Loverboy

According to Jean-Anne Sutherland and Kathryn Feltey one definition of the most commonly understood notion of power in women’s films is Power-To. It is a when a woman can recognize the extent to which her actions determine her fate, and she cane come to know her own sense of agency and recognize her autonomy (120). After watching Loverboy (Micklin Silver, 1989) I decided to apply this concept to the male character of the film. Randy Bodek is a pizza delivery boy, who discovers himself through showing love to rich unhappily married women and gets paid for it in return. The film has three prominent features that apply to women’s films regarding the power-to notion, and were discussed in Sutherland and Feltey’s book.

First feature is to separate from his life, culture and traditions. Randy drops out of college and is back to his hometown where he works at a pizza place. After one woman asks him to spend the night with her he realizes his power of satisfying other women, and above that he is getting paid for it. The second feature is waking up from years of unconscious living, and finding agency where there was little. Given that he was always in bad relationships with women. He finds his power after interacting with older women. What pushed him to go in that direction is the need for money. The third feature is discovering himself through the discovery of his sexual self. After “delivering pizza” to over 40 women, Randy discovers his performing and emotional skills that he never knew he had, and uses his maturity to get back his girlfriend. He lacked the real knowledge of his personal empowerment until he recognized the control he has over the consequences of his life.