![]() ![]() Actually it demonstrates that a woman should get her sense of her worth from the men in her life. Do women need to think they are more valuable than their peers to feel happy? It is strange that the moral of this story is supposed to be about what a woman thinks of herself. Now she knows she is worth more than any other woman on the island,” says Johnny Lingo. “The thing that matters most is what she thinks of herself. Harris admits misjudging Johnny Lingo, who was actually making Mahana happy. “Think what it means for a woman to know what their husbands paid for them,” Johnny Lingo expounds. It never made sense that people were calling her ugly. But she was treated appallingly by her father. Duh! All of us in the audience can see that. “She was always beautiful,” Johnny Lingo tells Mr. So, apparently her physical beauty is her gift to him. “Your gift to me can be seen by all.” Johnny Lingo says to Mahana. Harris delivers mirror and is shocked to see a beautiful and gracious Mahana accompanying Johnny Lingo. Harris’s shop assistant says Mahana’s ugly face will break the glass of the mirror. Johnny Lingo married now, he’ll be sorry all his life.” Mahana and Johnny Lingo leave in canoe for their honeymoon, they are gone for months. At the wedding feast, boys tease “Johnny Lingo had a cow, trade it for an ugly wife. Mahana thinks she’s being mocked but then the cows arrive, and she reluctantly exits the hut to join Johnny Lingo. He knows that the shell he has is rare and valuable and knows what he wants for it. Johnny Lingo is shown as a man who knows the value of things. Harris and orders a gold carved mirror as a wedding gift for Mahana. Harris (the white shopkeeper) thinks Johnny Lingo is vain – wanting people always and forever to remember that he paid eight cows for Mahana. This sets up a dynamic where women are always judging themselves against each other. Women brag about how much their husbands paid for them. ![]() We hear that ‘with two or three cows a man can buy quite a decent wife on this island’ and ‘for 4 or 5 he can buy a superior one’. The wedding will be the next day, he will bring the cows. ![]() Then comes the plot twist-Johnny Lingo says that is not enough for Mahana and offers eight cows –higher than any price paid for a woman in the village. The entire village laughs when Mahana’s father asks for three cows. People in the village anticipate he will bargain to get a wife for the lowest amount possible, ‘two hoofs and a tail’ is the joke. Johnny Lingo, the title character, has a reputation as a shrewd trader. Women are property to be exchanged by men. The men sit and make an economic arrangement where a woman (Mahana) is bought and sold. Then at the bargaining he excuses her absence as ‘the industrious girl never stops working’. He is free to berate and threaten violence against his daughter. Her father threatens to bruise her to show everyone what a disobedient daughter she is. And apparently they must also be attractive, though men are allowed to be as ugly as they are and act even uglier.ĭaughter Mahana is cringing, hiding in a tree. Wives are described as workers who mend the roof and fix supper. “You don’t know what it means to have a homely daughter,” says Moki, the ugly man talking with another man about striking a deal to sell his daughter as a wife. Experience has shown me that women are the worst perpetuators of sexism. I was disappointed to see that this misogynistic story was written by women, but not really surprised. The story was written by Patricia McGerr, the screenplay by Claire Whitaker. Many churchgoers will not dare criticize anything put out by the church. The fact that it was produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints interferes with their ability to reason. This suggests to me that Mormon audiences are giving it high marks because it is familiar and they won’t look with their rational minds and see the problems with it. I looked it up on imdb and found that it has 7 out of 10 stars. A white trader is the narrator that interprets the story for the white audience. The people are presented as rather backward, simple, and mean-spirited. The culture is misrepresented and appropriated for a morality tale. The setting for the story is a small Polynesian island. “Johnny Lingo” was made in 1969 and is steeped in racist, colonialist, and sexist ideas. I was a child and didn’t really understand it, but many of the messages seeped into my worldview and self concept. ![]() The first time I remember seeing this film was at a ward party in the 1980s. ![]()
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