Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Hannah Free: The Power of Love
Even though, I'm writing an extensive paper on the matter, I thought I'd touch on the film I saw today called Hannah Free. The movie is about a lesbian couple that grows up together. Their love is challenged by pressure and societal strains to adhere to society's norm of sexual orientation and gender roles. This film was inspiring for me and I'm not even a member of the LGBT community. I saw the film as inspirational and empowering because some of my friends are gay and have gone through struggles of the same types of situations. Even though I am straight, this story still impacted me; I see it as one of the most powerful love stories. All they wanted was to be together, and because it is frowned upon by society, they had to fight to have a legitimate relationship. The dominant group (straight) tried to override the ‘other’ group (gay). This is a prime example of how fears of the ‘other’ group, shapes societal norms and group people into different categories. It’s sad to see ignorance limit the quality of life that some people have. Some homophobic people, the masses of homophobes in general limit the freedom or quality of life of homosexual individuals, gay or lesbian. I would refer this film to anyone and everyone that wants to be moved by something and feel love. Gay or straight, this film will touch you and show you the power of love.
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I strongly agree with you; this film was very inspirational to me. I also like how the main character, Hannah, was portrayed as old (in addition to young). On prime time television and in many films, the majority of lesbian characters are shown to be teenagers or young adults. Audiences rarely see lesbians portrayed as older women who can reflect upon their sexual orientation and the life that they led because of it. This film showed the impact that sexual orientation can have throughout the lifetime of a couple as well as the couples' family, and also depicts how society has changed through the past few decades.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you guys liked the film. I don't know if we'll talk about it at all in class tomorrow or not. The audience seemed to respond pretty well. I think the talk back tied to a lot of the issues we've discussed. Thanks for attending. We'll talk more later. Must sleep.
ReplyDeleteIn addition to the depiction of age, I found it interesting that for a couple of seconds religion is covered. This has to do Rachel’s daughter prohibiting Hannah from seeing Rachael due to family denial of the relationship. Hannah believes that this is due to the daughter conforming to Christian ideals. To further elaborate, Hannah even acknowledges how religion can play a part of why people view same sex relationships the way that they do. Hannah does so when she states, “She was a quite little girl. She’s been a pain in the ass ever since she joined the Baptist church” (13:55). Although Hannah does not elaborate on this, it is clear and well known that much disapproval of same sex relationships is always guided by biblical nonsense.
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