Minority Report Took A LIttle More Thought

I have to agree with many of my fellow bloggers that the gender issues in this film were not immediately visible to me. However, I was impressed by many of my classmates abilities to find subtle gender issues throughout the movie. I liked how some pointed out that Agatha was the most talented precog, that most of the high ranking officers in precrime were men (sad to think that this will probably actually still be true in fifty years), and the different ways John and his wife were portrayed and how they dealt with there sons death.
Rex blogged about how they thought it was odd that John appeared to be more distraught about thier son's death then his wife. I did not think that this was the case. I felt that both were quite distraught but they dealt with it in very different ways which could be related to the idea of gender norms. John dealt with his son's death in a very proactive way. He became part of precrime which was positive (at least at the time) but also began using drugs (proactive in that it was a direct action but a very negative reaction non the less). His wife on the other hand dealt with it in a much more passive way by leaving her husband because he reminded her of Sean and moving away from other people and living in the cottage. I think this is an example of how gender norms dictate that men should/are the more aggressive and direct gender while women are the more passive gender.
Additionally, I found it interesting social commentary that in the film the technology within the next fifty years was so highly advanced and yet things like gender equality within high ranking positions and law enforcement were still so lacking. I believe it is completely believable that technology has and will in the future advance more rapidly then societal norms. If you look at the past fifty years you will see that technology has advanced greatly, and although many strides have been made, gender equality is still far from present.
I do not generally enjoy sci-fi so I do not know that this was my favorite film so far. Yet, I am glad to see a film that did not have it's gender and sexuality issues so blatantly out in the open. This film took a little more thought to flush out some of these ideas. I liked that many people posted about this in their blogs and people were able to build on each others ideas. I hope that class today will lead to additional insights as well.