Snowpiercer: A Classist Look at the Social Burden of Genders

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Snowpiercer: A Classist Look at the Social Burden of Genders
Snowpiercer, a film directed by Bong Joon Ho of the award-winning Korean film Parasite, strongly depicts a social class struggle among people. It sets the world's social structure on a smaller scale by using a train with each carriage as a symbol of social status; the front being the upper class and the tail as the lowest class. This film has garnered different reviews and opinions because of its theme and target issue which is social class struggle. In talks of social status and class struggle, there are underlying issues that add up to the hardships of those at the bottom.
In this paper, we will look at the movie through four overlapping lenses: representational analysis which focuses on social class, feminism, classist ideologies, and semiotics. This paper would anchor on these theories to talk about social class issues in a feministic approach.
Contrary to the belief that feminism only talks about women and their struggles, in literature, this theory also talks about the patriarchal system and how it has abused those that it perceives to be weak and inferior (Tyson 83). That is to say, the women, the minority, and even the men have been subject to an unfair system of patriarchy.
In the movie Snowpiercer, male domination is very much evident. Throughout the film, there are only three women with a major role (Yona, Tanya, and Mason). With prejudice, one may say it is understandable as the movie is mostly action and brutal. That belief gives the assumption that women or femininity are for more gentle and slow-paced activity. It is manifested in the film when Curtis' group encounters the men with axes and spears, the only women in their group, Yona and Tanya, are gently pushed away from the front. Other women in the film appear to have a typical women role (e.g. the pregnant teacher, Wilford's right hand and "woman", the female student with an attitude). In the early days around the 50s to 70s, women were expected to be soft-spoken, calm, and reserved. Beyond those characteristics, women could be diagnosed with hysteria, an illness associated with women alone. It could be being a loudmouth, sexually active, or expressive. This reminds us of a character in the film who could be diagnosed with hysteria: Mason. With her eloquent language and provoking attitude, Mason does not fit the old idealization of a woman.
One ideology is in parallel to the women's standing in the film. Classist ideology, according to Tyson, is defining your human value according to your social status (59). Which is to say, the more superior you are the more privileged you become. Being a woman puts women on a boxed pedestal where everything is safe, harmless, but guarded. Some would believe being a woman is a privilege and it places women on a higher class which means, at times, they are prioritized. However, some women prefer the battlefield, discomfort, and hard work. Snowpiercer somehow allows these instances to two women in the film; Curtis allows Tanya to join the group after insisting; Mason holds the second-highest position in the train. The cases of Tanya and Mason maybe because this film is set decades later but the instance I men...