OSCAR Blog Post #5

Tatianna Ramos
April 24, 2019

OSCAR

The Movie I'll be shedding light on is the movie called “Oscar”, starring Sylvester Stallone as Angelo. The movie sheds light on a 1920’s gangster whose father is dying and promises to stop this mafia business tradeoff beer. He then becomes a banker that will be only known and associated to work in a working class society rather than underground illegal bootlegs. Angelo although is an ex mafia gangster he also is a family man who has a daughter and wife being brought up in Italian community and traditional ways.

In this particular movie this gender ideology is definitely masculine in the sense that this illegal business is run by mafia men. In this movie the main characters are considered as “men being tough”. Sylvester Stallone plays an ex mafia conning as a banker but is also a family man as well.  With 

Angelo being a family man he has a daughter who is treated as a princess locked away in her tower unable to explore the world that surrounds her. The only way she finds a way to escape this menace of a house is by lying to her father that she is “Pregnant” and willing to go to a convent for un-widowed mothers to give birth to their child”. Once her father finds out that his daughter is “pregnant”, being in a Italian, traditional family Angleo “slut-shames” his daughter and can’t believe the little girl he thought she was can potentially be pregnant.  As I rewatched the movie I was pointing one obvious trope that was ideal for this so called gender ideology which was “Pink Girl, Blue Boy”.  Specifically with the father being tailored for a new suit which is blue, and having his wife and daughter in pink and red garment dresses. Mind you this is taking place in the 1930’s. 

Two of the gender dynamics I found was the maid being viewed as the “old maid”. The reason being for this is because the old maid was working for Angelo and his family but then suddenly quits being an old maid and rather marries a working high class old mafia gangster and now calling the shots rather than being told what to do. The second gender dynamic was “women are wiser”.  Angelo’s wife fits this idea of women being wiser and the one calling the shots. The wife, Sophia, has this dark power role over the husband and this idea of happy wife happy life which does show a female dominance. Although Angelo never dismisses  his wife and makes her feel insecure we see the roles reversed as to who wears the pants in this relationship.