By Natalie Boutros
“She’s The Man” is not only a cute movie for romance lovers, but highlights important subjects without overwhelming the watcher. It shows the gender roles commonly given to both men and women as they grow up and the stereotypes associated with them. It also allows the watcher to live vicariously through the main character as she experiences her own teenage romance.
The movie begins with the Illyria school’s girls’ soccer team being cut due to both budgeting and inherent misogyny. The school believes that the girls’ soccer team was never going to be as capable as the boys, making it reasonable to remove them. This displays the misogyny frequently portrayed in competitive sports effectively to the watcher.
This leads to the main character, Viola Hastings, asking a friend to disguise her as her brother and take his place as he plays in a boy band with his friends. While still in place of her brother, she participates in the Cornwall soccer team, Illyria’s rival school. This also shows that although Viola was skilled, she would have never been regarded as a girl the same way she was as a boy.
Although this movie shows us a lot about many gender stereotypes in competitive sports, it also employs romance, which adds a more cheerful aspect to the movie. The romance between Viola and Duke, a fellow soccer player on the Cornwall team, is both playful and unpredictable. Since Viola is dressed as her brother, Duke doesn’t romantically think about her until later on in the movie, but it is clear they have an unspoken connection.
The actors Amanda Bynes and Channing Tatum do wonderfully show both characters’ bond without tainting Viola’s dramatics until she and Duke meet at a carnival when she is unhidden, allowing the true romance to begin.
Overall, the movie “She’s the Man” is a cheery romantic comedy with entertaining acting and amusing plot points. It portrays a fun time while still maintaining realism by implementing real-world problems.
