Hula Girls

[redroses2]

This movie was really good. And I found it kind of interesting that I could relate some of what I learned in Intro to Film today to how the film ended. (Leaning on the left side of the spectrum, I believe, with how it didn't end with the teacher getting with the brother and how the girls succeeded in becoming independent women with careers.)

[runewen]

How do we know the teacher didn't get with the brother? It never said anything about whether she eventually married or not!

As for me, I thought it was kind of an interesting underdog-wins story because it wasn't a complete victory. For instance, the Hawaiian resort was supposed to save the town, but they admitted that there were 2,000 people they were going to have to lay off and the resort would only create about 500 jobs. That's still a lot of people out of work, and they never said anything about the resort getting popular enough to hire them all back. Then there's the best friend, the one who wanted to dance in the first place. She's still off living somewhere with three younger sisters and an abusive father, instead of getting her dream. There's also the main dancer, too. They don't really talk about it a lot, but it's pretty clear that she was living in the dance studio for half the movie, and even though her mom came to see the performance, I bet she never moved back in. That's not exactly complete reconciliation.

[redroses2]

It's not so much whether or not the teacher did marry the brother as it is that the audience's expectations are left unsatisfied. Or that's how Dr. Tolliver explained what a "left-wing" film is. (Discussing the concepts of far-right, right, middle, left, and radical films got really complicated, but I don't think the terms are actually referring to political stances but whether or not the traditions and expectations of the audience are achieved/satisfied or not.)

This "rating" system is also supported by those exact same points. We want everyone to have their jobs back. We want the girl to come back to achieve her dream and be in lesbians with the main girl dancer. We want there to be a perfect reconciliation between the main girl and her mother. But we don't get any of that. Yet the film does end with a type of victory.

While a lot of unfavorable things happened along the way, the dancers essentially were making headway in the Japanese feminist movement. The daughters of the male coal miners were going to work to earn money for their families and becoming independent through it. And we did have the teacher kicking some serious rear when the best friend was beaten by her father. From what I understand about how Japanese society deals with domestic abuse (which is very little, seeing that literally my only reference is the manga "Loveless" - which makes me very angry on so many levels), normally someone outside of the family won't step in. It's considered a private matter that only the family should deal with. So there's a lot of positive girl-power in it, despite the best friend not running away from her father to go with the dancers.