Stranger than Fiction: Postmodernism

Stranger than Fiction (2006) directed by Marc Forster is a great example of postmodernism. The whole movie itself seems to rotating around the idea of taking what we know of a movie genre and then messing with the idea. In the movie we hear a narrator narrating the life of our main character Harold Crick (Will Ferrel) whose life is completely run by his wristwatch. During the first five minutes of the film we see his entire day by the narration. Then the next day when we hear the narration we don't expect Harold to hear the voice, but he does and continues to hear it. This voice changes his life and with the help of Jules Hilbert (David Hoffman). Harold's life is completely different from his usual life. He starts to make friends, he takes a break from work, he dresses more comfortably, get a girlfriend, and learns to play the guitar. This film shows a lot of postmodern qualities that change our complete view of film.

 This film messes or plays with our knowledge of films. The first five minutes we think the film is a narration of Harold Crick's life. Since this is a narration and Harold doesn't seem to notice the voice in the beginning we assume the only the audience can hear the voice, then the first postmodernism quality is the fact the Harold can now understand this voice, which come as a surprise to the audience. Another way of messing with us is that the narrator actually meets her main character Harold.  When the narrator sees Harold she becomes in shock, which comes at a surprise to us because she is trying to kill him and the audience thinks that she knows of him. These are just a few ways in which this film messes with us.

This film shows a seemingly classical film and changes it up for the better. Most people may think this film is just a narration of our main character's life, it then changes when our main character hears the narration himself. This makes the movie a whole lot enjoy able and it brings something new to our eyes when watching it.

Fight Club (don't talk about it) Psychological criticism

When watching the film Fight Club and reading about psychological criticism. I've come to see that most if not all of the main characters represent the id, ego, or superego. During the film we meet Edward Norton (His character name was never given) an insomniac at a car insurance company it which his job is to see if a car needs to be recalled. Since he cannot sleep his doctor suggests going to a support group. When he enters the wrong one he ends up being able to sleep when listen to others. He starts signing himself up for other support groups including cancer. After he keeps going for a while he sees another girl who keeps going to all the support groups that he goes to. WHen he confronts this girl she is the death defying Marla (Helena Bonham Carter) who doesn't fear death at all. After meeting her he meets another man on an airplane called Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) who helps him after his condo explodes. The two then start an underground organization called Fight Club.

In the movie I've noticed that many of the main characters and their habits represent id, ego, and superego. For example in the first few minutes of the film Norton says that he can control his need to buy IKEA furniture, which shows his primal id instinct. Later in the movie towards the end Norton is actually the superego when it comes to other people getting harm and extreme damage to property. Tyler is revealed to be both Norton's ego by show him how to get out of his normal boring life by "being him". But the Ego and the Id always end up clashing.

The Id/Superego(Norton) and the Ego(Tyler) will always fight one another. In this film they literally physically fight it out with one another in the end. Now that Norton actually grows a conscience and realizes that what Tyler/He is doing wrong. They fight each other out with the outcome of the ego wining for now. When Norton realizes he has the gun in his hand not Tyler/Himself he shoots himself killing Tyler. He is now left with his superego and he doesn't feel any bad emotion from what just happened.

This is my psychological review of the movie Fight Club. This movie show the literal fight in our minds and puts it on the big screen. This in my opinion one of the best examples of the Id, Ego, and Superego. I like this movie and can't wait to read the theories of our narrator's name.

Do the Right Thing

We recently watched the movie "Do the Right Thing". A movie that takes place in New York on a block. We first see the voice of the air Senior Love Daddy (Samuel Jackson). We then see our main character of the story Mookie (Spike Lee) going to his job run by an Italian family. During the hottest day of the year, Mookie's friend Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) complain about the wall of Fame having no black people on it. He is then kicked out of the pizzeria. We see a whole plethora  of characters each with their own somewhat racist stereotype attached to them.

This film says a lot about race and racism in America. One example is how african americans were treated by white authority figures such as the cops in the movie that don't care if  the African Americans get hurt. Back around the 1980's if an African American owned a nice car police would automatically think he/she has stolen it. Another form of racism is the accents that the Korean grocery store owners have and when Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) constantly says "English, do you speak it." This shows how the stereotype of all asian english speakers being almost impossible to understand because of their accent.

During the movie we see the progression and life of Mookie. During the entire movie Mookie is constantly insulted by the older brother/employee of the pizzeria Pito (John Turturro). Even at one point they break the 4th wall to say racial slurs to each other. Mookies life is full of insults wether coming from Pito or his girlfriend/ mother of his child Tina (Rosie Perez) for not being a good father by working all the time. Spike Lee seems to make a point in saying Mookie is the one storing all this racial hate, which then turns into a riot. During the movie I started to agree with Roger Ebert in his saying that there are no heroes or villains in this film.

This movie really shows the racial discrimination in obviously comedic manner until towards the end. Wether it be the mob-like italians, the self absorbed african american hating white cop, or the complaining african american elderly group. This film shows how problems like Sal's could occur during the time of this film.

Boys N The Hood

There are a lot of characters in the Boys N the Hood that put on the tough guise. The tough guise is when a man will follow male stereotypes, for example when a male tries to act tough or when a male will start a fight to protect their masculinity. There are numerous characters if not all the characters  in the Boys N the Hood that demonstrate this. Doughboy , Chris, Dookie, and Monster all use the tough guise by all owning a gun, wanting to start a fight if needed and talking down against every female in the neighborhood.

Using this tough guise is both beneficial and disastrous. The main beneficial way is that it makes them less of a target to get killed in their neighbor. Using the tough guise makes them seem tough, this helps because gangs and such usually pick on the weak and defenseless to kill off because they are an easier target. There is some bad to the tough guise though. To look tough you'll have to think tough and bull-headed, this clouds your judgment and makes them do idiotic things like murder and shoot. This makes them murderers and could have a likelier chance of being killed or arrested for life.


There are a lot of people who put on the tough guise, but there are examples of better men that make better decisions in their lifetime. One of these men is our main character Trey. Trey makes the better decision of not going to kill the gang that killed his best friend. Also he treats females with the respect that they deserve. Another man who also shows better traits is Trey's father Furious Stiles. Stiles is a man who is well educated. He is kind and nurturing towards his son. He teaches Trey all that he needs to know to succeed and be great.

Tootsie and Gender

Tootsie (1982) takes place in the 1980's with an actor named Michael Dorsey (David Hoffman). He can never keep a stable job as a male actor because he is just not the right kind of actor and is too difficult to work with.He helps future actors and actresses by training them, he is particularly angry at the women in his class. When he is invited by his long time friend Sandy Lester (Teri Garr) for acting advise for a part in a hospital soap opera he goes to her apartment and tries to influence her to get mad because the part requires her to be strong and independent which she isn't. When she fails the audition Michael tries to get the part by dressing up like a female Dorothy Michaels, and actually ends up getting the part and falling in love with one of the actresses Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange). All havoc breaks loose with his two egos one as Michael and the other as Dorothy. This complicates both lives by mixing up many of the gender stereotypes.

Tootsie really challenges common gender roles quite a bit in the movie. Typically most women in films are weaker and less free then the male counter parts, but this movie is the opposite because our main male/female character stands up for women who are being mistreated. Also in the film Dorothy is actually given a part of power in the soap opera as hospital administrator. When she is faced with men trying to be with her, instead of doing the typical falling for the man role she tries to pry herself away many times in the movie. Most gender roles including being able to take care of children and be motherly, but as Dorothy shows us she is far from motherly when having to take care of a child. It was mainly the female gender roles that were challenged, we still had the sexist males, and the love lost father.

This movie is very similar in its main message to another film called Thelma and Louise (1991). The two films both included women/a woman try to bypass stereotypes and gender roles. Of course Thelma and Louise had a more violent approach in the beging as Tootsie was more passive and didn't include that much violence. Both of the movies stood up for women's rights for equality. Thelma and Louise included the use of force to gain equality while Tootsie gave a somewhat less effective verbal approach.

This movie was the most enjoyable film about the very serious note of gender stereotypes in our world. This showed us that you don't need to be a certain gender to preform certain jobs/ tasks. It makes us realize on a positive note that women should be treated just as equal as men. This is how I interpret Tootsie and its great use on how you don't have to be a certain gender to do different things.

Feminism in Film-Thelma and Louise

This Film takes the role on feminist role. This is proven by the obviously stereotypical characters in the film. The first character we meet is Darryl, Louise's husband who seems to not care about Louise at all as long as she stays inside and cooks and cleans. While Louise is the true feminist by following his orders but also go on a trip with her friend Thelma who seems more masculine. We then meet a regular customer at a bar who gets friendly with Louise and then when alone with her, he rapes her or tries to until Thelma pulls a gun on him and kills him. After that moment they practically become crusaders for women's rights. When they see a perverted truck driver that is constantly making rude gestures, they lure him out of his truck and blow it sky high.

This film is a great film that shows how women are not as weak as stereotypes make them out to be. They can be very masculine and can do almost everything a man can do. This is a fantastic movie that shows the hardships and stereotypes that these two women must face along with their past and present troubles with the stereotypically correct men that enter their lives.