Gender Roles In The Full Monty

During the industrial age of England, the quality of human life drastically increased. Men were being funneled into the new factories that kept on being built during this industrial bang, and city populations were booming with new products like televisions, radios, cars, new clothes, new shopping markets, and much more. The social class’ rigid boundaries seemed to seemingly blur, as each man was able to advance just as far as the next guy. Yes, there were still the top dogs who managed the companies, but at least now everyone had a shot of being those managers. However, as this “utopia” of a society continued, men slowly realized they were being replaced by the women in their lives, as this was not only an age that advanced social equality,

In The Full Monty, there is a reversal of gender roles. Gaz’s wife, Pam, is working as the superintendent/manager at a company while Gaz is stuck looking for a job at job club. Pam is the one who can now provide for their son, Nathan, and Gaz feels useless because he has no source of income and can not pay for his son’s needs and wants. Because he can’t provide for his son, he has to resort to stealing, sneaking around and breaking in places. When Gaz tells her about him needing money to start his stripper business, Pam is even able to offer him a job, even though men were the ones who had done the hiring before. This is like a punch to Gaz’s masculine pride. Before the post-industrial age, Gaz would have had a job because men were needed for the muscle work. Now, men have to use the “other” muscle, but most of them are uneducated, unlike the women who continued to work in school and are now smarter than the men who had dropped out. Because these women now have their own money, the men can’t say the women can’t spend it as they please. When Jean goes to the strip club, Dave feels as thought it is not his place to go after her because “it’s her money” and she can spend her income how she feels because she had earned it herself. There is also a shift in criticism of gender. After the men realize they too could become strippers, Dave becomes self conscious and says that the women

Like Nathan, many kids had fathers who were absent or fleeting. When these fathers did stick around, they were not always the best influences around their sons because they did not know how to be fathers to kids they could have easily had with another women around. With Gaz and Nathan’s relationships, it is almost like the son becomes the father and the father the son as Nathan keeps reminding his dad that stealing is bad, breaking in and entering is wrong, and that causing Gerald to loose his job was rude. Nathan makes his dad give Gerald back the gnome he smashed just like a father would do if his son had damaged one of his friend’s toys. Even as Gaz is walking up and down the streets, he and Dave rate the women they see on a scale of one to ten, and Nathan explains how that’s perverted and gross to do. Nathan now has to depend on his mom’s new husband, Barry, to learn from because Barry has a job, is able to provide for the family, and is stable while Gaz is immature, raunchy, and a bad influence. Barry even has to tell Gaz to back off and “read the papers” from the lawyer so they can have sole custody of Nathan and can give him a stable life and role model to look up