Final Presentation

For our group’s final presentation, we decided to focus on the movie White Chicks. From this movie, we have all taken a different approach, focusing on 3 different clips. The clip that I will be using on is “$1000″. As you will see, two undercover cops take on the role of posing as two women. In this clip, the man that is dressed as Tiffany Wilson goes on stage to be auctioned off to the highest bidder. As the crowd starts calling out numbers, the highest bid is eventually reached and the winner comes onto the stage, in order to claim his “prize”. This clip illustrates my interpretation relating to Gayle Rubin. Rubin is a well known feminist, which focuses her ideas on sex and gender politics. This video clip exemplifies Rubin’s ideas that women are seen as “gifts”. It is a common fact that both men are women suffer from gender inequality. Men and women take on different roles and assume different positions in the workforce, household, and society in general. Rubin attempts to explain the explanation to the problem of women’s oppression. She uses the works of Levi-Strauss and Sigmund Freud as a basis for her argument. Throughout her argument, she explains the many attempts that have been made in order to explain female oppression. It has been argued that women’s oppression stems from the idea of capitalism. Although Rubin states that Marx does a great job in explaining a woman’s role in capitalist labor force, he does not explain anything that focuses on the oppression of women. Rubin’s views on a non-capitalist society help to illustrate my interpretation of this video clip. In a non-capitalist society, it is common for women to be extremely oppressed, such as women being traded, bought, sold, and shared among men. This argument shows the oppression of women in this clip. As the undercover cop goes onto the stage to be bid on, she enters this non-capitalist society where the buying and selling of the female gender seems very ordinary. The audience participates by placing their bids in order to win a date with her. This degrading act goes to show the “buying” of the female gender. Rubin states “Women are given in marriage, taken in battle, exchanged for favors, sent as tribute, traded, bought and sold.” (1673). the act of “buying” a woman seems so degrading because the only thing on stage is usually a female with a nice body and a pretty face. What about their personality? Do we get to see that? Do the women even get to say anything once they are one stage or do they just stand there and look pretty? This clip from White Chicks shows Rubin’s idea of the “exchange of women”. I do feel that the oppression of women will continue and the whole idea of auctioning women, ewww I hope it doesn’t grow in popularity anymore than it already has.

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