Week 4 Blog
In viewing Alice's struggle with adolesence, the movie portrays this vision of women needing to be beautiful to fulfill all of the men's needs/wants. She does not get treated well by the boys in her class; she gets picked on instead of them telling her they actually like her (Kung Fu boy). Having Lila in her life shows how women look like they are dependent on men by how desperate Lila is to have her young boyfriend back after he left her for another woman. Once Lila dresses Alice up and puts loads of make up on her, men whistle at her when she is walking down the street, so she almost gets this feeling that in order to have boys notice her in a more "adult" manner, she has to look like this all of the time. Again, this is an example of "performing" gender and proving who she is to society and more specifically, men. I believe this is also an example how Alice is seeing the "limits" she has on her power of expressing herself. She sees being beautiful as a way that men will accept her, and she does not seem like she wants to be apart of that yet. She is still in the middle of being a kid, but also getting the responsibility of growing up and becoming a woman. Alice's mother plays an important role in her life by telling Alice to stick up for herself and do not let anyone tell her that she is anything less than a great, young woman. From this advice, Alice stands up for herself with her friend and the boys at school. She starts to gain some self control in the aspect that she is becoming a young, smart woman, and people cannot keep stomping all over her and taking advantage of her.
From watching Cusp, viewers are able to observe that the males in the movie are sort of favored, if you will, and women have to "prove" their existence to be in men's lives be performing beauty. Alice learns from Lila that in order for her to attract men, she needs to wear all of this make up and dress her best at all times. In other words, women cannot get men without performing beauty 24/7 because this is what men want and expect of them. Another example of gender and power would be when the teacher asks the students what questions they have on their homework, and she chooses to answer all of the obnoxious boys' questions over any of the patient girls that are raising their hands. Along with the examples from above, these are ways that men and women are perceived to Alice. This is where I believe she has a problem with discovering who she is and who she thinks she should be from the influences that surround her.