Promiscuous Role Of Nick Marshall example essay topic

Give Me R-E-S-P-E-C-T, You Sexist Pig! The internationally known lyrics to "Respect" by Aretha Franklin-the Queen of Soul-not only represents girl power, but more importantly, serves as a powerful message holder to all the men out there: women want and command respect. Being that we are still living in a male-dominated society, women are still in the process of battling against the gender role restrictions and limitations that society has placed upon us since as long as we can remember-not to mention fighting for what matters most to us: respect. With all sorts of restrictions that are placed upon us whether it is socially, physically, emotionally, or occupationally, it is no wonder or surprise to see strong and powerful women taking the stand of just how capable and just how equally dominant we can be. Holly Devor, author of Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes, implies that "gender roles are the result of systematic power imbalances based on gender discrimination" (488). Men have always had a naturally set mentality that women are nothing more than sex objects that merely satisfy the daily needs and wants of their dirty work.

There is clearly a lack of mutual respect and communication towards the women on the men's part. In the film "What Women Want", Mel Gibson plays the promiscuous role of Nick Marshall, an aggressive, chauvinist businessman that has utterly no respect or sense of concern for women. However, through a strange twist of events involving getting electrocuted by a blow dryer, he is given an amazing talent of being able to hear everything that goes on in the mind of a woman-to hear what women want. Through this life-changing, roller coaster ride experience, Nick defeats society's and his own gender role expectations of women and ultimately comes to a deep realization that having respect and communication with the opposite sex is essential to one another's growth and existence in the long run.

Nick Marshall's early upbringing by a Las Vegas showgirl mom is what structures his view of women as objects. Because he has strongly looked at women in this way after watching these scandalously dressed women displaying their bodies out to the world at such a tender age, he has strictly prohibited himself from looking at them as real human beings-not wanting to get a grasp of what there all about on a human level and not wanting to have or give any respect to them as people. Devor states that men are naturally "characterized by dominance and aggression" (484), therefore supporting the fact that men are restricted to display themselves as softies-someone that is of emotional service to the needs of women. Nick cannot do the simple task of calling his housemaid by her real name, instead calling her "babe". He does not try to make an earnest effort of wanting to build a close and loving father / daughter relationship with his daughter, Alex, instead playing the minimal role of "Uncle Dad". He does not have any respect for any of the women that he works with that he arrogantly has doing all of his secretarial and personal work for him.

He constantly has different women over at his place, always waking up with lipstick all over his face, having the smell of women's perfume all over his bed sheets, and having their panties on the floor. Even with so much exposure to women on a daily basis, Nick-being at the forefront of a male-dominated society-is careless, heartless, and disrespectful of what women want, think, and have to go through on a daily basis. He continues to do, act, and treat women the way he does because he feels that he does not need them to feel emotionally complete in his life. When Darcy Maguire-a woman-gets hired as creative director instead of Nick at his company, he is ridiculed and distraught at the fact that a woman has taken over the position that he should have landed automatically.

Darcy unquestionably shakes up the system of male dominance, therefore causing a high degree of tension in the workplace. Nick is not used to anyone-especially a woman-being one step ahead of him in anything; he cannot accept the fact that someone that is just merely an object can be on top of things. Being that Nick is an active member of the male-dominated society and having a "competitive masculine thirst for power" (Devor 485), he is willing to do anything he can do to sabotage his new boss of her job. However, his plans are interrupted when a strange twist of events occur by getting electrocuted by a blow dryer, giving him the power to hear what women want, thus drastically transforming his chauvinistic perspective of women into looking at them as real people with real feelings. When Nick is zapped with a blow dryer and is given the ability to hear what women what, he is soon able to realize something that he has never been able to do ever in his life-look at women as non-objects and as people with real feelings and an imagination. He is astounded and shocked by how the mind of a woman works-especially with its complexity.

When Nick is given the responsibility of taking care of his daughter for a week or two for his ex-wife's honeymoon trip, he is given a reality check about how much he has been lacking in his role as Alex's father. Being able to read what women think, he is given a clear idea of his daughter's relationship with her boyfriend, her sexual motives with him, and her thoughts of her father being useless when it comes to everything and anything. Nick is completely clueless about anything that goes on in his daughter's life and when he is given this slam in the face, he begins to make an earnest effort to make a difference in her life. He tries to spend more time with her by taking her prom dress shopping, giving her "fatherly" advice about the consequences of what sex can bring, and trying to get the inside information about her life in general. Nick tries to show levels of "passivity and submission" (Devor 484) to his daughter-characteristics that are traditionally associated with women. Here, we see a completely, different person from the aggressive, macho man image we see in the beginning of the film.

We can clearly see Nick's growth as a person and father strengthen tremendously after making an earnest effort to get to know the daughter that he never knew. We can see their relationship grow into a strong one with the help of communicating with one another. His life was not as complete as it is now, and this is because he never saw women as people. He never had a level of communication with women on a human level where respect, care, and understanding were shown or given. When Nick gradually begins to understand the complexity of what women go through on a daily basis, he begins to defeat society's gender role restrictions and limitations that have been placed on women. Although Nick is bitter about Darcy getting the position that was supposed to go to him and although he steals her ideas on the Nike's Women's Division ad promotion (that he later confronts to Darcy about), his ability to read her mind gets the best of him and his chauvinistic nature.

Through intense conversations and interactions with Darcy, their relationship starts to become more intimate. Nick-who was never able to see women beyond their sexual abilities-sees something in Darcy. He sees a real woman. He sees a strong, beautiful, and intelligent woman that he soon falls in love with. Nick is able to have Darcy open up to him about her failed marriage to her ex-husband.

Although "women tend to excel over men to correctly interpret, and effectively display, nonverbal communication cues" (Devor 486), Nick is able to do just that by simply listening to what she has to say. He shows a great level of understanding to her emotions and because of this, he breaks loose of society's gender role stereotypes of women. He realizes that women want to be heard of their feelings, whether they show it verbally, physically, socially, or however they need to. We see Nick Marshall as a man of warmth, respect towards women, and understanding. We see Nick Marshall's life just as complete as we could ever see it. We see the importance of respect and communication playing a pivotal role in Nick's change of perspective, vision, and outlook of women.

Nick's renewed self-with the essence of respect and communication being at the forefront of his transformation-is displayed in one of the most beautiful scenes shown towards the end of the film. This climactic, heartwarming scene showcases Nick as someone that has completely abandoned his once-strong beliefs of women being invisible humans with invisible feelings. When Nick notices that Aaron, an extremely reserved office girl, does not show up for work one day, he is scared more than ever that she is going to hurt herself. This is a Nick Marshall that had never knew of Aaron's existence at his workplace until he began to pay close attention to her internal conflicts about her role in this world. He does something that is completely uncharacteristic of the aggressive, sexist Nick Marshall from the past.

He quickly rushes out of work and runs over to Aaron's apartment in the rain. When he goes inside Aaron's apartment, Aaron cannot believe that he had noticed her absence at work. She cannot believe that Nick was capable of being such an understanding and caring man. When Nick explains to her how he was afraid that she may have hurt herself, Aaron breaks into tears. She was confident that no one even knew of her or her first name.

Nick offers Aaron a job as a copywriter-a position that she had applied for before but was abruptly rejected by a Nick Marshall that did not care to give a chance to her at the job in the beginning of the film. This was clearly when Nick was at the forefront of displaying "a degree of emotional insensitivity to feelings of hurt and loss in defeated others" (Devor 487) -particularly to women. In this most beautiful and touching scene of the film, we see Nick at his climactic point of his transformation. He shows a deep and thoughtful level of understanding and respect that had been something out of this world for him up until his confrontation with the human emotions of women-with the real world. Nick Marshall-who was the living embodiment of chauvinism and prejudice against all women of the world-rejects everything that he has ever held dearly to him when he abandons his sexist ways of thinking about women as a whole. When Nick begins to sympathize with the many dilemmas and emotions that women go through on a daily basis, he begins to develop a strong sense of respect and understanding towards them as real people with real assets of emotional feelings.

He realizes the importance of communicating with the opposite sex that had kept his windows shut from looking at them with respect and distinction. Upon realizing all of this that he had once been so blind of, we see Nick living his life the way that he should have been living all along. We see him fulfilling the needs and demands of what women really want. We see him communicating with women on a human level. We see him communicating with women with respect. We see him and his life as complete as we could ever see him.

The dynamic and essential combinations of communication, kindness, and respect toward women is exactly what makes Nick Marshall's life complete and full of purpose as ever. He realizes that being able to connect with the opposite sex on a more intimate level is vital to one another's growth in the long run. And exactly how do we accomplish doing just that? Simple. Women want nothing more than a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Bibliography

Devor, Holly. "Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes". Signs of Life in the U.S.A. : Readings on Popular Culture for Writers. 4th ed. Ed. Sonia Maas ik and Jack Solomon. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin's, 2003.
What Women Want. Dir. Nancy Meyers. Perf. Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. Paramount Pictures, 2000.