Week 6 Blog Post

I have recently seen the new Robin Hood movie with Russell Crow and Cate Blanchett. It is the typical Robin Hood legend about a man brave enough to stand up to tyranny and help those incapable of helping themselves in the face of poverty.

The character Maid Marian tends to break the usual gender roles of the time period in which the movie was portrayed. She was never submissive and always stood up for what she believed in. She was never afraid to speak her mind and she protected those she loved with ferocity. Although women are more outspoken and tend to break their gender roles today, it is always nice to encourage this with characters such a Marian.

This movie also has a good lesson about social classes. Prince John was portrayed as childish and malevolent although he was king. Robin Hood, in the lowest social class of the time, was mostly a good, noble man who cared for his friends and the people as a whole. This shows that title and status mean nothing in terms of what type of person you are.

There was quite a bit of violence in the movie, but I think that it helped portray how brutal the time period was. Not everything was historically accurate, but there is a history lesson about medieval warfare hidden in the battle scenes that you simply can’t get from a textbook. There may not have been a strong enough message about solving problems without violence, but there was a definite attempt to convey that when Robin Hood stood up and brought the country together as a whole with a single speech rather than letting them fight amongst themselves. Teamwork was the underlying message if you looked past the violence.

All in all, this was a movie worth watching. Good made a stand against evil, people worked together and watched out for one another, love conquered and healed many wounds, and most importantly, people stood up to protect their homes.