Cultural theorists have taken interest in an approach to an understanding of gender that deemphasizes evolutionary theory. Rather than tracing gender and sexuality to biological features, a more recent approach places culture at the crux of what dictates the social roles we adopt as gender. What counts as man and woman is mutable because it is a social construct. The culture around us informs our perception and internalization of gender identity. Shouldn\u2019t we try to understand the culture that constructs gender \u2013 such a central component for most people\u2019s identity?<\/p>\n
Gender is not stable in The Sound of Music<\/em>. Gender ambiguity is conveyed through the gender scripts of characters, camera shots and editing style, and audience identification with various characters. The characters are recognizable on a gender spectrum, and not fixed in traditional gender roles. The main character \u2013 Maria \u2013 deviates from a traditional gender script in her independent and stubborn behavior, but still displays a warm, maternal instinct. She cannot be \u201ctamed\u201d by the Church \u2013 nuns at her convent commiserate about how to \u201csolve a problem like Maria\u201d \u2013 her unpredictable free spirit does not belong in the abbey.<\/p>\n Camera shots and editing style further blur gender lines. Laura Mulvey argues that controlled camera shots force audiences to view the world through an exclusively male perspective. However, in The Sound of Music, <\/em>camera shots and editing do not rigidly occupy a man\u2019s perspective. Stacy Wolf, in her book A Problem Like Maria: Gender and Sexuality in the American Musical<\/em>, posits that the camera work \u201cdoes not eschew the [male] gaze but rather opens it to variously gendered gazes and then turns it around\u201d (Wolf, 229). Camera shots first force all characters and audience members to scrutinize Maria, but eventually switch this editing style. By the end of the movie, characters and audience members are not directing their gaze upon Maria, but sympathize, admire, and identify with her.<\/p>\n Since the camera jumps around to different perspectives; so in turn does audience identification with characters. An interviewee for Wolf\u2019s book explains her own flexible cross-identification: \u201cIn some ways I identified with [Maria] but she was too femme for me, and in some ways I wanted to be the Captain and sweep her off her feet. [Maria] was totally freaked out by her feelings and didn\u2019t know it. There [is] part of me that [is] freaked out by any sexual feelings at all too\u201d (Wolf, 216). Gender representations in The Sound of Music <\/em>are flexible and ambiguous \u2013 but this ambiguity takes on different forms. What is determinant about the ambiguity? Examining our attitudes towards the various types of ambiguous gender representations reveals our deeper anxieties about gender.<\/p>\n The Captain\u2019s gendered transformation is one of the most compelling and heart warming of the movie. Our first introduction to the Captain conveys him as too rigidly male: he\u2019s cold, strict, powerful, and emotionally incompetent. He carries his position as a Captain \u2013 a traditionally masculine role \u2013 over to his personal life and treats his children as if they were officers in his rank. Watching the Captain summon his children using a whistle is distinctly uncomfortable \u2013 for the other characters \u2013 Maria and the housekeeper \u2013 as well as the audience members because we want him to be more emotionally warm and receptive. Our discomfort with his overt masculinity makes his transformation so easy to root for. Watching the Captain open himself up to romantic and familial love \u2013 and start singing again \u2013 is one of the joys of the movie.<\/p>\n However, his character development is layered and complex: there was a failed and a successful attempt to transform him. The Baroness \u2013 his first romantic interest \u2013 fails to touch his heart, while Maria succeeds. Audience members might not pay much attention to the Baroness \u2013 Elsa \u2013 because the characters and audience are so obviously cheering for Maria and the Captain\u2019s love story. But why are our attitudes towards the two women so different?<\/p>\n The two female characters both lack traditional femininity, but in different ways and to different extents. Elsa is described by Wolf as the \u201cquintessential vampire lesbian\u201d \u2013 she is literally the palest character, and her voice and air are cold and raspy. Another distinctly uncomfortable scene comes again from an inability to interact with children: Elsa\u2019s inherent and obvious discomfort with her step-children-to-be cannot help but make you cringe. Her idea of parenting is sending the seven children off to boarding school so she does not have to deal with them. In contrast, Maria\u2019s diminished femininity is represented through her short hair cut, and her spunky \u2013 maybe even \u201cwild\u201d \u2013 impulses to run around outside. The first scenes of the movie demonstrate all the ways Maria is not \u201chow she should be.\u201d The convent \u2013 a symbol of female purity \u2013 cannot tame Maria\u2019s free spirit. However, Maria\u2019s maternal warmth is evident; watching her relationship with the Von Trapp children develop make for the most jovial and pleasing scenes. Maria understands exactly what the children need, and they learn to love her as much as she learns to love them. Although both women deviate from traditional femininity, the characters in the movie and the audience members fondly receive the female character that does not deviate from maternal characteristics, thus revealing our dismissal of a woman who rejects motherhood.<\/p>\n