Representing Gender in FIlm Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Representing Gender in FIlm - Essay Example These oppressed people possess normal heterosexuality; they are not artificial but express unnaturalness due to a mixture in genders. Butler argues that this unnaturalness can be changed through performativity with the help of either psychologists or close family members. Performative acts are repetitive. They show the behavior of a person. The behavior of the gender a person is comfortable with. The person may represent a different biological gender while the actions performed by that person may be different from the behavior of that gender. Performativity is mostly experienced in children who lose a parent of the opposite sex. The lose hits their mental status and they are compelled to repeat the actions of that parent and they perform the actions they used to do out of love and devotion. Performativity The movie â€Å"Boys Don’t Cry† was directed by Kimberly Peirce in 1999. The story was scripted by Judith Butler. It is based on a true story of a girl who experiences gender transformation. She wants to change her physical appearance to that of a male but cannot afford to undergo a surgery. She then changes her looks to resemble a male which attracts Lana, a girl who herself is not very feminine. Teena/Brandon is shown to be a quiet and sensitive individual with a bit of masculine characteristics. Lana falls in love with Brandon and shares her secrets related to him with her friends which proves that she is fully convinced that Brandon is a male. Lana believed Brandon to be a male and was ready to accept him with whichever gender he wanted to follow when she started to suspect him of his gender. Later on in the movie Lana’s ex boyfriend John who is a psychopath and his friend Tom, suspect Brandon of being a female and inform Lana. Lana does not respond to them and tells Brandon that she would accept him even if he was a female. Brandon and Lana were forced to accept that they were lesbians but they refused to do so. Later on Brandon was s ent to jail and her identity was revealed there. As John was jealous of Teena/Brandon, he raped her and shot her. After analyzing the film â€Å"Boys Don’t Cry† one notices the performativity expressed by characters in the movie scripted by Judith Butler. At the very beginning of the movie, Teena Brandon who is born as a female but biologically has the gender of a female, expressed her wish to undergo surgery to change her gender but could not due to lack of financial support. Teena or Brandon is seen to play the role of a transgendered person. This movie expresses performativity of gender through the character of Teena/Brandon who wants to live life as a heterosexual male and believes himself to be one. Although being a female it was hard for her to act as one. Due to difficulty in have the sources for gender transfer, she decided to dress up and act like a male. It was easy for her to express her masculine characteristics as she inherited the male gender more than th e female one. When a person has a mixed gender, the person expresses that gender which is more prominent. Therefore, even though Teena had the organs of a female, her behavior was masculine and there was no reason for her not to be a male except for her misfortune of not being able to arrange for the gender transfer operation. From the very beginning, Teena/ Brandon’s assumption of being a male represents gender to be performative while on the other hand

Atlantic Slave Trade and Christianity Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Atlantic Slave Trade and Christianity - Essay Example 213). After its abolition by the start of the 19th century, slavery materialized in the South as product of the trans-Atlantic trade. Christianity by then was already present because of the European settlers and colonizers in the New World. Issues have been raised pertaining to the legality of slavery in the laws of God compared to the laws of man and the society. From these things, a question emerges: "What is the legacy the Atlantic slave trade brought to the white and black Christians" In order to address this question, this paper gives a background of the Atlantic slave trade including the main places who participated in the triangular trade. It also mentions the role of Christianity in assessing slave-ownership and slave trade in America. Nathan Nunn (2005) reports the total slave exports from Africa in the year 1410 up to 1913 as shown in Figure 1. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade has the highest African slave exports with a total of 12.7 million slaves. It is followed by the Trans-Saharan trade with approximately 3 million exports. The Red Sea and Indian Ocean trades have 1.3 million and 1.1 million respectively. He also showed the top African countries that have the highest slave exports in the same duration. Nigeria, Zaire and Angola are the three highest slave exporting countries with a total of almost 2 million exported slaves each (12 percent). (Nunn 2005) Figure 1 The Triangular Trade An important feature surrounding the trans-Atlantic trade is the triangular trade. In 1450 until the latter part of the 19th century, the African slaves were acquired by the European countries like Portugal from West Africa. The kings and merchants in Africa fully supported the routine because they got different varieties of trade goods like beads, cowrie shells, textiles, brandy, horses and guns. This process describes the first side of the triangular trade. From West Africa, the acquired African slaves were transported to the New World. This represents the middle or the second side of the triangular trade. This part of the trade was the worst for the African slaves because they suffered malnutrition and new diseases en-route to the New World. After reaching the New World, the slaves worked on different plantations. The final products: cotton, sugar, tobacco, molasses, and rum were shipped to Europe. This scheme is the final side of the triangular trade.1 B. Main Actors Portugal In the year 1502, there were reports of the existence of African slaves in the New World or now the Unites States of America. Portugal was regarded in that time as the country that held a monopoly of African slaves for almost 200 years starting from 1440 up to 1640. The Portuguese played a major role in exporting the slaves from Africa during the span of time. For almost four and a half centuries, Portugal had exported an approximate number of 4.5 million African slaves accounting to 40 percent of the overall number.2 Britain Britain also participated in the trans-Atlantic slave trade although later it instituted the banning of slave trade. In the early decades of the 18th century Britain was a key trader who transported 2.5 million out the 6 million