Angie's Life example essay topic

Angie is a 1994 film that depicts the life of a feisty woman who more or less had lived her life the way she wanted. Going against the norms, Angie had proven herself to be a strong and liberated woman of the 21st century. Approaching thirty, she had spent her whole life in the same neighbor hood with her longtime boyfriend, Vinnie and best friend, Tina. However, Angie's mind is far from the latter.

When Angie gets pregnant, everyone was excited and was expecting that she would marry Vinnie, the father of his son. But when she declined to marry him, Angie's life turned 360 degrees. Almost everyone had a bad say about it. And I think this issue is still applicable until now. If a woman gets pregnant, people think that marriage is the solution. This is so because society stigmatized mothers who bear a child out of wedlock.

But the movie presented this dilemma in a way that movie viewers would truly understand what women in this situation are really going through. It presents realistic views on the traditional expectations on women and the consequences that come with it. Hence, I think this film that deals with events and relationships such as mother-daughter relationship, female friendships and motherhood, which would be generally difficult for men to comprehend. It is not that they wouldn't understand the movie but I think this is a film wherein girls could relate better. Because I think this motion picture is more than just Angie's self-discovery but it also talks about making a stand as a woman, an entirely independent being from man.

So, it was not anymore surprising to find out that the movie's director is a woman (Martha Coolidge). The sincerity of understanding how a woman thinks had given me the palpable idea that behind this filmmaking is a woman director. For instance, the scene where Angie is disappointed ly using the breast pump to extract her milk was presented in a serious mode. This shows how women really feel about breast-feeding. And it is true that breast-feeding is not a joke. And if the director had been a man, I guess it would be presented in a more detached or even in a hilarious manner.

Angie's outlook and decisions in life can obviously be explained by her childhood experiences wherein she was abandoned by her mother, lived for 20 years with her most hated step mother and had constantly seen the rotten marriage of her best friend who has an egoistic and paranoid husband (who truly resembles male machismo). These events in her life, led her to doubt a happy marriage and be puzzled about motherhood. When she had eventually begun to seek for herself, I think that it is unfair for the people (especially her father and best friend) to accuse her of being selfish and irresponsible. I felt that she was just thinking of herself for the first time and yet the society was discouraging her to do that. Hence, giving her guilt feelings that she does not deserve. Further, the movie is saying that it is okay for a woman to be a single mom but it is not okay to leave your child on the hands of other persons.

But for the father, it is saying that it is okay not to be part of the child rearing and it is okay to leave your child solely on his / her mother's care. Well, how unfair is that! Why can men leave their children without being labeled as bad or immoral but if women do that, they will be condemned by the society? Not because women are viewed as the primary caretakers of their children already means that men have lesser responsibility toward their children. The point is men should feel that they have an equal responsibility to their child, which is not lesser as compared to the responsibility of the child's mother. However, this is not happening in the society nowadays.

Fact is our society is more lenient on men regarding these things. What disappoints me further, is when people around Angie is looking at her as if she had committed a crime when she just went to her mother to find an answer for herself and think about her life for the very first time. But what about Angie's supposed to be Italian husband, Noel? Did the movie say anything about him leaving Angie at the middle of a crisis or simply about minding Angie's child? Uh oh, I' do not think so. Although I can say that the movie had provided insights on women's independence and empowerment, I believe that it is still not a completely feminist film.