Whale Rider is a film that, in my opinion, requires more post-viewing thought. After watching the movie I was not immediately struck with even the most obvious themes or correlations; I was only looking at it in a very surface manner. However, one main idea that struck me from the beginning that the director did a wonderful job portraying was the beautiful, not over-bearing, sense of feminine pride. The word feminism can sometimes lead to a lot of bad feelings and connotations because, like other minority alliances, radicals can emerge. However, when looked at it such a pure way through the eyes of Paikea, this word is one of strength and respect in a culture that would only acknowledge the leadership/warrior qualities of a man. I could feel Paikea’s struggle through the genius dialogue and consistent themes of overcoming struggle.
Paikea, in Whale Rider, overcomes one major struggle at the end of the movie. This same theme of her essentially fixing the frayed rope that “is” her family tree/ancestors and bringing her whole community together through one action of strength/courage, was seen earlier in the movie when she fixes the engine for her grandfather using the tied fragments of frayed rope. Her grandfather’s response: don’t do it again/too dangerous. This is a distinct foreshadowing to the climax of the movie which I found to be very moving. This idea of overcoming a struggle from a minority viewpoint has been a main theme of ours throughout this course, making this a great movie to end with. Paikea reminded me a lot of Rosa Parks when she refused to sit in the back of class like her grandfather instructed just because of her gender. Also, the theme of feminism which we are now covering is the basis for this movie and is a great way of trying in all the concepts. From Cicero’s time, where he talks of the mistreatment of women, until present day, our class has observed (through the best of authors’ eyes/writing) that oppression can, with enough perseverance, be fought against. There might always be some people who use biased thoughts to form racist or sexist feelings, but there is no reason why we cannot fight against this ignorance.
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I agree with the theme of feminine pride. I thought the grandmothers comment of how "he may be the ruler out there but inside here I'm in charge" was a way of showing she to is a person and has a say. As for Paikea she never gave up on trying to learn the culture ways. Although she went behind her grandfather's back, she still attempted to learn and wouldn't be reduced to anything less then what she was capable of doing. I really like the fact that she was able to perform a so called man's job. I like the fact the girl was the one who was strong and overcame the difficult challenge. For once it was a movie that didn't make the female dependent on the male.
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