Blog 7

Movie Review

The most recent movie I’ve seen lately is “The House of Yes”. A movie with great reviews, but little advertisement and box office attention, “The House of Yes” is a twisted dark comedy. The premise of the story surrounds an off-kilter family consisting of a mother and her three grown children, a son, and a set of twins, one male and one female. The twin son, Marquis, comes home for thanksgiving where his mother, brother and sister live together. Marquis surprises his family with a fiancée. By the point in the movie, you are well aware of his sister’s, Jackie-o, mental illness –she’s insane. (**Don’t read the following section if you want to see the movie –I highly recommend it**) As very confusing and twisted secrets about the family’s history surface during the evening’s events, the viewer slowly learns about the incestuous relationship that has taken place between Marquis and his twin sister, Jackie-o. Marquis’s fiancée learns about their relationship when she catches him having sex with his sister. The fiancée, Leslie, is then manipulated to have sex with the other brother, Anthony. ...believe it or not, the actors pull it off.

Gender is a very interesting part of the story to pick apart, starting with the main character, Jackie-o. Jackie’s insanity is blamed often on her relationship with Marquis. Her mental stability is entirely dependent on Marquis’s acceptance of her. Not only that, but her personality if formed from having everything that she’s ever wanted, she’s extremely spoiled. When the viewer learns more of historical events in Jackie’s life, they learn about her obsessive and manipulative qualities. For example, she shot Markus in the gut so that he wouldn’t be able to leave for school. The most dominant feature of her character is her obsession with Jackie Kennedy. I loved the mix of stereotypes played by this character. She represented the selfish, dependent, and manipulative women in our society.

Marquis is also an interesting character to examine. Every action that he took seemed to be controlled by one of the women, whether is be his fiancée, sister, or mother. He represents another very common stereotype in our society: the man that is only motivated by women.

My favorite character to consider when discussing gender is Anthony. Anthony is the dumb other brother who doesn’t seem sure of much. He plays dumb so well that he has an astounding ability to manipulate women. He lies to Marquis’s fiancée by telling her that he has a brain tumor and is a virgin... a lie that would only work on an easily persuaded woman if played in the perfect stupid way. Anthony allows his true personality to seep through once in the whole movie, and it is after he has fully realized that he has entirely rode out the train of taking advantage of Leslie, the fiancée. Because you only meet the real Anthony for a very short moment while he is a little bitter, the viewer can understand how conniving he really is. Anthony represents what all those “men-haters” out there hate on.

As a whole, gender rolls are the underlying manipulative force that drives all of the relationships in the film. Even obsessions and reasoning for each character are shaped in some way by a gender stereotype.

Readings

Chapter 7 in the “F-Word” reminded me of one of my greatest fears: marriage. Despite the fact that anyone living in Oklahoma would think the normal age to get married is 22 (or earlier), there are many people out there in the real world getting married at slightly less scary ages. One thing the author didn’t mention when talking about the trend of people getting married later is that the meaning of marriage is changing. She talked about many of the factors that have gone into changing the function of marriage, the necessity of marriage, and the changing social pressures to get married, but failed to talk about how this makes for a new type of marriage that can be defined more loosely. How do people know when they should get married if it is starting to become more a choice of whether or not they would like to, not that they should, or need to.

One definition of marriage that I currently really love is: why get married? I don’t think that people need to get married at all. In fact, I think that for certain couples, the comfort of a legal tie to one another fogs the importance of remaining a responsible partner that actively tries to “convince” the other person to still be with them. What is a healthy love if people forget why they are in the relationship other than by remembering warm feelings from distant memories? If people choose to stay together without marriage, it seems as though they may be motivated to invest more in the relationship. ...I’m a little anti-marriage right now.