Product: Sorority Boys (2002)
Rating: 1.0
Hidden Positive Messages
Sorority Boys is a pretty bad comedy about three fraternity brothers who are kicked out of their house and are forced to act as girls in order to live for free in a sorority house. While I was watching this movie (and at the same time thinking that I was wasting my time) I noticed that there were some very important issues being brought up. The film is based on existing stereotypes of how women should look, dress, and act. We take on the view of a bunch of fraternity boys who talk about women's bodies, objectify them, call them names if they are anything but the ideal embodyment of emaciated femininity, and use them for sex and conversation. The sorority that these three boys end up joining if called D.O.G. The women in this sorority are not beautiful, thin, or petite, and are constantly made fun of by everyone else on their campus. There is another sorority though, that is full of thin but busty women who are always wearing pink, and somehow always manage to have wet t-shirts. This movie is quite remarkable because it shows both sides of the spectrum. At first we are presented with stereotypes of what college boys expect and want women to be and look like. Later on in the film, however, when the boys are living in the sorority house and are trying to pass as women, we see a different perspective. They are obviously not women. Here is a good example of the verfremdungseffekt or distantiation effect, where something in the film makes it clear that it is not a presentation of reality. In this film everyone believes that these boys are in fact women. The ineresting part is watching these boys who, in no way make believable women, struggle with being called and feeling ugly and overweight. We see these boys begin to embrace, accept, and defend the women that thay once made fun of. The film them takes a turn and begins to critique female stereotypes, instead of reinforcing them. The film challanges Foucault's theory of the panopticon. This idea implies that people in society know that they are constantly being observed by others in that society and therefore begin to act a certain way. In terms of women, this can be seen as women knowing that they are always being looked at by men, so they begin to act and dress the way they want to be seen by these men. In this film, the members of the D.O.G sorority do not care that they are being made fun of by their entire school. They love each other and help one another to feel beautiful and self-confident. They do no worry about the way they are seen, nor do they do anything to try and remedy their images. They are proud of each other and themselves, and do not internalize the panopticon of their campus. At first glance, this film does not offer any promise of learning anything, but as you delve deeper, there is much to be gained from Sorority Boys.