Movies with Issues

In one of the side in the book, Social Conscience Film is discussed. It mentions the movie Thelma and Lousie and how it changed the image of "the passive, male-dependent female". I never knew how much I needed to thank that hilarious movie. Nowadays, examples of strong women are everywhere but I guess our generation is lucky when it comes to that. I would not have made it in the 50's where my only job was to be a housewife, I have to many opinions for that role. I have taken for granted the fact that in movies, the main character can be a female without having a man at her side. In celebration of the Kentucky Derby, I watched the movie Secretariat. The female lead breaks the mold of typical housewife in order to take over the farm and enter the world of horse racing. Nobody respected her and they told her she didn't belong, but she fought and in the end she won (of course, because why else would they have made a movie about her). She did all this without her husband's support which is common in our generation. I want to say thanks to Thelma and Lousie for making it possible to be an independent woman in movies and real life.
    The other part of the discussion in the box that interested me was the fact that issue-driven movies hadn't been a big part of the film industry until Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List in 1993. That movie still makes an impact on viewer today which tells you what a genius Spielberg is. But now, every other movie in theaters is a serious film with a message. As fun as it is to go see such movies as Harry Potter, Tangled, and Pirates of the Caribbean, the movies you really remember are the ones that make an emotional impact on you. One of those movies for me was the 2009 Academy Award winner for Best Picture, The Hurt Locker. It is another movie about war and it documents the soldiers fighting in it. It was a movie that made me want to do something. I think the best issue-driven films make you want to take a stand for something in get involved with the fight, figuratively. As much money as the fun, entertaining movie make, I think it is the emotional, pack-a-punch movies that really keep people coming back to the theaters.