Week Four
As the movie follows Alice through her “everyday�, it is clear that Alice is just beginning to learn about power and gender, and specifically her power and gender. At school with her friends there are times that it seems they have a lot of power (walking around the school grounds giggling and when Alice and her friend are in the bathroom and ask another girl to leave because they are talking) and other times (especially when Alice becomes distanced from the group, during her presentations or when she becomes the subject of laughing) when Alice seems to have little power at all. Also, as a group, the girls seemed to be out powered by the overwhelming presence the boys in the class had. When the teacher was taking questions, the girls’ hands were overlooked because the boys were chanting the number they wanted answered. Alice also was beginning to see gender and a performance. Her and her friend go out of their way, and are even late for class because they are putting on lip-gloss. In their words “We can’t come to class without lip-gloss.� The clearest example is when the neighbor Lila dresses up Alice in makeup and eye-catching clothing and tells Alice that the most important thing is that she find a man and look like she can attract one. Although some of these situations and most of the feelings are universal amongst young women, Alice’s experiences are individual for the most part. She is growing up with a single parent household and being half raised by a family friend who lives next door. At the end of the film, when Alice reaches that points where she simply can’t take any more she is realizing that power has certain unspoken gender limits within it, that way she “does� gender will reflect her power. Whether that means she has more or less power, I’m not sure. In Lila’s case she was less power.