Misrepresentations of American Women in Film: Balancing Professional Life vs Personal Life in "Up in the Air" (2009)

The misrepresentation of American women is prominently shown through various forms of media including television shows, music videos and films such as Jason Reitman’s 2009 dramedy “Up in the Air,” which was nominated for six Academy Awards for writing, directing, best picture, and acting, by three of the film’s top billed cast members: George Clooney (leading), Vera Farmiga (supporting), and Anna Kendrick (supporting).

This film, which takes place around the 2007-2008 financial crisis, is based on the 2001 novel of the same name, by Walter Kirn, wherein the lead character, Ryan, played by Clooney, works as a “career transition counselor,” which basically means he flies around the country laying off employees of various companies, so its employers don’t have to.

One of the examples of how American women are negatively misrepresented in this film is shown primarily in Anna Kendrick’s character. Natalie is fresh out of college and is recruited to the consultation company that Ryan works for, wherein she is welcomed with her new idea of laying of American employees virtually on the computer to save on flight costs and other related aspects, and to make the work more efficient, introducing the company into a new era. This does not sit well with Ryan, who has been in this line of work for so long, and it seems to him that Natalie is going to ruin his routine work life that is also his personal life, as he also has adapted to being comfortable being without, at least, a girlfriend or loving companion of some sorts.

The way that Natalie’s character is portrayed is someone who doesn’t mind being married to her career (which seems like it has already started somewhat), but at the same time, doesn’t want to settle for just any male companion. She seems incredibly dedicated to her work, even having just gotten out of college, but shows that she is still human with wanting a partner in a romantic relationship. Towards the middle of the film, she gets dumped by her boyfriend over text message (which Ryan interestingly compares to firing people over the internet, which is exactly what Natalie is attempting to incorporate in her new position). It seems like she is the type of professional who needs to do it all, in her professional and personal lives. But her professional life seemed to taint her personal life after her boyfriend broke up with her. Because she is still very young, fresh out of college, she may have not been taken seriously at some points in college and she may be trying to impress her former classmates and professors, and even Ryan who, to Natalie, is looked up to as someone to aspire to be like.

When she finds out Ryan’s stance on love and marriage, Natalie is determined to convince him of the importance of companionship, starting right after she gets the breakup text and throughout the entire film. To me, it seems like Ryan is the type of professional that Natalie aspires to be like, and Natalie is the type of human that Ryan aspires to be like, in the former’s case, it’s not so spelled out in the film.

While Natalie is working incredible hard, too hard, to be taken seriously as a professional, her yearn for her own sense of female empowerment sort of cancels out with her view on and instability within her personal life and how she is able to handle, to me, a simple breakup, especially since she is still so young and naive. She still has that subtle view of, how it is said in "Miss Representation," that she is made for this world purely to produce offspring, even though that's not her only view (Newsom).

Cited Sources

Newsom, Jennifer Siebel. “Miss Representation.” Kanopy, 2011, https://aacpl.kanopy.com/video/miss-representation-0 (Links to an external site.).