The first Hobbit movie

[steuard]

I saw The Hobbit a few days ago, and I enjoyed it. I started to write up some brief comments on the movie to post here, but they got a bit out of hand, so I've posted them on my Tolkien website instead. For those who are interested, have a look at my full review; comments are welcome!

Comments

[steuard.livejournal.com]

Thanks for clarifying; that makes a lot of sense. When I read your previous comment, I just wasn't piecing it together right: it felt a bit like you were saying that you would be happier if the old stereotypes persisted, because it would make people more accepting when women chose to stay home with the kids. But that didn't fit with the rest of what you seemed to be saying, hence my confusion. :)

To some extent (thinking out loud here), I wonder if the "equal opportunities for different genders" issue is independent of the "social acceptance for background roles" issue. That is, increasing gender equality is clearly making it less socially comfortable for you to be a stay-at-home mom at the same time that it's making it easier for my colleague Kate's husband to be a stay-at-home dad, and that seems largely inevitable to me. It feels like it requires a different set of social adjustments to make both of your choices more accepted at once. But of course that's not really "independent" at all, because a fair bit of society's low valuation of staying home at the kids has its roots in the fact that doing so is traditionally "women's work" which is inherently viewed as lower status. In the end, greater equality between the sexes has to mean both greater equality of opportunity and of choice regardless of gender and greater equality of the perceived value of traditionally male and female activities.

That all sounded very pretentious, somehow. But thank you for this conversation: I've enjoyed thinking through this stuff and hearing your thoughts on the subject!