Metropolis

During our viewing of Metropolis, I found Lang's depiction of women especially interesting.  Lang expresses the "otherness" of women in the two stereotypical representations of femininity, the Madonna and the whore.  The duality of Maria nicely mirrored the other contrasts in the film, such as black and white, the head and the hands, and the physical separation of the cities.  As part of the working class, the real Maria represents the "hands," preaching peace and advising the men to wait for their savior, whereas robot Maria is a product of the "heads" to use for their own means.  For the majority of the film, Metropolis is fundamentally a city of men.  The thinkers are all men, and the workers involved in the rebellion in the catacombs are also all men.  Maria, both real and robot, is essentially only a tool in the film.  As a real woman, she preaches passivity and for the workers to wait for their savior, who turns out to be Freder.  After she is turned into a robot, she is used by the rulers of the city to instigate chaos and bring the workers' city to ruin.  As a woman, Maria is ineffective on her own, and it takes Rotwang and Freder to complete the action she provokes.  Overall, Metropolis gives us a unique lens through which to view the role of women as perceived in twentieth-century Germany.