The movie “Shenandoah”, made in 1964, depicts the struggles of a large farming family during the Civil War in the Shenandoah
Valley. The family consists of six sons and one daughter under the guise of their dutiful
father played by a warm, yet stern Jimmy Stewart.
Things certainly have changed since the 1860’s, but it is refreshing to see a family that actually works together as a unit and sits down at the dinner table together and discusses politics openly, those issues being slavery and why or why not the father’s sons should join the war effort on either side.
Though the film was made over forty years ago many of the topics are still relevant today. The father figure of the family treats all of the women in his family with the utmost respect, the other being his daughter-in-law. He speaks to his dead wife’s tomb as if she was his equal when he was alive, and treats the others just as equally as he would any of his sons. So many films objectify women into being nothing more than sex objects, but this film shows them being loved platonically as well as romantically.
One of the key scenes of the movie is when “father” sits down his daughter’s fiancée to make sure that he is going to treat her with the utmost respect, that which a
woman deserves. While the roles the woman play in this film are the typical ones that feminists complain about, it is good for me to see these women in situations where they are just as important to the farm and the world as the sons would be. The women know how to work and are not just resigned to being homemakers even though they play those roles as well.