Ideological treatment of gender in "Casablanca".

Essay by whimsylandHigh School, 12th gradeA-, December 2004

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The movie "Casablanca", a jingoistic movie directed by Michael Curtiz in 1942 explores many different types of relationships between male and female, such as prostitution, adultery and also relationship between a young married couple. In "Casablanca" the females are portrayed to be fairly different from one another to a large extent, ranging from the characters presented as whores to virgins. Similarly for males, they are scaled from so called "bad" men to "good" men. These big differences in characteristics between the same gender conveys many ideologies that both accepts and challenges gender politics at the time the film was created, such as that "good women" must be protected compared to that adultery is encouraged which challenges the ideologies at the time.

In the beginning of the movie, Humprey Bogart who plays Rick in "Casablanca" is presented as a rich man, this can be seen from the Mise En Scene showed in the movie, where before Rick enters the scene there was a close up shot on Rick's hand signing a cheque, this shows that Rick has power and also a career to show his high status in the movie.

Carrying on the scene, the camera then brings a close up to Rick's table that shows some items that also confirms his character, these items include: cigarettes, a glass of wine, and a chess board. The chess board shows that Rick is a smart man, where the wine and cigarettes further emphasizes his masculinity, as a tough macho man. Further more, the lighting effects shades half of Rick's face, making it half black and half white, this perhaps symbolizes that Rick is both a bad and good guy, being somewhere in the middle. This is also evident where Rick's detective-like trench coat compared to Victor...