Comparison of Lelio’s “Gloria Bell” With Bambara’s “My Man Bovanne” and the Book of “Ruth”

1. Summary of “Gloria Bell” Film

Gloria Bell is a comedy-drama film released in 2018 as a remake of a 2013 film called Gloria. It features famous film artists such as Holland Taylor, Sean Astin, Rita Wilson, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Michael Cera, John Turturro, and Julianne Moore. The plot of the film has Gloria Bell living in Los Angeles. She is a middle-aged woman who divorced her husband. Gloria has two children: a young man named Peter, who has an infant son, and a daughter named Anne, who works as a yoga instructor. Gloria spends most of her nights in Los Angeles clubs playing 1970s and 1980s music, dancing her heart out, and letting loose.

During one of these nights, Gloria meets with Arnold, who is also divorced. They strike out instantly and drink together before going to sleep. After this meeting, they start a relationship. The relationship is not smooth, with some things annoying Gloria, such as the fact that Arnold has to provide for his ex-wife and their two daughters. The three are unemployed and keep demanding help from Arnold. Nonetheless, there are smooth bits of the relationship, such as when Arnold owns a paintball arena and takes Gloria there and teaches her the sport.

Gloria’s son Peter celebrates his birthday a few weeks after the meeting. Gloria takes the opportunity to introduce Arnold to her two children. As they toast and enjoy the party, Gloria reveals that Anne is pregnant from her relationship with a Swedish whale rider. Gloria tells Anne intends to move to Sweden with their boyfriend. This is shocking because Dustin is not aware. The rest of the party is spent looking at old photos, with one of them having Dustin and Gloria in their wedding dress. Arnold is not amused by the turn out of events and leaves silently, unnoticed by anyone. Upon the realization that Arnold has left, everyone is surprised and looks for him, but he is nowhere to be found. This is a considerable embarrassment for Gloria as she leaves the party.

Later, as Gloria leaves for work, Arnold calls her, and they catch up. Arnold excused himself that he did not intend to leave the party unnoticed as he tried to catch her eye contact. Unfortunately, Gloria was not on the lookout for him. Arnold insists he has received phone calls from his daughters, but Gloria is not ready to listen. There is little love in the relationship, and Gloria attempts to return Arnold’s paintball guns, but he is not prepared to take them, which compels her to drive away with them.

The following morning, Gloria finds marijuana at her doorstep that had been left by her mentally unstable neighbor. Gloria smokes it and starts dancing impulsively. She takes her daughter Anne to the airport the following day, and the truth that her daughter has now grown up sinks in. Like many women in their old age, Gloria finds it hard to accept separation from her daughter and sheds tears in sorrow.

Soon afterward, Gloria calls back Arnold, and they arrange a trip to Las Vegas. One of Arnold’s daughters calls him and informs him of his ex-wife having injured herself while walking through a sliding glass door. However, Arnold is determined to have a good time with Gloria and refuses to cancel the trip. The two make love, and while having dinner, Gloria suggests they fly to Spain. Nonetheless, in the middle of the talks, Arnold’s daughters are calling incessantly, which makes Gloria drop his phone in his soup. Arnold leaves, stating that he will be back immediately, but after some time, Gloria realizes that he has left. Out of loneliness and sorrow, Gloria dances with random people and hooks up with a man on a hallucinatory trip.

Later, Arnold tries to reach out to Gloria through her phone, but Gloria is disappointed and unplugs it. She even considers throwing away Arnold’s paintball guns, which she still struggles with. Angered, she drives to Arnold’s house and shoots the guns there. The daughters and his ex-wife come out yelling obscenities at Gloria. However, an unfazed Gloria goes away.

2. Summary of Bambara Cade’s “My Man Bovanne”

The story happens at a consciousness and fundraising party organized by a black coalition to unite African Americans in New York City and its neighborhoods into a solid political force. While there are a lot of politics and speeches in the room, Hazel’s focus is not on those. Hazel must remember the seat her cousin who invited her to the event is going for. While she finds it challenging to understand lofty causes, she can appreciate people. Among the people attending this function is a blind man named Bovanne. Bovanne is neglected by everyone at the party, with nobody offering to get him a drink, sandwich, or even chat with him. Hazel decides to show kindness to Bovanne and goes dancing with him.

Dancing with Bovanne is a significant source of controversy in this story. Hazel describes that as much as they danced closely, nothing was intimate between them. Her descriptions, however, point otherwise, such as when she says, “touch talking like the heel of the hand on a tambourine or a drum.” Hazel dances with Bovanne and does not sit with her children. Her daughter Flo and her two sons Task and Joe Lee pull her to the kitchen, where they confront her against the close dancing with Bovanne. Her excessive drinking, ridiculous-looking wig, and low-cut dress are also greatly criticized. They all agree that Hazel is causing a scene and needs to behave herself. Her children have political expectations of how her conduct should be and are ultimately disappointed in their mother. Her daughter Flo goes as far as saying that her look while dancing with Bovanne was no better than that of “a bitch on heat.”

Nevertheless, Hazel thinks that the rest of the people at the party are the ones that need a lecture, especially with the kind of neglect that they had done Bovanne. Bovanne is disappointed that her daughter has separated from her, and the distance between them had grown despite being very close when she was young. Bovanne, Hazel, and other older adults had been invited to the event in an attempt to have the function connect with the grassroots. It surprised Hazel that now her children and those of her age wanted to connect with their roots, yet a few years earlier, they had raised complaints over “countrified rags.”

The main reason for Hazel’s children confronting her dancing with the old blind man was because they expected her to create a council of elders that would go and talk Reverend Trent into allowing the use of his basement as the black party’s headquarters. Even so, Hazel’s reaction to her children’s explanations is that they are harmful because of their last-second telling her about their plans, their lack of empathy for Bovanne, and their harsh treatment. Ultimately, Hazel refuses to talk to Reverend Trent, claiming he is a hypocrite.

When the children and their mother refused to come to an agreement, a family council is scheduled for the following day during dinner. This decision is reached without the intervention of their mother. She is left in the kitchen, where Bovanne gets in. Hazel, out of kindness, takes Bovanne outside to buy him some dark sunglasses and get a nice warm bath. Hazel invites Bovanne to head their family council the following evening. At the end of the story, Bovanne remarks on how beautiful Hazel is, and Hazel replies that it is indeed true, just as her daughter had said.

3. Comparison of Lelio’s “Gloria Bell” with Bambara’s “My Man Bovanne” and the Book of “Ruth”

Both stories are centered on middle-aged women with children separated from their husbands. Gloria is divorced from her husband Dustin at the start of the film. On the other hand, Hazel is not engaged or dating anyone at the story’s beginning. Many older women experience relationship problems as they get older. Statistics show that the number of divorces among adults doubled between 1990 and 2010 (Brown and I-Fen 731). Results from the same source also show that one out of every four adults that divorced was aged fifty years and above. In the book of Ruth, Naomi and her daughter-in-law live in abject poverty without their husbands after they die in Moab. Their situation is so bad that Ruth has to go to the fields of Boaz to look for leftovers after harvests. Accordingly, divorce and separation from husbands are common themes among women as they age.

Loneliness is another problem most women have to cope with in their old age. In the film Gloria Bell, Gloria is forced to spend evenings in different nightclubs in Los Angeles that play the 1970s and 1980s dance music. She drinks and dances with many people to forget her loneliness. For instance, after Arnold excuses himself in Las Vegas and leaves without returning, Gloria drinks and dances with random people. She is in deep sorrow at the prospect of being left without love and uses alcohol and dances with random people to forget her troubles.

In Bambara Cade’s “My Man Bovanne,” the situation is not any different with Hazel. Hazel needs to be connected to the political meeting that she is attending. She only appears to connect with people at the party except for Bovanne. Bovanne, just like her, has been neglected by society and the people at the party, with no one to give him a sandwich, drink or even talk to him. Miss Hazel, just like Gloria Bell, takes away the loneliness and boredom by drinking a lot and dancing with Bovanne. While she insists that she does not have sexual love for Bovanne, how close they touch each other even makes her children uncomfortable. Her daughter describes Hazel as looking like “a bitch on heat.” The fact that Hazel takes Bovanne home confirms the assumption that there is sexual love between the two. While age may seem to be the only similar thing, they also share other factors, such as loneliness, making it easy for the narrator to connect with Bovanne’s life.

The love between Bovanne and Hazel stems from their sharing a common position in life as lonely outsiders. Despite not giving us background information about Miss Hazel, it is easy to tell that she sleeps around often and drinks a lot, too, just like Gloria Bell. Her dancing is also at an exaggerated rate to the extent that her children come out to confront her. In the book of Ruth, Naomi and Ruth are also very lonely. So bad does the situation get that Naomi swears that she will not leave her daughter-in-law to die of loneliness. In the book of Ruth 3:1, Naomi calls Ruth and says she needs to find her a home where she will be well provided for. This indicates that loneliness was getting the better of Ruth, and urgent intervention was needed. Loneliness is a significant factor among middle-aged and older women (Crespo-Sanmiguel et al. 1). As women age, they lack people to sit with and talk to, resulting in loneliness and eventual depression. The prevalence of loneliness is higher in women compared to men.

Alcoholism is another trend witnessed in the film “Gloria Bell” and Bambara Cade’s “My Man Bovanne.” Alcoholism is any alcohol drinking that could result in massive physical and mental health problems (Littrell 55). Gloria spends all her evenings in nightclubs that play the 70s and 80s dance music, drinking and loosening up. She also drinks a lot when Arnold abandons her in Las Vegas to go and see her daughters. In “My Man Bovanne,” Hazel does not notice the ongoing meeting about black politics in New York. Instead, she drinks so much alcohol and dances crazily that her children must call her to the kitchen to intervene. They confront her over the behavior, but she is adamant and does not consider what her children tell her. A look at the book of Ruth reveals different women concerning alcohol. Ruth and Naomi are well-behaved and God-fearing women who do not take alcohol at all, regardless of the circumstances that they have to deal with.

Further comparison of the “Gloria Bell” film and Bambara Cade’s “My Man Bovanne” reveals the trait of promiscuity among older women. Gloria is highly promiscuous, going to different clubs every night and dancing with random people. Apart from dancing, she even hooks up with some strangers. For instance, on the night that Arnold abandons her in Las Vegas, she drinks and dances to remove her sorrow. She meets up with an unidentified individual with whom they end up having sex. In Bambara Cade’s story, promiscuity is also displayed by Hazel. Despite the political meeting with severe leadership issues related to black people being discussed, Hazel can barely concentrate, and his eyes are on Bovanne. In no time, Hazel approaches Bovanne, and they start dancing very closely. In her own words, she states that they were “touch talking like the heels of the hand on a tambourine or a drum.” So bad does it get that her children have to call her to the kitchen to reprimand her. in the words of her daughter Elo, Hazel was behaving like “a bitch on heat.” While Bambara is careful not to give enough background information, these are enough pointers that Hazel sleeps around often.

Promiscuity among women is widespread across the globe. According to a survey conducted by mail online, people aged around fifty years are among the most promiscuous people in the population. About one out of every four people in this population cheat on their partners, with a sixth of this number admitting to not using contraceptives. Further statistics from the same source also revealed that middle-aged individuals also slept around with strangers and failed to use protection.

While the reasons for promiscuity in the research were given as increased libido, there are other causes of promiscuous behavior among middle-aged individuals. Genetic makeup and social environment have also been suggested as contributing factors to promiscuous behavior. In “Gloria Bell” and Bambara’s “My Man Bovanne,” the two women get involved in promiscuity because of their surroundings. Gloria is very lonely and in sorrow after the divorce from Dustin. Also, when Arnold abandons her in Las Vegas, she is left sorrowful. As a result, she goes on a drinking spree, dancing and sleeping with random people. On the other hand, Hazel is lonely and feels disconnected from the political meeting. To forget her troubles, she goes to Bovanne and starts dancing romantically with her to the extent that her daughter describes her as “a bitch on heat.”

A look at the book of Ruth reveals a different behavior of middle-aged and older women. Naomi and Ruth are chaste and do not indulge in promiscuous behaviors despite their husbands dying back in Moab. The two maintain their frame and are not swayed by worldly desires. When Naomi sees that the situation may be challenging for Ruth because she is still young, she directs her on how she will get help. In the book of Ruth, chapter 3, Naomi tells Ruth to go to Boaz’s house dressed in her best clothes and wearing lovely perfume. This is meant to seduce Boaz. Nonetheless, Boaz is a decent man and does nothing to Ruth until they have carefully sorted the issues out and he has married her.

Another challenge that women have to face as they age is disconnection from their children. In both “Gloria Bell,” “My Man Bovanne,” and the book of Ruth, disconnection from children is witnessed by the women described in the stories. Gloria is disconnected from her daughter Anne who has to go to Sweden. Anne is pregnant with a Swedish guy and has to go and stay with him in Sweden. As she drives her to the airport, Gloria weeps in despondency. Even so, she has to accept that a time comes when children have grown older and have to leave you for their individual pursuits. In Bambara Cade’s “My Man Bovanne,” Hazel is also separated from her children. When Hazel’s children see her dancing with Bovanne during the party, they pull her into the kitchen and confront her harshly over her behavior. They condone her heavy drinking, romantic dancing, and her short dress. So bad is it that her daughter Elo describes her as “a bitch on heat.” Hazel is hurt by what her children do to her. She reflects on the days when they were close with her daughter and cannot believe what happened. Even when her children decide on the family council, they do not involve Hazel in the discussion and just pick the following day evening. Hazel finds a better connection with Bovanne and picks to bring him as the chairperson of the family council. In the book of Ruth, there is also a disconnection between Naomi and her children. However, unlike the other two, Naomi’s disconnection from her children is because they died in the war with her husband.

In conclusion, women experience different issues as they age. Comparing the film “Gloria Bell” and Bambara Cade’s “My Man Bovanne” and the book Ruth reveals some of these issues that women experience as they age. For instance, Gloria and Hazel experience loneliness, separation from their children, alcoholism, and divorce. In the book of Ruth, Naomi and Ruth also experience loneliness and separation from their husbands. Naomi is also separated from her children because they died in a war that killed her husband. Most women indulge in drinking, dancing, and sleeping around to cope with loneliness. This leads to a further emotional breakdown, as witnessed in the case of Gloria and Hazel.

Works Cited

Bambara, Toni Cade. My man Bovanne. na, 1972.

Carroll, Robert, and Stephen Prickett, eds. The Bible: Authorized King James Version. Oxford Paperbacks, 2008.

Crespo-Sanmiguel, Isabel, Zapater-Fajari, Mariola, Garrido-Chaves, R., Hidalgo, Vanesa, Salvador, Alicia. Loneliness and Health Indicators in Middle-Aged and Older Females and Males. Volume 16, 2022, pp. 1-15. DOI: 10.3389/fnbeh.2022.809733

Daily Mail. Footloose at Fifty: One in Three Middle-Aged People Admit to Sleeping Around, 2010. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1336081/Footloose-50-1-3-middle-aged-people-admit-promiscuity-infidelity.html

Lelio Sebastian. Gloria Bell. Film Nation Entertainment, 2018.

Susan L. Brown, I-Fen Lin, The Gray Divorce Revolution: Rising Divorce Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults, 1990–2010, The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Volume 67, Issue 6, November 2012, Pages 731–741, https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/gbs089