White Noise In Film

About a month ago, we read the book "White Noise" by Don DeLillo. In the book, there are many common themes brought up throughout, including the importance of media, death, success, and fame. Jack Gladney, the main character, teaches Hitler studies at a local college. This program that he created has brought him much fame and success, which is what he really wanted. A friend of Jack's, Murray, who works at the same college wants to also get the same kind of recognition that Jack is receiving, which is why he wants to start an Elvis department. This fame is very important to both of these men, however there seems to be a lack of recognition going out to the women in the book. Even less important characters, for example Heinrich's friend, Orest, demonstrates a sense of power when he is training to be in the book of world records for sitting in a cage with deadly snakes. This sense of power and strength he shows, as he has confidence that "they wont bite me" (197). Even though this character is far less important to the book, is still a greater power than Babette demonstrates.

Babette, Jack's wife, is very concerned about living a long, healthy life, and is not powerful at all. This lack of power mirrors the lack of power women have in the film industry. For the little over a century that film has been around, the number of female movie directors is a bit pathetic. While doing my research, i learned that it wasn't until 2010 that a woman won best director at the Academy Awards, in which Kathryn Bigelow won for The Hurtlocker. I found it interesting that it took over 100 year, and 82 years of the Academy Awards,  for women filmmakers to even be recognized at the Oscars.

The roles between men and women in the book are very different, as the men are very determined, hard working people. For example, Jack's son Heinrich is always interested in everything going on around him and tries to be informed about the world around him. There is not a woman character similar to this in the book, which relates to the film industry, and how the men were always seen as more "sophisticated" for the job of directing.

The way that women appear throughout history has always been similar, as they are usually a less dominate character, and this is portrayed in both the film industry as well as in DeLillo's book White Noise.