blog 7

Family, relationships, motherhood

I recently watched Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. This is a hipster comedy about two people who wouldn't normally see themselves together romantically, but are drawn together from their similar tastes in music. (This has an awesome soundtrack fyi) The movie trailers showed a somewhat socially awkward wallflower (Michael Cera) and an quarky, outspoken girl (Kat Dennings) who finds mixed tapes made by Cera and starts to become intrigued by him. They have an unplanned adventure through the city in order to find her drunk friend and to find where their favorite band at a disclosed location. I think this is a typical gender plot: boy meets girl, girl and boy butt heads then fall for each other type of thing...I liked this movie because Dennings appeared less submissive than most girls in romantic comedies and took on a more stubborn and "smart" role.

Readings:
I thought it was interesting in the F-word when she was talking about women balancing work and family. "They are encouraged toward economic self sufficiency yet are subtly pressured to 'choose' lower paying, more flexible professions that would accomodate conventional motherhood..they hold out an ideal of shared parenting but anticipate inequality." In class we mentioned if a stay at home mom was a paid career, women would be making well over $100,000 with all the chores and parenting they have to do from the time they wake up til the time they go to bed. Dual partner marriages needs to be efficient and the term, "it starts when you sink into his arms and ends with your arms in his sink" still seems to be a stereotype today. Another depressing thing in the reading was the outstanding divorce statistics in the U.S. It seems regardless of who is getting married at least half of them will end in divorce.