Film name your paper due sunday20/2011 t 11 am morning - Essay Example

Vera Drake The 2004 British film Vera Drake deals with the issue of illegal abortions in mid-twentieth century England. The right to abortion has been a key issue in Feminist discourse from around the Second Wave of its movement. The film here comments on the issue and on gender stereotypes in Victorian England through the perspective of one working woman and her family. The film was received well by critics, winning a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, three BAFTAs and three Academy Award nominations (“Vera Drake”).

The basic perspective that is upheld in the film appears to be of pro-choice. As Vera Drake says when she is first apprehended by Detective Inspector Webster, “That's not what I do dear. That's what you call it. But they need help. Who else they got to turn to? No one. I help them out.” Vera Drake is non-judgmental in her work and brings in no moral argument. Her sole argument in favour of abortion is that the girls need it. The film is generally sympathetic to the cause of the pregnant girls.

For instance, the character Sally is used to depict one of the many cases of date rape that is often cited in justifying abortion. All of Vera’s patients, other than Sally, are working class women. Their access to the medical facility Sally attends is made impossible by their financial circumstances. Apart from its overarching theme of abortion, the film also subtly deals with gender roles. Sally is used to portray the rich but oppressed young girl who despite her status and education is subjected to the same sort of trauma that poorer girls of her age undergo.

Joyce is a largely unsympathetic character, used to portray the repressed housewife with not much else in her life than the compulsive need to acquire material things. Ethel, on the other hand, is retiring and diminutive, barely speaking except to reiterate what the others say. There are other roles explored in the film as well, largely of the working class spinster or married woman with too many children, both disempowered by the post-War economic crisis. A quote from Feminist Theory from Margin to Center is particularly pertinent to the film: “One form of power women exercise in the economic sphere is that of consumption” (Hooks 94).

Women in Vera Drake repeatedly employ this principle to gain power. Joyce, for instances, uses it to control her husband and feel superior to Stan Drake’s family. Lily uses the same principle to make money by selling hoarded goods on the black market. Women therefore are not shown as entirely helpless or dependent on their male counterparts for support. “[…] and more than anything that meant I had to be attractive” (Rodriguez 135). This sentiment recurs in Vera Drake on a subtle level as well.

Most notably in Sally’s case when she tells her mother she is going out on a date and her mother replies “You’re looking very flat-chested.” In a later part of the film, when Joyce arrives for dinner, Ethel and Vera repeatedly comment on how she looks like a “film star.” The pressure of looking attractive appears to increase in direct relation to the woman’s socio-economic status. By looking at key issues of Feminist arguments, Vera Drake remains relevant to any study of the social and historical context of Feminism.

Works Cited Hooks, Bell. Feminist Theory from Margin to Center. Cambridge: South End Press, 2000. Print. Rodriguez, Graciela. “Breaking the Model.” Women Images and Realities, A Multicultural Anthology. 4th ed. Eds. Amy Kesselman and Lily S. McNair. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 135-138. Print. “Vera Drake.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, inc. 28 Feb 2011. Web. 20 March 2011.