This movie passed 3 of 3 tests. It was entered by ellen on 2011-06-26 23:01:16.
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ellen said:
All the reviews and plot summaries that I found about the movie were apparently written by men. Would you be surprised if I told you that they miss the point entirely? Here's what this movie is really about:
The protagonist, Miss Bishop, defies the pressures and expectations of the culture she lives in by eschewing marriage and motherhood to pursue her intellectual and professional dreams. While she enjoys a couple of meaningful romantic relationships over the years, her teaching remains the center of her life. Her intelligence, skill and integrity earn her the enduring professional and personal respect of the men around her. She raises a successful child (one of the rare girl babies to be seen in film), and this is deeply rewarding to her, though her role as surrogate mother does not define her success in life. In old age, she looks back on her choices with pride, satisfaction and some melancholy, and is grateful that, despite a few temptations and close calls, she succeeded in avoiding the confinement that marriage would have imposed on her life. Cheers, indeed.
Of course there is plenty of misogyny in the presentation of women in this film, but not nearly as much of it as we're accustomed to seeing. And, although the story is relatively female-friendly (or at least open to that interpretation), the Bechdel+ scenes are actually few in number (I'm thinking of the meeting where Miss Bishop successfully defends the female student who was wrongly accused of cheating).
![[[3]]](/static/pass.png "[There are two or more women in this movie and they talk to each other about something other than a man]")
Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941)
![[imdb]](/static/imdb.png)
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The protagonist, Miss Bishop, defies the pressures and expectations of the culture she lives in by eschewing marriage and motherhood to pursue her intellectual and professional dreams. While she enjoys a couple of meaningful romantic relationships over the years, her teaching remains the center of her life. Her intelligence, skill and integrity earn her the enduring professional and personal respect of the men around her. She raises a successful child (one of the rare girl babies to be seen in film), and this is deeply rewarding to her, though her role as surrogate mother does not define her success in life. In old age, she looks back on her choices with pride, satisfaction and some melancholy, and is grateful that, despite a few temptations and close calls, she succeeded in avoiding the confinement that marriage would have imposed on her life. Cheers, indeed.
Of course there is plenty of misogyny in the presentation of women in this film, but not nearly as much of it as we're accustomed to seeing. And, although the story is relatively female-friendly (or at least open to that interpretation), the Bechdel+ scenes are actually few in number (I'm thinking of the meeting where Miss Bishop successfully defends the female student who was wrongly accused of cheating).