Blockers

The beginning of Blockers the movie starts off with three girls, Kayla, Julie, and Sam going to school and meeting each other and becoming best friends. It quickly fast forwards to their lives as seniors. The first scene starts with Kayla’s dad, Mitchell, shoving a thong into his mouth saying dirty things to his wife and then she reveals to him that the thong is his daughters. He spazzes and says that she wears bears jerseys and cleats, not dirty stripper underwear. He makes this comment just as he was saying all of the things he’s going to do to his wife while she’s wearing the thong. He then asks if he should start paying her allowance in singles, referring to the stereotype of strippers getting dollar bills thrown at them. He then forces her mom to tell her she can’t wear them, which is just wrong because if her mom can wear them then why can’t her own daughter? He feels like his daughter is growing up and he doesn’t know how to handle it, but he is 100% using the wrong language. Janet McCabe, the author of Feminist Film Studies, states “Struggling with the language of patriarchy is a precarious task. It is a dilemma anticipated by Laura Mulvey: ‘how to fight the unconscious structured like a language (formed critically at the moment of arrival of language) while still caught within the language of the patriarchy’” (McCabe 116). Language is something obtained and learned, and it is hard to change especially if you have been using the same words for most of your life. I doubt Mitchell thinks he is being sexist when he speaks, he probably thinks he is being emotional because his little girl is growing up. His language has to change if he wants to be viewed as a respectful person in society, because he is definitely not respecting his own daughter with the words he is using.

Once it’s officially prom night, Mitchell gives his daughter a small knife and tells her how to use it Incase her date makes a move. She seems shocked and pissed that her dad is doing this when she knows how to defend herself. Once the parents Mitchell and Lisa, Julie’s mom, find out their kids made a sex pact for prom night, they absolutely lose it and think their lives are over because they want to have sex. Sex is a natural thing that humans do, and it definitely will not ruin their lives. The parents are overreacting because their children are growing up. The parents are reflecting on their own mistakes thinking it will happen to their own daughters. Hunter, Sam’s dad tells Mitchel and Lisa that they should be celebrating instead of fearing their daughters exploring their sexuality. He wants their daughters to be empowered. Mitchell goes as far as saying he would kill himself if he caught his daughter having sex. The parents then go to Mitchell’s house and his wife finds out they are trying to stop their daughter from having sex. Marcie, his wife, freaks out on him and asks if his father tried to stop him and he tells her it’s different, in which she replies it isn’t at all and it’s a double standard. She then asks how they expect society to treat women as if they’re equal when their own parents won’t. When Lisa and Mitchell don’t take Marcie’s advice and they still try to stop their children, Lisa goes into her daughter’s hotel room and realizes that their room is filled with flowers and hearts and she realizes that it’s romance and not just something to get over with, she feels bad and regrets her decision of trying to bust her daughter.

Kayla’s dad starts running through every hotel room to find his daughter and when he does, he picks up her date Connor and slams him to the ground. She is angry because she isn’t doing anything wrong and she likes Connor. Her dad admits to following her around all night which just makes matters worse. She tells her father she’s not a damsel in distress and she does not need saving. She can live her own life without him having to worry about her or interfere with her plans. She cannot be independent if her father is following everything that she’s doing. She wants to make her own decisions and handle herself without her parents getting involved. She asks why sex is bad, and her dad truly doesn’t not have an answer. Sam’s dad then walks into his daughters room and asks where Chad is, her prom date, because he thinks that he was forcing Sam to do something she didn’t want to do. Sam then tells him it’s none of his business. She then comes out to her father that she is lesbian. Each other parents came to the realization that their children are growing up and they have to let them go. They are responsible and aren’t doing anything wrong, and exploring sex is apart of life.