Grace vs Angela
"How did I end up with the name that made me the loser in a sorority of super agents?" (Grace Lee).
Both Angela Shelton and Grace Lee set out on personal quests to find themselves in their films: Angela Shelton to face her dark and abusive past, and Grace Lee to try and find some uniqueness behind her common name. Angela used the road as a way to connect women. She found as many women as she could with her name and set out to unite them all in their experiences and names. Angela's road was a very self-involved one. Even though she set out with the pretense of finding solidarity and a united front among women, she used the road and the women she encountered to fuel her own journey to facing her dark past. Her interviews were riddled with self-absorbed interjections, and every Angela she met was used in comparison to her own story. Grace Lee's goal was simple: to find out what women with the name, Grace Lee, were like. She used the road as a way to find unique qualities in women, rather than lumping them together in one group. Unlike Angela, Grace's interactions with the women were selfless: she intently listened to each of their stories without interjecting herself. She listened, and learned, whereas Angela listened and imposed herself.
In Angela Shelton's film, women are gendered as battered beings who are all too often afraid of speaking out and standing together. To me, she tried to make herself an example to these women of a strong person who had overcome a horrible past. In short, she tried to make these women her. Grace Lee, however, gendered women as unique souls who were lost in stereotype and clumped together under a name. She imposed nothing, tried to teach nothing, but rather went on a search to find uniqueness see how these women identify themselves. Her road was raced, as well, but only because most women with the name Grace Lee were of Korean heritage. Overall, both women went on the road for the same mission: to find themselves in other women. The way they went about this, however, makes all the difference as Angela used her road for the good of herself, while Grace Lee used her road to expose the beauty and the differences of womankind.