Starship Troopers Analysis

For my paper I decided to take a look at two movies that I highly enjoy watching Starship Troopers and Pride and compare and contrast them with a theory that we have learned this semester. I chose these films not only for their stark differences in plot, but for more importantly the various ways male characters are depicted in these films. I will be analyzing the bulk of male characters in each of these movies through the eyes of the masculine theory. As you know the masculine theory deals with the various ways that male roles are depicting in the film and sometimes can even be used to see how woman are depicted in films if they are depicted in a masculine way. When analyzing a film this way you need to look at how males are represented in
Rico is a physically adept and not so bright student who as with many movies has an infatuation with a girl. Rico is depicted as the quintessential male if you overlook the fact that in one scene it was shown that he scored a 35 on his math test. I believe that this scene was included into the movie to reinforce the fact that Rico is at the very bottom of the ranks when it comes to the start of the movie and it also helps show that maybe the people that aim to go into infantry may not be the brightest of the bunch. Just like Rico, all of the men in Starship Troopers are depicted as masculine and super athletic. This hits you hard when the football scene comes up and you see Rico front flip over three defenders and score the touchdown (a move that he pulls out again later in the live firing drills). You could also view the way that the characters in Starship Troopers deal with conflict is inherently masculine compared to how conflict is dealt with in Pride. In Pride when conflict arises there is a very diplomatic approach, each person has their say in what the group will do moving forward, and they talk it out. In Starship Troopers on the other hand, the first time that conflict arises between Rico and Zander after Rico sees Zander is partners with Carmen on the Rodger Young Ship Rico automatically starts a fight. When viewing this from an analytical standpoint it helps drive home the grunt mentality of many of the men in Rico’s battalion. Even the costuming in Starship Troopers is very masculine with big padding that accentuates the muscles of not only the men in the military, but also the women to the point where you can’t tell if one soldier is male or female since the costuming really hides all of the feminine feature of the female body. The final analysis I want to point out regarding Starship Troopers is the sexually aggressive nature of the two main male characters, Rico and Zander. Rico often finds himself in