Gender Stereotypes In The Godfather

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The movie The Godfather constantly undercuts the value of women as actual human beings, instead they are merely depicted as homemakers and mothers, though sometimes they are allowed the high status of being a distraction to the men. This last fact is especially evident when Calo says to Michael, “in Sicily, women are more dangerous than shotguns,” in reference to his infatuation with Apollonia distracting him from staying safe. Moreover, there are three important female characters in the movie, and one gets ignored, one gets beaten, and one gets murdered (climax), which goes to further illustrate the negative idea of women in this movie.

The mafia in The Godfather is a boys club, and the women are routinely kicked out when they talk business as is most evident in one of the closing scenes when Michael allows his wife, Kay, to ask him one question about his business before making her leave the room to talk shop with the other guys. They audience feels this isolation along with Kay as the camera pans back out of the room with her, and the door closes, effectively cutting off the audience from what is being said inside the room. Since the movie has followed the interworking of the mafia up until this point, this is the first time the audience so clearly feels this divide. …show more content…

Post-war society was deeply divided by notions of strict gender roles, and the idea that men and women had their places and were not to deviate from them. Women were shut out of many business industries and were instead relegated to the home. They were to some extent treated as second class citizens and thereby not given the same opportunities as

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