H. Pinkham Cassandra Boze English Composition I 26 October 2012 Paper #3 Waiting to Exhale, produced by Forest Whitaker, based on Terry McMillan’s novel, is a movie with many strong themes, most of them associated with people rather than ideas. The film details the trials and tribulations of four women searching for “Mister Right”. Several themes such as racism, feminism, the search for true love, and the connection between friends all are brought to light with this movie. However, the theme of commonality stuck out most to me as I watched this film.
Every woman, Robin, Gloria, Savannah, and Bernadine, all have different lives; however, they all have something in common: they are searching for love in all the wrong places. The movie, in a sense, is a thrilling adventure about the ups and downs of relationships in the black community. In another sense, it was a heartwarming story about women who can live to the fullest no matter what circumstances they encounter. I believe it to be more of the latter. Robin was willing to lower her standards and even date a man who has been addicted to drugs only to find the man who will show her love.
Gloria would rather stay at home and talk to the man across the street, rather than work so she can have a shot at his love. Savannah, a successful business woman, is willing to allow a married man to interfere with the way she lives her life. Bernadine lost all of her money and was close to losing everything she had. However, each woman, at the end of the movie, realized they could have life to the fullest. Many times throughout the book, the women begin to do something right with their lives. However, they end up being greedy with what they have and try to live as if they had no problems.
For instance, in McMillan’s novel, after Bernie wins the case against her ex-husband and wins a large sum of money, she writes checks to the United Negro College Fund and other charities. In the movie, however, there is no mention of these charities and she lives as if all of her problems have been solved with money. What these women must realize is that in order to solve their problems, they were going to have to do it themselves; their problems would not be solved by magic. But, throughout the movie, each woman does the same thing over and over again: run to a man who has nothing to offer. This is not always true for Gloria. She spends her time with a man who knows what it means to care and love someone. ) Every man in this movie, with the exception of maybe two, actually wants to respect these women and love them unconditionally. But, these women, at several points throughout the movie, all sit down and are able to relate to one another and give each other advice. The common factor between them was brought to light. Sometimes, this commonality is ruined because some of the women in the group decide to act on their emotions.
In one scene, the four women are sitting in a club drinking and smoking a cigarette. They are all discussing their issues and how they want to find a man to love them. All of the sudden, one of them gets up and dances with a man who had a reputation of being a scum. She goes home with him that night and believes she has found “the one”. In this moment, the common factor between the four women has been torn and now there are only three women who share this commonality. Commonality can be defined as a shared identity or rather a community.
All throughout Waiting to Exhale, these four women are constantly sharing identities with each other whether it is through suffering or through happiness. Hollywood has portrayed love in this movie as a quest for sex and gives off the assumption that girls will never find the perfect man. However each of these women want love, but they all have different reasons for this desire. Still sharing identities, each woman goes about their own way of doing things. This movie has brought to light that all people are different; everyone does things in a different way.
However, many people share an identity meaning that they have many of the same characteristics and wants. Waiting to Exhale does a fantastic work of showing this to the general public. The movie definitely challenges the assumptions of love and uses four black women to do exactly this. Robin, Gloria, Savannah, and Bernie all want the same thing: love. They will do anything to find the perfect man. By wanting to please this man, they temporarily throw out their feelings and friends. At the end of the movie, the women all focus on themselves and realize that their priorities are out of line.
Bernie says at the end of the movie that she felt as if she had not been able to say the things she wanted to the women and that she needed someone to listen to her, not judge her. Forest Whitaker used this instance to show that the women all had something in common. They were all working to the same goal: acceptance. The women gave up on all other relationships whenever they would find a man. Whitaker, at the end of the movie, used the script to show that the women realized their commonality and came together as one. Once they did so, they realized what they really wanted and salvaged the control over their own lives.
