I saw I am Legend last weekend and really enjoyed it.  I was pleasantly surprised. Being the gender scholar that I am, I always looking for how gender is being represented. And I thought with the film being about the absence of humanity that well, gender stereotypes wouldn’t come into play as much as say with a film like Juno.  Well, the filmmaker’s sneaked one by the audience. (NOTE: the rest of this is written delicately as to not ruin ESSENTIAL  plot points.)

Will Smith’s character has one companion left with him as the end of the world/humanity spirals near and that is a dog. Yes “man’s” best friend.  The dog is given a semi gender neutral nick name (some may argue it is not so neutral but it is) and assumptions are made about the sex of the dog by audience members. Then in one pivotal scene Will Smith says the dog’s full name thus revealing the dog’s true sex and the audience reacts to that revelation in a way that is typical of when a doctor pronounces if the baby is a boy or girl.

Of course, I didn’t read the book so I don’t know who introduced this interesting development.