“A midwifes tale,” made in 1997, directed by Richard P. Rodgers and Laurie Kahn-Leavitt, tells the story of a hard working woman living in early America’s Maine in 1785. Martha Ballard held many roles in her lifetime, some of them being; a mother, wife, employer, aunt, nurse, and midwife. When Martha was fifty she started writing a journal about everything she saw, experienced, and accomplished for the next twenty-seven years of her life. This includes birthing over 1000 babies, along with having her own, living on a farm, watching her husbands mill burn down, and witnessing the death of her daughters. This film tells the story of Martha’s life by play reenactment, and also showing the research and information from the journal given to us by a historian, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich. …show more content…
Two major primary sources included songs that were sung in the film, and even Martha Ballard’s journal. Secondary sources that helped explain Martha’s stories and feelings where the actors in each scene and what Laurel also had to say from the information she collected from the journal. Being able to hear the songs that they sang and the things that they said all acted out really puts together the feelings and ideas of what was happening at the time, both inside of the house and in the country. One scene in the film put together primary and secondary sources well. When Martha walks into a room with four children and a mother singing to a sick child. Martha was able to have a look at the child, but there was little to do to help. The film explained that only men that worked in the decal field were given medicine and tools to use to help patients to get better. From what Ulrich understood was that the boy had scarlet fever, and there was not much of anything that Martha could
Based off Charles Webb’s 1963 novel by the same name, The Graduate is an American romantic comedy/drama released in the United States on December 21, 1967 starring Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft, Katharine Ross, and William Daniels. The film was directed by Mike Nichols, produced by Lawrence Turman and the screenplay written by Buck Henry and Calder Willingham. The film was produced by Lawrence Turman/Mike Nichols productions starting in March of 1967. Mike Nichols has also directed other well known films such as Catch-22 (1970), Working Girl (1988), and more recently Closer (2004). The film was distributed by AVCO Embassy Pictures nationally and United Artists internationally. AVCO Embassy Pictures studio, founded by Joseph E. Levine, the films executive producer, also claims production/distribution for other hit films such as Godzilla, King of Monsters! (1956), The Fog (1980), and Prom Night (1980). The movie was well received due to its $104 million dollar box office opening tab. The score was produced by Dave Grusin and the songs written by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.
The film, The House I live In, opened my eyes to the severity of unfair law enforcement and the depths of the battle with war on drugs. Theoretically, the more people are being arrested for drugs, the cheaper, purer, and more available the drugs become. Making these arrests are not helping get the drugs off the streets, it is only opening up more opportunities for other people to pick up the business.
Martha gets the honor of showing the world that women of her time did all they could to be as independent as possible. In The Midwife’s Tale, Laurel Ulrich explains, “She gardened, sewed, cared for her grandchildren, nursed the sick, laid out the dead, and delivered babies” (276). She was a woman of many talents. Martha lived by a value that she expects the same respect in return and undertakes full authority over the responsibilities she considers to be her own.
April 1st 2016, more than 340 thousand students had to spend the school time in churches, libraries, parks, or other places without teacher. It was an April Fools' Day but the Chicago Teachers' Strike was not a joke. Not long after the first strike in 2012, the Chicago Teachers Union walked out again. Thousands of teachers and their supporters gathered at schools and City Hall, shouting that they protest for low wages and unfair labor practices. Karen Lewis, the CTU President, says that they hope this "act of war" can bring pressure to the governor Bruce Rauner, so that they can have changes like better pensions, fairer raises and more autonomy on school work. Obviously they did not get what they want from the first
A new and alarming trend that has been occurring in American society is the increase of violence committed by young women. The documentary Girlhood offers an insight on the emotional, psychological, and social reasoning behind the girl’s actions. Girlhood focuses on the life of two young juveniles, Shanae Owens and Megan Jensen both incarcerated for violent crimes. Shanae and Megan both experienced similar circumstances that yielded different outcomes. They were followed for a period of about three years which allowed viewers to really see what kind of role the justice system, family and peers have on the success of an at risk juvenile.
The movie Parenthood cover’s many of the topics we have discussed this semester in class. But it obviously focused very strongly on parenting and marriage. During the course of the movie we see the four Buckman children’s very different style of parenting. Although all four were raised by the same parents the culture of their individual families are all look very different. Gil Buckman felt abandoned and ignored by his father and therefore responded, with his wife Karen, by being a very active and attentive parent. Gil and Karen are on the authoritative end of the parenting spectrum, and their families’ culture revolves around activities such as baseball games, Kevin’s baseball game, Birthday parties, school plays and basically having fun together (Lecture, 4/22). On the opposite end of the parenting spectrum are Nathan and Susan. They are very authoritarian and reminded me of the “tiger Mom’s” of China. The culture of their family means that they don’t have their daughter in preschool, they are waiting a prescribed amount of time to have a second child and Nathan is continuously drilling facts into their daughter. Susan feels like she should be playing with children her own age but Nathan’s feelings have taken over their family’s culture.
Cinderella Man was an incredibly magnificent and uplifting film that followed the life of the “Bulldog”, later entitled “Cinderella Man”, starring Russell Crowe as James J. Braddock, the American heavyweight boxer. Primarily, Cinderella Man embodies strength and willpower as once-undefeated heavyweight fighter, Braddock’s loses started to rapidly accumulate, so bad that he was released from his boxing contract and was merciless impeded from fighting. Correspondingly, deprived of work the bulldog began to undertake hard labor during the Great Depression to counterbalance myriad bills and overdue payments. Moreover, Braddock and his wife Mae together had three children to nourish. Correspondingly, years later, Joe Gould played by Paul Giamatti, was Braddock’s old boxing manager and contracted him one last concluding fight, which he won. Hence, the Bulldog started to train again and James J. Braddock was reborn after countless winning comebacks. Ultimately, Jimmy undergoes a fairy tale rise from a poor local fighter to the heavyweight-boxing champion of the world.
When the notorious topic of women’s role in society comes to mind writers like Kate Chopin and Mary Wilkins Freeman break the norms of how women in America were imagined to be through different cultures and regions. In both Kate Chopin’s and Mary Wilkins Freeman’s time period women are portrayed as an ample servant to their husbands. Together the texts show how the controlled understanding of the nineteenth century society, had on women. At that time of these writers, people were restrictive about the viewpoint of women’s place in society. Women could not really do much without their Husband or another male figure in their life , they really didn’t have a voice of their own. In the stories A New England Nun , Desiree’s Baby, The Story of an Hour, and The Storm, Mary and Kate have represented how this situation of the society affected women and their viewpoints about life and marriage.
Many people describe the role as a mother and a wife as something that is to be welcomed, a natural stage for women. However for the narrator, it changed from something seemingly beautiful to “old foul, bad...” Motherhood to her is then what creative women were to other people during the 19th century. Creativity was natural for the narrator, unlike motherhood; it was part of her being. Motherhood however, was a prison of domestic
The Roaring Twenties were a very important time in America’s history. I chose this topic to discuss because I think it brought about many great changes, especially for women. Women were finally able to break away from tradition. They wore shorter dresses, cut their hair short, and expressed themselves more. Some women also enjoyed dancing and became flappers. This is one of the first times women have been able to do things like this, which I think is extremely important. The only downfall of the 1920’s was prohibition, which outlawed alcohol. I’m not really sure why they outlawed it during this time period. This was supposed to be the era of fun and prosperity, and many people drink for fun. However, this did not stop people from drinking,
The movie Mean Girls is set in a high school setting. The movie starts with a new girl coming to the school as a first time public school student. Cady, the new student, is immediately accepted into a group of friends, but later invited to another. The first clique she joins pushes her to become friends with the second group. This subsequently led to a typical high school drama scene. The ways these high school students go about their normal life seem very alike to the “typical” high school. Even though the movie Mean Girls by Mark Waters, uses humor to portray some questionable realism, it effectively depicts characteristics of ordinary high school life and uses realistic characters.
Christina Mulcahy, featured in the film Sex In A Cold Climate, became an unwed mother in mid twentieth century Ireland. Heavily Catholic, mothers like Christina were not welcomed in their communities after becoming pregnant and were often sent to Nun-controlled Magdalene Laundries and their children were put up for adoption. The Catholic culture of Ireland was so strict that Christina could not keep her baby even though she desperately wanted to. Most unwed mothers in rural Ireland were shunned by their families, as Christina was, and had nowhere to go but to the laundries where they could repent for their sins and be set back on the right path, according to the Church. However, as Christina reveals, the Magdalene Laundries were far more like
Part 1 - In American author's 2009 book, The Help, the primary thesis is the relationship between Black maids and white households in Jackson, Mississippi during the early 1960s. The story is really told from three perspectives, Aibileen and Minny are Black women, both maids, and Skeeter is the nickname of Eugenia Phelan, daughter of a prominent White family. Skeeter has just finished school and hopes to become a writer. In general, the relationship between the Black maids and the White employers is six sided: On one side we have the White employers who have three views: 1) Their personal and private beliefs that can range from extreme scorn and bias to kindness regarding race; 2) Their public persona that must have the "proper" attitude about Blacks and "the help," and 3) Their employer attitude, which is condescending and parental. The Black view also has three segments: 1) Their personal and private beliefs that usually range from understanding not all Whites are the same and an extreme love and empathy for the White children for whom they care; 2) The public persona that is deferential, polite, and stoic to their White bosses; and 3) Their attitude and view among the Black community, which usually separates the "poor and ignorant but rich" White souls from the Black view of family and common sense. All in all, the relationship is contentious, phony, and based on economic advantage.
One of my favorite movies that taught me the most about the roles of women in the United States is Pleasantville directed by Gary Ross. The 1950s and 60s have always been an interesting time period within women’s history for me. In that time period, women were homemakers where their job would be to cook, clean, and take care of their families. It is so interesting to me because that is not at all how my family life is now. Pleasantville depicts the life of women in that era by telling the story of two teens who are brought into the world of Pleasantville where they take on the roles of Bud and Mary Sue Parker. In this world, everything is black and white and their lives are seen as “perfect” family. Nothin ever went wrong in Pleasantville,
What do Betty from "Pleasantville," June from "Leave it to Beaver," and Donna Reed from "The Donna Reed Show" all have in common? They all represent the image of the perfect housewife in the 1950s. They represent women who gladly cooked, cleaned, dressed in pearls and wore high heals while waiting for their all-knowing husbands to come home. They represent women who can only find fulfillment in male domination and nurturing maternal love. Tillie Olsen, as a single mother with four children (204), provides readers with another view of women. Through the representation of the narrator in I Stand Here Ironing, Olsen contradicts the image of the 50s ideal woman, a happy housewife and a perfect mother.