<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Katie Beeler</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Gabriela (1983)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style=""> </span>The Film <i style="">Gabriela </i>set in 1923 revels the complex social structure of Brazil and it’s female and male gender roles. Gabriela and Nacib represent the two sexes as well as the middle and lower societal figures of the time. The film examines the interactions between these issues of gender and social class when they began to clash from 1910-1940 as discussed in<i style=""> Crimes of Passion: The Campaign against Wife Killing in Brazil, 1910-1940</i> by </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Susan K. Besse. The crime rate involving “crimes of passion” had a significant increase between these years either resulting from a rise in tension between men and women from feminist movements and thought to the social tensions between classes, or even form the 19<sup>th</sup> century romanticized thoughts of crimes of passion. Whatever the reason, the film captured the move from barbaric crimes to a more civilized societal way of handling social dramas following the history of social strife represented by Gabriela and Nacib.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style=""> </span>I believe that the film did a great job of displaying the changes that were happening throughout Brazilian society at the time. At the beginning of the film, Nacib catches the dentist’s wife with her lover as they are lying dead after her husband killed them in a crime of passion. As the film progresses, the thinking of the men in the town becomes more ‘civilized’ as film progresses. In the beginning, Nacib discusses the ill treatment of women when they are cut up for cheating on their husbands. He agrees with the old way of doing things and even states that if his wife were to cheat on him he would continue with the same acts, as well as castrate her lover. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Towards the end of the film, clearly his attitude about cheating consequences had changed and he eventually forgave Gabriella and took her back as his partner (after he divorced her though).<span style=""> </span>Also in the background of the story, women become less objectified as sexual objects and become something more complex to their male counterparts. In the beginning everyone is so fascinated with the dancers that they experience during the nightlife scenes commenting on how wonderful they are, but in the end Nacib, the professor, and even Tonico find themselves more than just physically attracted to the women they want and give them a different level of respect than in the film’s beginning. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">In regards to the reading </span><i style=""><span style="font-family: Arial;">Getting into Trouble: Dishonest Women, Modern Girls, and Women-Men in the Conceptual Language of "Vida Policial",</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial;"> 1925-1927 by Sueann Caulfield the political nature of the film was also well represented by the sketchy means of obtaining illegal papers and notaries in the government at the time. The government was constantly portrayed as changing throughout the film and never seemed to enforce and kind of law that put public officials or professional men at fault. Just as discussed in the article men were favorably treated in the legal system while a blind eye was turned to the mal treatment of women. This is pivotal in the way things had to be changed for future gender relations throughout the country for future societal relations. </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><i style=""><span style="font-family: Arial;"> </span></i></p><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/5918626914749343969-1519600863219906068?l=getoutofmyheadandintomyblog.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
