has to be heroic, while Annabelle still needs to sweep the engine room while she and Johnnie are escaping her kidnappers.
In Buster Keaton's film, The General, the heroine, Annabelle Lee, is certainly written to acknowledge the stereotypical gender norms of the time period, but at the same time, the film highlights the absurdity of these “norms” and creates a narrative in which Annabelle demonstrates her ability to step out of said roles. The film often makes nods to typical gender roles that marked the period of both the time when the movie was set (the civil war) and its filming (1926). For example, when Johnnie is trying to escape the soldiers in the train car, and needs wood to keep the engine going, the camera shows Annabelle inspecting a piece of wood with a hole in it, tossing it aside as she deemed it damaged goods. This scene reinforces the stereotype that women are not accustomed to life or death situations, and were groomed to be interested in frivolous things, like the hole in the wood, without any regard to practicality of the situation at hand (i.e. the fact that wood would have done the job whether or not it had a hole). Despite the film reinforcing these stereotypes, it also make a parody out of them, showing how ludicrous the grooming of women was at the time. Additionally, the film shows that, while Annabelle has been conditioned to be all these things, she is also fully capable of learning how to surpass these handicaps when she learns how to perform new, typically-male dominated tasks. For instance, when Annabelle and Johnnie are on the run in the train car, Annabelle has to help Johnnie by operating the train - something which she (and any women at the time) had no idea how to do- and why would she? Annabelle is shown struggling to figure out how the machine works, making comical mistakes , like finally getting it to go forward, but leaving Johnnie behind, then figuring out how to reverse it just as Johnnie catches up to her in the other direction. This demonstrates how, unlike men, women (in this case Annabelle) were not taught skills (like how to operate a train), and as such, when they were forced to perform these tasks in an urgent situation, they had no idea what to do- thus creating a comical scene as Annabelle struggles to learn these foreign tasks. This scene demonstrates the absurdity and impracticality in the differences between the education and expectations of men vs women at the time. It also demonstrates that women are perfectly capable of learning how to do these foreign tasks, as Annabelle does learn how to maneuver the train relatively well over the course of the film – an impressive accomplishment for someone who has never been trained or exposed to this type of demand before. Not only does this suggest equal capability between men and women, but it also raises the questions of why these discrepancies should exist in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI think that the movie confirms the stereotypical patriarchal gender roles of women at the time through the use of Annabelle as the female character. Time and time again she shows that she would return to the submissive role to the men in the movie. She often is shown as the stereotypical damsel as she lacks in ability to save herself. The rescue was done by the Hero in the movie which was a man. She shows moments where she is naïve and or considered stupid with the moments where she fails to locate her lover and moves the train forwards and backwards. Even one of the jokes pokes fun using sexism. This would be referring to the moment where Annabelle did not know what to do on the train so she grabbed a broom and started sweeping the floor. Another moment shows where Annabelle attempts to create an obstacle using trees and rope. While her intentions was to slow down the Northerners and she succeed, it was not in the way she originally intended. This shows that her trap was had less to do with skill and had more to do with luck. Overall she is just portrayed as a stereotypical damsel in distress where she is dependent upon a man to save and guide her. While unsurprising due to the time period that this was created in, this movies only perpetuates the sexist gender roles as the men as the ones who do the work while the women are left at home to take care of the house and the children.
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