Gender And Gender Stereotypes In My Cousin Vinny

My cousin Vinny is a film about two best friends, Bill Gambini and Stanley Rothenstein, whom have just being awarded scholarships to UCLA. Before the semester starts the boys decide that they want to drive through the south, once they arrived in Alabama they decide to stop at a convenience store to pick up some snacks. Not soon after they check out and leave the store they are pulled over and arrested for what they believe is shoplifting, however; eventually when they are at the police station they learn that they were arrested for murder and robbery. Since the boys don’t have enough money to pay for a good lawyer they think all is lost, however Bill remembers that his cousin, Vincent Gambini, is a lawyer and decides to give him a call. It doesn’t take long for everyone to realize that cousin Vinny isn’t the experienced lawyer everyone thought he was and the boys once again start to feel the pressure. This film has many social psychology elements throughout the film, such as being apart of the in/out group and how they form stigmas and attitudes, stereotypes involving gender, race and intelligence, relationships and how they related to helping behaviors, and finally how …show more content…
This would be an example of a gender stereotype, or beliefs concerning the characteristics of women and men (Baron &Branscombre, 2012). When Lisa took the stand no one understood why she was there and when Vinny tells the courtroom she was going to explain why the car tires couldn’t belong to the boys’ car, everyone was in shock. When the judge ask her to tell her qualifications no one believed her simply because she was a woman, however; everyone’s jaws dropped when she started talking in details about the make and model of cars as well as other details that only an expert would know, the shock everyone had would have not happened had she been a