1127 Academic Essay: Popular Culture Stereotypes Nod Tran
“The Spy Next door” 100171231

What’s the first thing you think about when someone mentions “professional spy agent”? Chances are that the first thing that comes to mind is a masculine, young, and independent individual who most likely is antisocial, devoid of emotions, cold-blooded and ready to take on any tasks without any hesitations. Well, there’s this one spy in particular who would beg to differ. Here we have your average friendly neighbor, who at first glance seems normal, but is actually fighting bad guys and babysitting at the same time. He’s technically breaking the rules of a spy, but he still manages to save the day in the end with his muffins still fresh. Bob Ho is an international CIA agent, but he’s very different from your typical everyday spy. Ho is an ordinary looking middle-aged Chinese man, with a warm hearted personality. At the beginning of the movie, we see Ho’s friendly nature being displayed when he lends a helping hand to his neighbor Gillian when she needed help moving her garbage onto the streets. They fell in love and she eventually became his girlfriend. A spy will normally always hide their identity and keep a low profile to prevent them from getting caught and found out. Ho on the other hand never hid his identity; he went by his real name Bob Ho throughout the whole movie. A man who always has a smile on his face makes it hard for anyone to believe he is actually an undercover spy. As a result from being too friendly, he was given a task that he could not turn down. Ho was to become Gillian’s babysitter. As you can tell, this is not normally what a typical spy does. Can you imagine it? Ho, a professional spy, looking after small children and doing all the housework that is normally meant for a woman. Ho went from wearing an apron making breakfast in the morning, to singing lullaby’s to kids and tucking them in at night. Nearly every male you see out there would never step foot into a kitchen, or wear an apron. This shows that he is definitely not your stereotypical male, spy or not. Later in the movie, Ho was attacked by Russian spies, who put the family in a lot of danger, and he was eventually forced to tell Gillian and