Whale Rider

Today when we watched Whale Rider in class I noticed a few things. At the beginning, the grandpa wouldn't acknowledge the baby girl because all he wanted to was find out about the baby boy. It showed that the gender issues we've been talking about since day one are still very prevalent in societies today. I noticed that the only type of person they would consider to lead was a male from the eldest son. Which goes back to the fact that the eldest son is always in charge ahead of the youngest son and they don't even consider seeing if a girl has the qualities needed to lead. Like most of the types of people we've talked about thus far in class (as well as in Whale Rider), the eldest male is in charge and the leader of the family; most of the time people don't challenge or go against him. The grandpa was a type of Chief and he not only was in charge of his family, but basically the whole village in general. The little "concert" that the kids put on and the place in which they performed reminded me of some of the pictures and videos we've seen that showed the Trobriand Islanders- the totems and the buildings decorated with animal figures.