3 June 2011
A Love Story and a Mystery
This is not another happily-ever-after, Cinderella-ending story. In the 2008 film, Definitely, Maybe by Adam Brooks, a divorced, heartbroken political consultant reminisces about his past love life to his ten year old daughter, which might give him a second chance for love in the future. Will Hayes, the main character, symbolizes the typical ambitious man searching for a successful career in 1992 New York. The film, however, reinvents the typical love story by switching bewtween long flashbacks of Will Haye’s life and the current year in the movie, which is 2008. Although the film appears as if it was another stereotypical story about love, romance, and relationships, it also restructures the hegemonic codes for gender roles specific to males. While Definitely, Maybe challenges the typical male gender role in terms of a “man” acting as a “motherly” figure, it also implies that a “man” must also act upon himself in order to get things done, which in this case, involves winning the hearts of women. This analysis will also reveal how the film reinscribes the mythology that man is superior to woman.
During the beginning of the film, Will is situated inside his apartment’s kitchen cooking dinner for his daughter Maya. Acting as the motherly figure, Will unknowingly challenges the societal codes that claim that women should be the only ones in the kitchen cooking whereas the men should be out in society and working to provide food on the table. Ironically, Will both challenges and reinscribes that code because he is not only literally providing food on the table, but Will is also preparing the food, usually seen as a woman’s duty. In doing so, Will negotiates the socially constructed gender roles by fulfilling the expectations and responsibilities of both a fatherly and motherly figure. The key is the switch in the “duty of care” onto a male figure, which society more often expects from a female figure. However, there is a sudden shift in codes as Maya begs Will to retell his life story to her and Will firmly replies, “Fine. I’m going to tell you the story, but I’m not telling you who your mom is. You’re just going to have to figure that out yourself. And I’m changing all the names and some of the facts. I just decided that right now. And then we’ll see how smart you are.” As one can note, Will shifts from the duty of a caregiver to a more dominant, controlling figure like a man should be, based on hegemonic gender codes. The code is shown via high and low-angle shots: male is superior to female, and Will is noticeably situated hovering slightly over Maya, implying that women are powerless and inferior compared to men. Additionally, Will’s actions then reinscribe the code that states that men ultimately “decide” since women’s capacity to think is comparatively futile. I am not claiming that Will is playing into a specific male or female gender role; however, according to contemporary societal codes, Will does not fit either role specifically. In fact, Will may actually be creating a new code that entails a gender neutral role consisting of characteristics from both the current male and female gender roles.
Near the end of the film, Will transitions from the sensitive, caring motherly figure in male form into a “real man” as his friend Hampton had encouraged him to become earlier in the film. After Will realized that long lost love April had always loved him, he decides to take a bold attempt at winning over her heart again, an attempt that only a “real man” would have the ability and courage to do. This type of resolute, audacious action, nonetheless, reinscribes the dominate ideologies of masculinity. However, there is an underlying connotation to Will’s actions as he pursues and recaptures April’s forgiveness and love. By presenting April with an edition of Jane Eyre that held her father’s note inside, Will’s actions demonstrated thoughtfulness, intelligence, and reflectiveness, all of which are traits assigned to female modes of thinking. Thus, Will not only negotiated the fine line dividing male and female gender roles, but he both challenged and resisted the societal expectations of a “real man.”
Despite negotiating the ideologies of gender role expectations, Definitely, Maybe also reinforces a dominant reading for female inferiority, specifically as objects of society. The code for female inferiority is especially flaunted through Hampton as he satisfies his id by undergoing sexual intercourse with multiple women throughout the film. The first instance of this code is shown when Hampton introduces himself to Will as Summer’s thesis advisor and implies that he shares more than a mentor-mentee relationship with her. Later on in the film, when Will and Summer unexpectedly reunite at Hampton’s novel signing event, Summer explaines to Will that Hampton dumped her for what he called two “freshmen.” Although the director does not show these two “freshmen” in that scene, the terminology that is used not only undermines the status of females, but identifies them as mere objects that men can compete for and use as toys for personal gratification purposes. As Roland Barthes explained in Image, Music, Text, the source of emission (director) has a specific intention, but the point of reception (viewer) is the person that essentially constructs the message (15). The consistent reassertion of this code throughout the film then becomes ingrained into viewers’ minds that otherwise become naturalized and may ultimately become true as an ideology.
With love, hope, and dreams of second chances, Will reclaimes the spark in his life, April, the only shooting star in his starry sky. Throughout the film, Will shifts between codes as he shifts between the male figure performing the motherly duty of care and the dominant male figure that society expects of him. This allows Will to both challenge and resist the hegemonic codes that lead him to live life like a Clint Eastwood type figure. But as the film concludes with Will winning over April and reinscribing the code that man is superior to woman and women are nothing but mere objects, for if you follow the codes, you always get what you think you want in the end.
Works Cited
Barthes, Roland and Stephen Heath. Image Music Text. New York: Hill and Wang, 1994. Print.
Definitely, Maybe. Dir. Adam Brooks. Perf. Ryan Reynolds, Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Banks, Abigail Breslin, and Rachel Weisz. 2008. Film.