The society has always regarded women inferior to men since time immemorial. However, as time passed, the idea of women empowerment arose. Women and men in support of the idea used every channel available to convince the society to support women empowerment. Filmmakers and producers started to support the ideology through films. The fried green tomatoes film is an example of films whose objective was supporting the idea of women empowerment. Although some people doubt films, they are very influential as they show the current events in the society. Movie critics consider the fried green tomatoes a feminist film because it takes into account many feminist issues of the time. The film portrays the normal women roles, which are to obey, serve, and follow orders from their husbands. One woman, Idgie, who was a proclaimed tomboy, empowers Ruth and other women in the film to be independent. Evelyne, who interacted with Ninny and listened to the story of Idgie and Ruth, became empowered taking control of her life, even without her husband’s support.
It is evident Fried Green Tomatoes is a women empowerment film, empowering Ruth and Evelyne in the film and the women who watched the film after release, who have stated their inspiration from the film in their respective blogs, books and magazine articles.
The Fried Green Tomatoes film cast
The film fried green tomatoes cast in Whistle-Stop, a small town in Alabama. Fried Green tomatoes film casts around the life of Evelyne, who was unhappy in her marriage and an elderly woman Ninny Threadgoode. Evelyne Couch meets Ninny Threadgoode when she visits her husband at a nursing home in Alabama. Ninny tells Evelyne the story of a small town, Whistle-Stop Alabama, and the people that lived in the small town. The story time becomes the norm for every Wednesday when Ninny and Ninny meet. Evelyne, who was timid and unhappy, starts to become confident and happier as she becomes friends with Ninny. The story Ninny tells Evelyne starts with the Idgie, a tomboy woman who became withdrawn when her older brother died after a train hit him. Idgie’s childhood and adolescence was a challenging one because she was withdrawn. She rarely interacted with the other children (Wolz, n.d).
Idgie’s parents were concerned and requested Idgie’s childhood friend, Ruth Jamison to come stay with the Threadgoode family. Idgie’s parent invited Ruth with the objective of reclaiming Idgie’s womanhood as they considered Idgie wild. Threadgoode family believed Idgie could not get married as she was and needed to change to become more feminine. Initially, Idgie resists Ruth’s advances of friendship. As time passes, Idgie finally accepts Ruth’s advances and a strong friendship bond develops between them. As they grow, Ruth leaves whistle-stop and goes to Georgia to get married. Idgie is furious for losing her friend and had a challenging time letting go. Idgie visits her friend Ruth in Georgia and what she learns makes her furious. Apparently, Ruth’s husband abused Ruth physically. According to the fried green tomatoes review by Linda Lopez McAlister (n.d), Frank, Ruth’s husband and Idgie fought when Idgie went to visit Ruth. Idgie threatens to kill Frank if he ever beats Ruth again. Later on, Idgie returns to Whistle-stop with Ruth against the wishes of Ruth’s husband. Ruth and Idgie start a small café.
Women empowerment
According to Siegel (2000), a film that portrays women empowerment has to meet a certain criteria. Films whose main objective is to show women empowerment have to base the film on a woman/women narrative. Secondly, the film must include women empowerment principles. There are many women empowerment principles and in most cases, they show women can live independent of men and still live. The film Fried Green Tomatoes meets the criteria Siegel (2000) proposes. Fried Green Tomatoes cast are women and the objective of the film is women can be independent of men and succeed in what they do. As such, the fried green tomatoes film qualifies to be a women empowerment film.
The fried green tomatoes film empowers women in different aspects. As narrated by Ninny, women had to do what the society deemed right, which was serving and obeying men without questioning. To many women, that was not a problem. The problem was when men resulted to oppressing women and beating women as Frank did to Ruth. Women had to endure living in such marriages with physical abuses without questioning. A woman rising up to such abuses was unimaginable in the society at the time. In the Green Fried Tomatoes film, Idgie helps Ruth to rise up against the abuses in her marriage. Ruth accompanies Idgie back to Whistle-stop, which is symbolic of rising up to the abuses in her marriage. After all, Ruth had the choice to remain in her home in Georgia for her husband to continue abusing her more (Berglund, 2006).
Fried Green Tomatoes portrays the idea of women being able to do anything they want. The society had pre-defined roles for men and women. Women roles were to stay at home, look after the children, and obey their husbands. Basing on the traditional women roles, women were to stay at home and wait for their husbands to bring the daily bread. In the fried green tomatoes film, Idgie and Ruth go against the pre-defined roles of women by starting their own café, which would provide for them the daily bread. Women having their own business were contrary to the social norms of the time. Graham-Bertolini (2011) asserts the characters of Idgie and Ruth in the Fried Green Tomatoes film are those of women that recognize the abuses women endure in marriages and avoid them by being independent. Breaking free from the societal and men oppression is a challenge and women who break free are strong, independent, and self-sufficient asserts Graham-Bertolini (2011).
It is more interesting to learn in the Fried Green tomatoes film that Idgie and Ruth perfected their business. As Ninny narrates, the café owned by Idgie and Ruth became very popular in Whistle-stop because of the barbecue portion they made. Many Whistle-Stops’ people went to the Whistle-stop café to take the infamous barbecue portions. Ruth and Idgie having a café loved by many is a clear indication they could do exactly what men did. The acceptance of the café by the people of Whistle-stop is an indication the people embraced women empowerment. After all, it was easy for the society to disregard the café just because women owned the place. According to Berglund (2006), the film Fried Green Tomatoes is symbolic women can overcome the obstacles put in place by the society to continue oppressing women. Many women fail to understand the society put in place the obstacles they face to women empowerment and they can overcome these obstacles with the right determination and attitude. Ruth and Idgie had the right attitude and determination and proved the society wrong by being independent (Berglund, 2006, p.107).
When Ruth and Idgie were running the café businesses, they were on their own with the two employees they had. The fact Idgie and Ruth ran the business without the assistance of any man is a clear indication they were empowered. For a long time, the society had a perception that women had to depend on men to succeed in anything. Most women feared doing things on their own because they believed they would fail along the way. Looking back at the narration by Ninny, the main reason why Idgie’s parents requested Ruth to stay with Idgie was to tame Idgie’s wild behavior. Idgie’s parents were concerned that Idgie was losing her womanhood and no man would be interested in her (McAlister, n.d). Idgie’s parents concern is an indication they wanted Idgie to follow the same path of depending on men for anything.
Traditional women roles disallowed women to question men or challenge men in anyway. The narration by Ninny has a part where Idgie set her foot down to Frank in defense of her friend Ruth. Such cases were rare at the time and portray the boldness of Idgie. Idgie challenging Frank shows women were ready to negotiate their way to independence and were not ready to continue staying under the oppression of men. Ferriss and Young (2007) assert Idgie helping Ruth and the bond between the two is imperative in gender empowerment. Female bonding helps women because they have each other’s back. If a woman tries to fight for the rights of women single handily, she is likely to give up along the way. Ruth and Idgie had the female bond required to give them the strength they need to push their agendas. It is no wonder they did so well, in what they were doing.
However, the society may misinterpret the female bond. According to the Fried Green Tomatoes film, some people in Whistle-stop believed Idgie was a lesbian and staying with Ruth led to the assumptions they were lesbians. Assumptions that Idgie and Ruth were lesbians indicate the prejudice towards women in the society. It is as though the society did not appreciate female bonding for some reason. What the society failed to understand is female bonding was in the making, allowing Idgie and Ruth to complement each other thus succeeding in being independent from men (Ferriss & Young, 2007). Smelik (n.d) asserts female friendship is a source of strength and inspiration allowing women to defy all odds to be successful.
Ferriss and Young (2007) and Graham-Bertolini (2011) agree the Fried Green Tomatoes film was an indication of the trends in female films with gender empowerment ideologies. Ferriss and Young (2007) assert the choice of the location was good. The Fried Green Tomatoes depicted southern women, which was probably the best cast pace because it could not invoke political issues. According to Ferriss and Young (2007), the Southern women were free of political compromise making their character genuine. It is important for any film to have a good setting to drive the message the best way possible, without invoking any undesirable issues. The film producers and managers have the responsibility of getting the best setting for the desired message of any film to make sense and influence the viewers positively (Ferriss & Young, 2007).
The narration by Ninny was a success in empowering Evelyne. According to the Fried Green Tomatoes, Evelyne changed becoming confident and determined. Evelyne learned she could take control of her life even without the support of her husband or any other man. Although Evelyne did not have her husband’s support, she started taking empowerment classes, which helped her to stand for herself and what she believed. As Evelyne started to work towards taking control of her life, she became happy and eventually took control of her life. The greatest inspiration to Evelyne was Idgie and she would scream out “Towanda!” which was Idgie’s war cry when she needed inspiration and determination to face a challenging situation (Wolz, n.d). Fried Green Tomatoes film has the potential to inspire many other women in the society to set their foot down and fight for what they believe.
Conclusion
Fried Green Tomatoes is a women empowerment film. The film qualifies to be a women empowerment film because its cast is on a woman and shows women living independently of men. Fried Green Tomatoes cast on an old woman, Ninny who narrates to a middle-aged woman Evelyne on the history of the small town Whistle-stop and two women Idgie and Ruth. The narration shows how Idgie helped Ruth to overcome oppression and abuse from her husband Frank. Ninny’s narration continues to show how the two women lived together independently. Idgie and Ruth inspired Evelyne to take control of her life and do what she believes. It is evident Evelyne gained confidence and determination because of Idgie and Ruth. As Ferriss and Young (2007) put it, experiences of women are important in inspiring women to be confident and fight for what they believe. Critics of the Fried Green Tomatoes film believe the film inspired many women and empowered them in many ways. Ferriss and Young (2007), Berglund (2006), and Graham-Bertolini (2011) argue filmmakers and producers took women empowerment seriously by producing Fried Green Tomatoes and other films portraying women empowerment. It is evident the film industry played a role in women empowerment through films as Fried Green Tomatoes.
References
Berglund, J. (2006). Cannibal Fictions: American Explorations of Colonialism, Race, Gender, and Sexuality. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Ferriss, S., & Young, M. (2007). Chick Flicks: Contemporary Women at the Movies. London: Routledge.
Graham-Bertolini, A. (2011). Vigilante Women in Contemporary American Fiction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
McAlister, L. (n.d). Fried Green Tomatoes. Retrieved from http://mith.umd.edu/WomensStudies/FilmReviews/fried-tomatoes-mcalister
Siegel, C. (2000). New Millennial Sexstyles. Bloomington, I.N.: Indiana University Press.
Smelik, A. (n.d). Feminist Film Theory. Retrieved from http://www.feministezine.com/feminist/film/Feminist-Film-Theory.html
Wolz, B. (n.d). Therapeutic movie review column: Fried Green Tomatoes. Retrieved from http://www.cinematherapy.com/birgitarticles/Fried%20Green%20Tomatoes.html
