ABSTRACT
Political myth is evident in the movies in a variety of ways, perhaps most notably in the depiction of social roles and in certain kinds of stories of enduring cultural interest and significance. In her searching inquiry into the depiction of women's social roles in the movies, June Sochen is quite aware that the popular enactment of such roles is not apolitical. For the dynamics of power relations is not confined to usual politics. Rather power is a concept that helps us understand the conduct of social roles, and the complementary and conflicting aspects of those roles. In that sense, gender politics is not something separate from the other ways in which a political system exercises power, since it involves basic questions of who tells other people what to do. Patterns of power take many social forms—intellectual, financial, cultural, and of course personal—but in all cases such power is justified in terms of myth. On the other hand, patterns of power are also unjustified, or challenged, in terms of alternative myths. But in all cases, popular media such as the movies utilize mythic resources in order to depict social roles, and degrees of power and powerlessness associated with them.
