The deaths in "Girl on a Motorcycle" and "Easy Rider" create negative and unrealistic stereotypes of idealistic gender-roles in the 60's and 70's. Both movies share a common theme of the main characters unhappy with their reality, traveling on motorcycles to a new place in search of freedom. In both movies the characters are killed, but the difference in death shows the gaze of gender during the period of time when these movies were made. Rebecca, the main character in "Girl on a Motorcycle" is killed because of her carelessness and irresponsibility behind the wheel. Her drug trips/flashbacks/ male gaze of a scattered female psyche leads her to crash and be ejected from the motorcycle, her vehicle of freedom. Similar to "Girl on a Motorcycle," Captain America (Wyatt) in "Easy Rider" is killed while riding a motorcycle, however until his moment of death he remains in control of his vehicle of freedom. He also isn't responsible for his own death like Rebecca is. The movie endings become indicative of the gender differences that were thought to be reality, and clearly conceived by a man. "Easy Rider" shows that when a man seeks freedom, he is in control of his destiny until another man attempts to take it away through intentional murder. "Girl on a Motorcycle" shows that even when a woman seeks freedom on a motorcycle she will still be object to the masculine vehicle on which she rides. (Hence the obnoxious sexually suggestive camera angles and riding positions during the movie.) The film also shows that a woman may take on a counter culture role of becoming a motorcycle rider, but she will always fit in the stereotypical irrational, irresponsible woman who will only bring death upon herself by seeking her own identity and freedom away from her husband. Mulvey describes this stereotype as a sexual imbalance between the active male and the passive female, which describes my personal understanding of the male gaze. Kaplan explains the possibility for the story in "Girl on a Motorcycle" and many others, to be a representation of the female gaze in the case of lesbianism or the first stages of progression in the womens film movement, forcing women to initially have to take roles of objectivity. I personally have never seen a film that over-sexuallized and objectified women in the most blatent and unnecessary ways. I cant help but imagine the writers, producers, directors, and camera people in this film all being old, horny, perverted white men. Creating this awful film and in turn creating their fantasies and skewed perception of the female psyche and capabilities for freedom away from men and the typical home maker/ house wife role.
