The Great Gatsby Movie Review

Mackenzie Crandall

Z1695461

Soc 170

Movie Blog

            I chose to discuss the movie, The Great Gatsby. It is a movie I have wanted to see since it came out. When I saw it on the list, I was very curious on what aspects of the movie I would be able to tie into the class.

            Some very prominent ideas throughout the movie were marriage, love and sexuality. The marriage between Daisy and Tom Buchannan as well, as the marriage of his mistress, Myrtle, and her husband was filled with adultery and abuse. We talked in class about how in the Western culture of North America and Europe, we tend to pick our partners based on that sense of love and compatibility seen in the movie. As was the way in the 1920s, sexuality was not as easily talked about, and you can see that the woman’s attire was much more subdued, in most cases. This modest attire is especially seen with swimwear and the long dresses worn by most women. Gender roles are extremely apparent throughout the movie. The men have taken the typical role of being the strong supporter of the family. As the case for most of the men in the movie, they are the breadwinners, while the women are the housewives. The women are also seen to be more submissive and do not speak out against their husbands, as seen when Daisy had a hard time expressing her feelings towards Tom.

            Another important idea throughout the movie is the importance of social standing and money. Daisy’s husband was an heir and had a large amount of money. This can be seen by the house they lived in, the clothes they wore and the grand size of her diamond ring. I thought it was funny how we talked in class about how riding horses is considered a wealthy activity in the Western culture, unlike it is in Latin America. In this movie you can see Tom Buchanan riding around his expansive yard on a horse in the typical riding outfit. You can see the importance of staying within a social class when Gatsby went to such great lengths to make enough money in order to impress Daisy enough to be with him.

            Education is also an important idea. You can see the emphasis that is put on having a good education and also the power of a good education. Nick Carraway went to school at Yale and worked extensively on getting a job on Wall Street doing stocks and bonds, while working on writing. This being said, the economy played a role in the movie as well with the job Carraway did. It was also an important detail that Gatsby supposedly went to Oxford, an esteemed college. This not only added to his education, but increased his social standing as well. We talked about the extremely wealthy upper 1 percent of the population like Rockefeller and Vanderbilt, but in the movie they mentioned Walter Chase, a wealthy elite, who was connected to Gatsby’s bootlegging business.

            When starting The Great Gatsby, I was unsure how many topics I would be able to relate to our class. I was shocked at just how much information we talked about transferred over into the movie.