Respectable Strippers

The thing that struck me as the most different between Calendar Girls and The Full Monty was the reaction of the sons of the main characters.


Chris's son is absolutely devastated when he discovers what his mom's been up to. We see him, in one of the many melancholic scenes in the film, throwing the newspapers with the cover story over the edge of a cliff. He is humiliated and angry with his mother. Though we get some hints that his father has tried to talk him out of this attitude at the very end of the film, we see no reconciliation of this problem.



In The Full Monty, on the other hand, Gaz's son only briefly rejects his father's stripping. (Even then, it's clear that Nathan undergoes something a little more traumatic than Chris's son ever did. After all, Nathan was watching his dad strip in an abandoned parking lot; all Chris's son did was see her picture in the paper.) The rejection does not last, however, and Nathan becomes an active participant in the scheme; in the end, it is his firm words that send his dad out on stage.







What's the difference? Is it gender-based?


I'm not sure that it has to be gender-based, but I think it certainly might be. Chris, being a woman (and an older, married one at that) is not supposed to be stripping. Neither is Gaz, but his performance is met with laughter and jokes, not shame. While Chris's husband understands the artistic and independent nature of her decision to strip, her son does not. Furthermore, there is little "art" to Gaz's performance, but that doesn't seem to stop the majority of the people in his life from supporting him (even his ex, who supports little else that he does).



This could be a commentary on the gender roles of parenting. Chris, as a mother, is supposed to be nurturing, dometic, docile--a role that she appears to have been uncomfortable with even before stripping (thus her problem with the women's club to begin with.)



At the beginning of the movie, Gaz is also not performing in the traditional role of father; he is not providing, and his son sees him as unstable and a little crazy.


Chris, then, further removes herself from her perceived role as mother by stripping for the calendar. Gaz, on the other hand, solidifies his role as father by using it as the opportunity to finally provide for his son. This would explain why Chris's act alienates her from her son while Gaz's brings him closer to Nathan.



One final thought about this observation: would it have been different if Chris had had a daughter? I can't remember what the woman's name was, but one of the women who stripped for the calendar was frequently shown with her daughter--a daughter who fully supported her decision. Is there something that makes a daughter more able to understand her mother's actions than a son? Is this why Nathan was able to relate to Gaz?