Overcoming The Odds

5 Pages 1253 Words

Overcoming the Odds

Women are viewed different than men are with regards to their gender roles. Women’s gender roles in a general sense are the homemaker, mother, wife, and sex object. In movies women are often put into roles that are exceptable to women’s rights groups as well as unexceptable. In the movie G.I Jane the main character Jordan who is a woman is selected to participate in a test that would allow a woman to take part in the Navy Seals training program. Until now it was unheard of to see a woman try to pass this rigorous training. Jordan deals with double standard rules at the start, eventually speaking with the captain so she is treated as equally as the rest of the men. She prevails at the end and proves that a woman can complete the training just like a man could. In this movie women are portrayed as not being capable of completing such a rigorous task that is designed for men. Women’s rights groups would be supportive of this movie due to Jordan’s drive to complete a male’s task that nobody thought she could do.
In the movie G.I Jane there are a few relationships that play a big role in defining Jordan’s character. Her relationship with her boyfriend Royce plays the first part of discrimination against women going into Navy Seal training. Although he looks at the situation from a loving relationship standpoint he feels that she will not be able to complete the training. Royce looks at Jordan just like all the other men when she arrived at the Navy base.
Jordan also known as Lieutenant O ‘ Neal arrives at the Navy base greeted by vulgar males in the cafeteria making comments and whistling at her. The male trainees treated her like she does not belong there and they think she is a joke. Jordan sticks up for herself and wants to prove that women can finish this training program as well as men can. They look at her because she is woman and therefore, “Our art, not our lives, to often presents us as a...