Nonverbal: Woman and Victoria Essay

All types of communication interaction involve two major components in terms of how people are perceived: verbal, and nonverbal. These cues such as facial expressions, posture, verbal intonations, and other body gestures accompany our words in order to create a clear message. Every person is continuously communicating even when they are not saying a word, thus, it is possible to send an exclusively non verbal message but it is not possible to send an exclusively verbal message. Nonverbal cues in the interaction are always more powerful indicators of what a speaker means and what the speaker feels because non verbal cues have not been learned and therefore are not manipulated. In the movie Victor Victoria, nonverbal cues are used to emphasize the gender of characters. There are certain nonverbal cues that accentuates a woman. One example from the movie is Victoria’s long hair. Long hair in the 1930’s was how a woman was identified. Toddy cuts Victoria’s long hair to create the illusion that she is man. Along with a woman’s long hair, their breast were also a symbol of womanhood. Victoria is asked to wrap her breast as well as walk with her chest sticking out to emphasize that she is man, because walking with their chest out was a mans way of showing confidence. In a scene in the movie Victor is going to say cheers before drinking and he is laughed at because traditionally women are the one’s that cheer before drinking. Another gender based nonverbal cue is in the nightclub, during performances the women dance and the men are in the orchestra. It was normal for the women to be dancers in that era because a woman is built a lot more flexible so manipulating their bodies is easier although there are exceptions. A characteristic that separates men and women is pride. Although I am not saying women do not have pride, men are willing to go above and beyond to protect their pride; an example of this is when Toddy accepts the ride back to their hotel even though in reality they were not staying in a fancy hotel. Victoria tries to deny the ride in order for their lie not be discovered. Toddy accepts the ride to show off that they’re wealthy even if they are not. This scene in my eyes is one of the great barriers that distinguishes men and women. In addition to the things that accentuates a woman, there also exist the things that accentuates a man. For example the way men greet each other. I man greeting another man would simply shake hands, but a man greeting a woman would kiss her hand. There is also the nonverbal cues of what a gay man should look like. In this movie we have the bodyguard, and the boxer who are two gay men but King Marchand refuses to admit it due to the nonverbal cue that they are both strong men. Also, when the gangsters think that King Marchand they try to get rid of him by paying him off because gangsters can’t be seen as gay because they are usually strong feared men. Nonverbal cues are used in this movie to emphasize the socio-economic class of the characters. In the opening scene of the movie we see Victoria singing, we automatically know she is poor by the clothes she is wearing. She has a broken glove, and no fancy jewelry. This nonverbal cue was intended to demonstrate that she is a struggling singer. In a later scene we see Victoria walk by a restaurant and see a fat man enjoying a large variety of pastries. The size of the man is intentional and is what let’s the audience know that he is wealthy because he obviously eats a lot of pastries which only a rich man could afford in this time period. Overall I must say that nonverbal cues account for most of the perceptions of things that we have. In this movie the nonverbal cues play a large part in demonstrating to the audience who these characters are. Whether the nonverbal cue represents gender of economic level, it is safe to say that the nonverbal cues are all intentional created to create a clearer message throughout this movie.