Ocean's 11 - Stealing Money and Hearts

If you haven't seen Ocean's 11, I feel sorry for you and I send you my condolences. Ocean's 11 is a movie with a fantastic plot, great cast, twist ending, and the journey to win a women's heart back. I mean seriously, what's not to love? Ladies, did I mention that George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon all star in this movie? Talk about sex appeal along with a great story line! Can you WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER!?

Anyway, on a more serious note, the movie is about Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his elaborate plan to rob three Las Vegas Casinos all owned by the wealthy Terry Benedict. He gets together a team of 11 other guys who will assists him in the biggest robbery of a Casino ever. The plan to rob the casino is elaborate and impossible to pull off, but they're going to try it anyway! Some good stuff happens after that and I won't give it away, you just need to watch it I guess.

In the movie there is a love interest between Danny Ocean and his ex-wife Tess Ocean (Julia Roberts). The problem is that Tess is currently with Terry Benedict, the same man Danny is trying to rob. Part of Danny's plan is to not only rob Benedict of his money, but to also rob him of Tess so that Danny can have her back.

Tess is the only prominent female character in the movie. Every other character is male. Her only role in the movie is to be a love interest and a prize for the man that can get her at the end. This type of role for Tess is consistent with Ward's (1995) findings that women are passive and that they're attracted to certain types of men. Both of the men after her are very powerful and wealthy, and she doesn't seem to have a say in which one she's going to be with. Danny tells Tess that Benedict doesn't love her the way he does, but yet, she doesn't buy it. It is up to Danny to prove to Tess that Benedict doesn't care about her as much as he cares about money and the state of his casinos. This becomes Danny's main goal in the movie and is consistent with Ward's (1995) findings that men are aggressors and that they use specific strategies to attract women.

While the movie's characters may follow stereotypical gender roles, it is still a good movie that is very well written. These gender roles are also easily explained by the time at which the script was written. Ocean's 11 was originally written and produced in 1960 and was remade in 2001. This could explain the specific gender roles for the characters.