Step Brothers is not a movie just about Dale and Brenan’s evolving relationship and their shenanigans. The movie has cultural contexts such as: family, gender, and wealth. Michael Kimmel’s article, “Bros Before Hos”: The Guy Code, has a lot in common with this film. Dale and Brenan subconsciously follow the bro code by performing and talking about sex, fighting, and participating in the culture of cruelty. The myth of the modern family is challenged due to the fact that Dale and Brenan are 40-year-olds living with their step parents. Dale’s father is a successful doctor and his one true love is his boat and sailing around the world. Adam McKay, the director of Step Brothers, utilizes strong dialogue, scene structure, and montages to express the cultural contexts of the film. Step …show more content…
Brothers is a fictional story involving Dale and Brenan who are suddenly forced into being step brothers. Dale’s father and Brenan’s mother meet at a conference regarding hearing aids. At first, the relationship between Dale and Brenan is hostile and they partake hilarious fighting and pranking scenes. Their relationship turns around when Brenan’s successful biological brother Derek, got punched in the face by Dale. Brenan hates his brother for multiple reasons. One being, Derek and his football friends once chanted, “Brenan has a mangina!” during a school talent show while Brenan was singing. Long story short, Dale punches Derek in the face which ultimately sparked Dale and Brenan’s friendship. Even though Dale and Brenan just became best friends, their family is divided. Dale’s father is getting annoyed by the actions of his stepsons and orders them to get jobs. After an unfortunate series of events, unproductive interviews, and the crashing of a boat; a divorce occurs which leads Dale and Brenan to hating each other again. Dale gets a job as a caterer and Brenan gets a job working for his biological brother. Brenan has a plan to reunite the family at the Catalina Wine Mixer, and he does so by performing a song with Dale and by meeting the quota for helicopter sales. At the end of the movie, the family gets back together and the friendship between Dale and Brenan was resolved. The film is best known for its memorable and hysterical dialogue.
Most of the memorable dialogue is about fighting, sex, and activities. It is funny to see 40-year-old men act like teenagers, and many teenagers are involved in the culture of cruelty. The culture of cruelty is the, “peer force other boys to deny their emotional needs and disguise their feelings. It’s no wonder that so many boys end up feeling emotional isolated.” (Kimmel p. 548) It is true that Dale and Brenan feel isolated because they are not accepting of new ideas or each other. The first night the family unites, Dale states: “The only reason you are living here is because me and my dad decided that your mom was really hot, and maybe we should both bang here. And we’ll put up with the retard in the meantime” (McKay, 2008). Obviously that is a terrible thing to say to someone, and it represents that Dale has been abused by that culture and they have developed negative tendencies due to it. Step Brothers is most well-known for its amazing dialogue that engages the audience because it engulfs laughter. This is a type of movie where an individual will easily remember lines of dialogue and it is a well talked about
movie. When the Will Ferrell (Brenan) and Dale (John C. Reilly) first meet at 7:08 into the movie, the sky is bright blue and there is upbeat music. The setting and scene indicate that the rest of the film will have a heart lighted and optimistic tone. There are no severe weather changes all throughout the movie, which provides the information that there won’t be any upcoming troubles to the family. Scenes that happen to take place at night do not change the narrative of the film, and those scenes still have the an upbeat and optimistic tone. The movie’s color scheme is one with bright color cheerful colors. Yellow, blue, and light brown are colors utilized in the movie that help play into the optimistic tone. There is one scene that does not follow the films color scheme, and that is when Dale acquires a house. Dale’s house is framed as dark grey and the home is in disgusting conditions. The director uses his greatest tool, the montage, to explain why the house is that way. The divorced made Dale and Brenan move out, which forced them to be adults. There is a montage of the two entering adulthood which has Dale and Brenan paying taxes, going to bed early, doing laundry, and other various adult actions. Most of the montage has Dale doing those adult actions in his gloomy home. That montage rivals the movies narrative because Dale and Brenan just want sit around all day, talk about girls, and do activities. The director seems to have had the idea of adulthood verses the enjoyments of life. The movie has a lot of culture contexts such as the myth of the modern family, gender, and wealth. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly portray characters who rival the myth of the modern family. The expectation of 40-year-old Americans is that they have a wife, children, a job, and a home. Throughout the whole movie Dale and Brenan do not have jobs, and Dales father tends to chastise his sons because of that. Their parents are both successful, educated, and wealthy, which plays into the idea of marriage markets. The two probably would not marry each other if one of them was poor or dumb. When Dale first meets his step mother, he asked her to make him a grilled cheese. Dale is assuming that since she is a mother that she can cook and do other various household things. The model family of the 1950’s had a stay at home mother who would prepare the meals, clean the house, wash dishes, and do laundry. Again, Dale tells his stepmom that he likes having fresh fruit around the house. Dale has the mindset of the 1950’s and he is trying to abuse his new mother. Gender plays enormous role in the role. They way Dale and Brenan talk is like they are thirteen-year-old boys. Dale has a collection of centerfold magazines from the 1980s and partakes in sex throughout the film. The two cuss all the time which plays back into the ideas of Michael Kimmel and his article about the bro code. The women in the film can viewed as either maids or objects. And that is true in today’s society as well. Jean Kilbourne, the author of Two Ways a Women can get Hurt; Advertising and violence, has represented the concepts that women are portrayed as sex symbols in society. That is especially true in this movie, even Brenan’s mother can be viewed objectively for sex. This film portrays the modern women poorly and it has a strong tie with Kilbourne’s article. Step Brothers has amazing montages that help speed up the movie while giving great context. There are crap ton of montages such as: the activities that Dale and Brenan complete once they’re friends, adulthood, pranks, and others. The montage is such a great tool because it can also involve cultural contexts, such as, the montage where they first become friends. The two do a lot of masculine dominate activities such as karate, watching action movies, and using power tools. All the montages help exemplify some kind of problem, like adulthood and masculinity. Step Brothers is more than a stupid movie about Will Ferrell trying to reconnect his broken family. Cultural contexts are scattered all throughout the movie and this class has portrayed a few issues we’ve talked about in class. Philosophies about family and gender are integrated into his movie and articles by Kimmel and Kilbourne play a part in explaining why characters act the way they do. There are only two actors who are African American, and the scene involving them is only 40 seconds. Even though the movie doesn’t have any racial scenes regarding skin color, it still signifies the fact that African Americans were neglected in a film about a family. Americans view the model family as white and the film plays along with that. The representation of gender, wealth, and family in this film is the identical to the real world. Step Brothers is a walking stereotype that portrays American society.
In the book Founding Brothers The Revolutionary Generations, by Joseph J. Ellis the author starts off by introducing the key members which are Hamilton, Jefferson, Washington, Madison and others that were a huge impact in the story. Joseph J. Ellis is a historian who is an author of many books and also has a PH.D. from Yale University. He continued his career as a professor in other universities and has also gained a Pulitzer Prize. The author does jump around on the dates, but it gives the understanding to see how the events affected each other. Ellis gives a brief background which allows the reader to get a better understanding, the book is split into six sections that each section focus on a great event. As for reading, the readers get to see the story from different perspectives.
The story “Adam Robinson Acquires Grandparents and a Little Sister” by Edward P. Jones, published in his collection of short stories All Aunt Hagar’s Children, tells the story of Noah and Maggie Robinson as they take their grandson out of foster care. The story could be said to primarily be about the importance of family bonds, and about establishing and reestablishing them, but it also is very strongly focused on the difficulty in handling and rebuilding a family for grandparents who must take responsibility for their grown children’s children. This very severely stresses Noah and Maggie in ways that impact their expectations about how they would be leading their lives at this phase of their marriage, after having completed their own child rearing and finally reaching a stage where they could focus on their own plans. They now see themselves having to deal with often difficult issues that they had not previously faced while raising their own children. In general, though it seems that grandparents raising their grandchildren in place of the parents is just an un-dramatic variant of the basic function of a family where those parents may sometimes not be available, it can be very stressful on the grandparents, negatively affecting their everyday lives and their enjoyment (Mills, Gomez-Smith and De Leon 194) and upturning life plans (Fitzgerald pp). This is true in spite of the fact that this may ultimately be the far better alternative in this situation (Koh, Rolock and Cross). While having the grandparents raise the children is the better alternative to neglect, abuse or an unstable situation, it is potentially complicated, however, by the behavioral and emotional problems that can often affect children who have been through the ...
The dominant characteristics found within ‘Competitive Brothers’ focuses on the familial dynamics, son’s duty to his father, and test of will and character. All three stories shared the same family unit, which was made up of one parental figure that serves to
Whether it was by a dance with his crush or by a tragic turn of events, Angus Bethune and Doodle’s brother have both had a life-changing insight into who they were, leading them to change their character completely. Angus learns to be accepting of the flaws in his makeup and so becomes more self-assured. Doodle’s brother discovers the double face of pride and loses his inner cruelty. All humans should look inside of them and see whether they are like Angus and Doodle’s brother. If they are, learning the lessons and stories of these two boys can impact the understanding of many people and change how the world works forever.
The two characters come to the realization that they do share a brotherly bond, and that the narrator cares deeply for his brother even after all the time apart. The narrator says, “I don’t give a damn wh...
Not unlike real life, the comedy fodder available in this episode is derived from enmeshment, particularly Beverly’s with her son Adam. This enmeshment is a direct derivative of the emotional distance between her and Murray. There seems to be diffused boundaries between family members because of their enmeshment with each other. Not that one wants to blame the mother or scapegoat Barry, but the family rules must be investigated so one can understand how the family reaches homeostasis and aids the family in identifying how their behaviors affect each
In conclusion, Brother shows his self-interest in how he treats his younger brother. He treats his younger brother, Doodle, as something to ‘fix’ and he cannot accept his brother as he is. When Doodle finally learns to walk, Brother’s selfish need for a more ‘ideal’ little brother is not satisfied for long. Soon he demands a little brother who can run, jump, climb, swim, swing on vines, and row a boat. When he gives Doodle lessons for these activities, he does not do so for concern about Doodle wanting to be able to do them, but because he wants Doodle to be able to be a ‘normal’ brother.
The play, Blood Brothers by Willy Russell, is a twisted tale of two brothers born on the same day and from the same womb, yet they live in two entirely different worlds.
Numerous movies, books or TV shows have plenty of character that shows development throughout the course of their lifetime, series or whatever the case may be. In this case I decided to choose Dale Doback and Brennan Huff from the movie, Step Brothers. These characters play an enormous role in this movie due to the fact they are the step brothers the title was referring to. Brennan and Dale were both in their forties, they were both unemployed, still living at home, and self- centered, spoiled men. Neither of them had the slightest intentions of moving out of their parents’ houses. Brennan’s mother meets Dale’s father at a conference, there they hit things off. These two end up getting married and moving in with each other. Which was how
Kevin and Dana’s relationship changes because their view of race change when they are introduced to and live in the antebellum south. Kevin, as a white man, fails to understand the struggles Dana lives through despite his efforts to understand.
In Letters to a Young Brother, Hill Harper answers many letters than his readers have sent in. Many of the letters address issues of discrimination against blacks, the social expectations that young men face, and the desire for wealth that many black males face.
In the play “True West” by Sam Shepard, there are two main characters Austin and Lee that are so different and similar due to their family culture of dysfunction. A dysfunctional family is one in which that shows conflict, hostile environments, inappropriate behaviors to not only upon them, but to those around them. In most dysfunctional families you will find children that have been neglected or abused by parents, to which most of these children tend to think that these such behaviors are normal. Shepard shows this relationship of dysfunction of a family between two brothers that shows one brother who thinks he has escaped the dysfunction, and one that has carried out the dysfunctional family culture.
The short story, "The Rich Brother," by Tobias Wolff represents the same concept that everyday people all over the world encounter. This portrays how having siblings can be an enormous part of a persons life. The rivalry between siblings is often very competitive, but at the same time similar to magnets. When they are not connected it may seem they are independent and whole, but when examined closely it is obvious they are really relying on each other to function properly. Although Pete and Donald's life are separate and completely different, they are in fact very dependent on each other.
It’s been said, “you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family” this quote is so true when it comes to family relationships you can’t choose them but you’re stuck with them for life. Things can often get tough and when family relationships get tense it can only make life a lot more difficult than what is necessary. My communication goal is to better improve my current relationship with my teenage brother, we have both have not been getting along lately as well as I would like (teenagers and their mood swings…) and I want to change that in a more effective way by using the skills I learned in interpersonal speech. In this paper I tried to complete my goal of improving and maintaing a solid relationship with my brother I applied perception checking, listening, and self-disclosure to better communicate and understand my brother. I used the concepts of self-disclosure, perception checking and responsive listening because those three concepts applied the closest to each situation. With each one I felt that I understood how exactly to communicate using them and that they fit in well with what was going on between my brother and I.