Tag: 1960s movies

The Terror of Little Girls: Social Anxiety About Women in Horrifying Girlhood

Horror films have a long-standing tradition of commenting on the social fears and anxieties of their time.
Another universally recognized truth of horror is that scary children are terrifying–especially little girls.
While an analysis of “creepy children” in horror films usually proclaims that they are providing commentary on a loss of innocence, and it would make sense that a little girl is the “ultimate” in innocence, it can’t be that simple. We wouldn’t be so shaken to the core by possessed, haunted, violent little girls if we were simply supposed to be longing for innocent times of yesteryear.
Instead, these little girls embody society’s growing fears of female power and independence. Fearing a young girl is the antithesis of what we are taught–stories of missing, kidnapped or sexually abused girls (at least white girls) get far more news coverage and mass sympathy than stories of boy victims. Little girls are innocent victims and need protection.
In the Victorian era, the ideal female was supposed to be pale, fainting-prone and home-bound. Feminist literary icons Sandra M. Gilbert and Susan Gubar write about this nineteenth-century ideal in The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women:

“At its most extreme, this nineteenth-century ideal of the frail, even sickly female ultimately led to the glorification of the dead or dying woman. The most fruitful subject for literature, announced the American romancer Edgar Allan Poe in 1846, is ‘the death… of a beautiful woman’… But while dead women were fascinating, dying girl-children were even more enthralling… These episodes seem to bring to the surface an extraordinary imperative that underlay much of the nineteenth-century ideology of femininity: in one way or another, woman must be ‘killed’ into passivity for her to acquiesce in what Rousseau and others considered her duty of self-abnegation ‘relative to men.'”

The feminine “ideal” (and its relation to literature) coincided with women beginning the long fight for suffrage and individual rights. It’s no surprise, then, that men wanted to symbolically kill off the woman so she could fulfill her ultimate passive role. There was something comforting about this to audiences.
Rhoda Penmark will not lose to a boy. Or anyone else.
Fast forward to the 1950s and 60s, and the modern horror genre as we know it emerged and began evolving into something that provided social commentary while playing on audiences’ deepest fears (the “other,” invasion, demonic possession, nuclear mutations and the end of the world).
We know that horror films have always been rife with puritanical punishment/reward for promiscuous women/virgins (the “Final Girl” trope), and violence toward women or women needing to be rescued are common themes. These themes comfort audiences, and confirm their need to keep women subjugated in their proper place. It’s no coincidence that the 50s and 60s were seeing sweeping social change in America (the Pill, changing divorce laws, resurgence of the ERA, a lead-up to Roe v. Wade).
Terrifying little girls also make their debut in this era. Their mere presence in these films spoke not only to audiences’ fears of children losing innocence, but also the intense fear that little girls–not yet even women–would have the power to overthrow men. These girl children of a generation of women beginning a new fight for rights were terrifying–these girls would grow up knowing they could have power.
The Bad Seed‘s Rhoda Penmark (played by Patty McCormack in the 1956 film), genetically predisposed to be a sociopath, murders a classmate and the janitor who suspects her. Her classmate–a boy–beats her in a penmanship contest, and she beats him to death with her tap shoes. A little girl, in competition with a boy, loses, and kills. While in the novel Rhoda gets away with her crimes, the Hays Code commanded that the film version “punished” her for her crimes and she’s struck by lightning. It’s revealed that Rhoda’s sociopathic tendencies come from her maternal grandmother, a serial killer. This notion of female murderous rage, passed down through generations and claiming boys/men as its victim, certainly reflects social fear at the time.
In 1968, Night of the Living Dead premiered on big screens and has been seen as commenting on racism/the Civil Rights movement, Cold War-era politics and critiquing America’s involvement in the Vietnam War. However, little Karen Cooper’s (Kyra Schon) iconic scene has long disturbed audiences the most. Infected by zombies, she eats her father and impales her mother with a trowel. A horror twist to an Oedipal tale, one could see Karen as living out the gravest fears of those against the women’s movement/second-wave feminism. Possessed by a demon, she eats her father (consumes the patriarchy) and kills her mother (overtaking her mother’s generation with masculine force).
Little Karen Cooper consumes patriarchy and overtakes her mother.
Five years later, Roe v. Wade had been decided (giving women the right to legal first-trimester abortions), the Pill was legal, no-fault divorce was more acceptable and women began flooding the workforce.
Meanwhile, on the big screen, sweet little Regan MacNeil–the daughter of an over-worked, atheist mother–becomes possessed by the devil.
The Exorcist was based on a novel, which itself was based on the exorcism case of a little boy. Of course, the novelist and filmmakers wanted audiences to be disturbed and terrified, so the sex of the possessed protagonist changed (would it be as unsettling if it was a little boy?).
Chris MacNeil, Regan’s mother, goes to great lengths to help her daughter, and resorts to Catholicism when all else has failed. Regan reacts violently to religious symbols, lashes out and kills priests, speaks in a masculine voice and masturbates with a crucifix. This certainly isn’t simply a “demonic possession” horror film, especially since it was written and made into a film at the height of the fight for women’s rights (the Catholic church being an adamant foe to reproductive rights). Only after Regan releases her demon, which possesses a priest (who flings himself out of a window to commit suicide), does she regain her innocence and girlhood.
Tied and bound, Regan haunts and kills men, and reacts violently to religious images.
What her mother and her culture are embracing–atheism, working women, reproductive rights, sexual aggressiveness–can be seen as the “demons” that overcome the innocent girl and kill men (and traditional religion).
These films are have terrified audiences for decades, and for good reason. The musical scores, the direction, the jarring and shocking images–however, they also play to society’s deepest fears about women and feminism. For little girls to be possessed is the ultimate fall.
In 1980, The Shining was released. Yet another film adaptation of a novel (Stanley Kubrick’s treatment of Stephen King’s novel), this film contains two of the creepiest little girls in film history–the Grady girls. The Shining shines a light on crises of masculinity. Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson, is a recovering alcoholic who has hurt his son, Danny, in the past. When he takes his wife, Wendy, and son with him to be caretakers of a hotel over a winter, his descent into madness quickly begins. Danny has telepathic abilities, and sees and experiences the hotel’s violent past. As he rides his Big Wheel through the hotel, he stops when he sees two little girls begging him to “Come play with us Danny. Forever.” These girls–dead daughters of Grady, a previous caretaker who killed his family and himself–are trying to pull Danny into their world. Danny sees images of them murdered brutally, and flees in fear. Meanwhile, Jack is struggling with his alcoholism, violence and lack of control of himself and his sensitive wife and child. When he sees Grady, Grady advises him:

“My girls, sir, they didn’t care for the Overlook at first. One of them actually stole a pack of matches, and tried to burn it down. But I ‘corrected’ them sir. And when my wife tried to prevent me from doing my duty, I ‘corrected’ her.”

Danny is confronted with the horror of what men are capable of.
In this aftermath of the women’s movement, Jack (a weak man, resistant to authority) is being haunted and guided by a forceful, dominating masculinity of the past. He’s stuck between the two worlds, and succumbs to violent, domineering alcoholism.
But he loses. Wendy and Danny win.
While his predecessor succeeded in “correcting” his wife and daughters, that time has past.
Here, the flashing memories of the ghosts of the past are terrifying. The Grady girls provide a look into what it is to be “corrected” and dominated.
“Come play with us Danny,” the girls beg, haunting him with the realities of masculine force and dominance.
Starting with the late-70s and 80s slasher films (and the growing Religious Right/Moral Majority in politics), the “Final Girl” reigned supreme, and the promiscuous young woman would perish first. Masculinity (characterized with “monstrous” violence and strength) and femininity became natural enemies. These fights on the big screen mirrored the fights in reality. The Equal Rights Amendment was pushed out of favor and was never ratified, and a growing surge of conservatism and family values began dominating American rhetoric.
In the late 90s and early 2000s, we see a resurgence of the terrifying little girl. This time, she is serving as a warning to single/working/independent/adoptive mothers.
In The Ring (the 2002 American adaptation of a 1998 Japanese film), Rachel Keller (played by Naomi Watts) is a  journalist and a single mother. She unknowingly risks her son and his father’s lives by showing them a cursed videotape. A critic noted:

“If she had never entered the public sphere and viewed the cassette in the first place, she would not have inadvertently caused Noah’s death, nor would she have to potentially cause the death of another. Rachel would, perhaps, have been better off staying at home.”

Single motherhood has often been the driving force behind horror plots.
In her investigation into the video, she discovers the twisted, dark past of the video’s subject, Samara, a young girl who started life troubled (her birthmother tried to drown her). She was adopted by a couple, but her adoptive mother suffered from visions and haunting events due to Samara’s powers. They attempted to institutionalize Samara, but eventually the adoptive mother drowns her in a well after Samara cannot be cured of her psychosis. Her adoptive father, Rachel finds, locked Samara in an attic of their barn, and Samara left a clue of the well’s location behind wallpaper. (Bitch Flicks ran an excellent analysis of the yellow wallpaper and the themes of women’s stories in The Ring.)
Samara’s life was punctuated by drowning, which has throughout history been a way for women to commit suicide or be killed (symbolizing both the suffocation of women’s roles and the return to the life-giving waters that women are often associated with). While Rachel “saves” Samara’s corpse and gives her a proper burial, Samara didn’t want that. She rejected Rachel’s motherhood and infects Rachel’s son. Rachel–in her attempts to mother–cannot seem to win.
Rachel “saves” Samara from her watery grave, but she still cannot succeed.
The ambiguous ending suggests that Rachel may indeed save her son, but will have to harm another to do so. This idea of motherly self-sacrifice portrays the one way that Rachel–single, working mother Rachel–can redeem herself. However, the parallel narrative of the dangers of silencing and “locking up” women is loud and clear.
And in 2009’s Orphan, Esther is a violent, overtly sexual orphan from Russia who is adopted by an American family. Esther is “not nearly as innocent as she claims to be,” says the IMDB description. This story certainly plays on the fear of the “other” in adopted little girls (much like The Ring) and how that is realized in the mothers. In this film, Esther is actually an adult “trapped” in a child’s body. The clash of a childish yet adult female (as culturally, little girls are somehow expected to embody adult sexuality and yet be innocent and naïve) again reiterates this fear of little girls with unnatural and unnerving power. The drowning death of Esther, as her adoptive mother and sister flee, shows that Esther must be killed to be subdued. The power of mother is highlighted, yet the film still plays on cultural fears of mothering through international adoptions and the deep, disturbing duality of childhood and adulthood that girls are supposed to embody.
Like Samara, Esther is a deeply disturbed daughter, capable of  demonic violence.
In the last 60 years, American culture has seen remarkable change and resistance to that change. Horror films–which portray the very core of society’s fears and anxieties–have reflected the fears of women’s social movements through the faces of terrifying little girls.
While nineteenth-century literature comforted audiences with the trope of a dead, beautiful woman, thus making her passive and frail (of course, we still do this), twentieth and twenty-first century horror films force audiences to come face to face with murderous, demonic, murdered and psychotic little girls to parallel fears of women having economic, reproductive, parenting and marital (or single) power.
Little girls are supposed to be the epitome of all we hold dear–innocent, sweet, submissive and gentle. The Victorian Cult of Girlhood and Womanhood bleeds into the twenty-first century anti-feminist movements, and these qualities are still revered.
Horror films hold a mirror up to these ideals, distorting the images and terrifying viewers in the process. The terror that society feels while looking at these little girls echoes the terror it feels when confronted with changing gender norms and female power.

—

Leigh Kolb is a composition, literature and journalism instructor at a community college in rural Missouri. 

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: Female Friendship, Madonna/Whore Stereotypes and Rape Culture in ‘West Side Story’

[Trigger warning: for discussion of rape] | Spoilers ahead

West Side Story is one of my absolute favorite musicals. I adore the catchy lyrics, the breathtakingly exquisite choreography and cinematography, the heartbreaking love story. A modern Romeo and Juliet taking place in New York City amongst two rival gangs — one white, one Puerto Rican — it tackles racism, bigotry, murder and teen angst. But many audiences overlook the film’s portrayal of gender, female friendship and rape culture.
Anita and Maria are dear friends who confide in each other. Two strong women who know what they want and aren’t afraid to speak their minds. Rather than the film pitting the two women against each other, they support one another. But as awesome as this is, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re witnessing a Madonna/whore dichotomy in female archetypes.
Maria is sweet and naïve. When Tony first meets Maria, he asks her if she’s joking. She responds, “I have not yet learned how to joke that way.” Her brother Bernardo and Anita try to shield her from trouble as people view her as pure and virginal. Reinforcing this imagery, we see Maria pray in front of the Virgin Mary and in “Maria,” Tony sings “say it [her name] soft and it’s almost like praying.” But Maria tries to resist the label of purity as she tells her brother a white dress is for babies.

In stark contrast to Maria, Anita is opinionated, savvy, charismatic and flamboyant (and clearly my favorite character!). Outgoing and gregarious, she wears colorful frocks, as opposed to Maria’s white gowns. As much as I love her, Anita reinforces the feisty Latina harlot stereotype. Of course the depiction of race is problematic as the film employed brownface make-up for its Latino/a characters.

Anita proudly asserts her sexuality, eagerly singing about how she’s “gonna get her kicks” and “have a private little mix” with her boyfriend Bernardo in “Tonight.” The chemistry and banter between Anita and Bernardo reveal their tender feelings for one another. But their relationship is framed in sexuality. Even though Maria and Tony sleep together, their relationship is constantly surrounded by dreamy words of love, commitment and wedding imagery. While Anita sings about sex in “Tonight,” Maria croons about seeing her love and how the “stars will stop where they are.” It’s as if there’s a right and a wrong way to portray female sexuality.

Throughout the film, pragmatic cynic Anita tries to protect idealistic dreamer Maria. She expresses her worries about her dating Tony at the bridal shop. Later, in “A Boy Like That,” Anita warns Maria to stay away from him as he “wants one thing only” and “he’ll kill her love,” like he murdered hers. But Maria’s buoyant hope stave off Anita’s concerns.

It’s interesting how other characters treat women in the film. In “America,” the Sharks sing about the xenophobia and racism they experience while the women sing about their aspirations and the promise of a  better life in NYC. One of the Jets exasperatedly wonders why they’re fooling around with “dumb broads.” To which Graziella retorts, “Velma and I ain’t dumb.” Anybodys is the tomboy who desperately longs to be in the Jets. She hangs around the guys, spits on the ground and insults women, and sees the male gender as far more desirable. But rather than depicting gender variance or even a trans character, the Jets view Anybodys as a defective female. Some of the Jets taunt her that no one would want to sleep with her. Because apparently to them (and patriarchal society at large), a woman’s status resides only in her beauty, sexuality and desirability.
While gender relations are far from perfect, the Sharks and their girlfriends debate equally. But the Jets seem to view women as nothing more than objects. This objectification continues in the assault and attempted rape of Anita.

Maria begs Anita to give a message to Tony at Doc’s drug store. Anita reluctantly does so. When she arrives, she encounters violence at the hands of the Jets. In Aphra Behn (of Guerilla Girls)’s Gender Across Borders article, she disparages the ’09 Broadway revival as it turns the assault and “mock rape” of Anita into a real rape with the unzipping of A-rab’s pants:

“Why does everyone from Broadway to High School stage this scene as a fully realized rape scene? Because rape culture does not allow us to see it as anything but such a scene.” 
Behn may be right that this scene reinforces rape culture. But she’s completely wrong attempting to differentiate between a mock rape and a real rape. Rape is rape. Period.
I always interpreted the film version of West Side Story displaying assault and attempted rape. If Doc hadn’t stepped through the door and intervened, Anita would have been raped. Does it really make it better that the Jets were pretending to rape? Or that they were prevented from committing rape? No, no it doesn’t.
Behn states the original stage direction was to assault Anita and treat her like an object, not a sex object. But rape is not a sexual act. It’s an act of power. The Jets feel powerless over the death of Riff, their friend and leader. Being young, they’re tired of everyone telling them what to do, how to feel and behave. When Anita enters Doc’s drug store, she materializes into an outlet for their frustration and pain. As the Jets hold racist views, they see Anita, as a Latina, an other — an object to overpower
The Jets verbal and physical harassment and attempted rape disgust and disturb the audience. When Rita Moreno filmed that scene, she broke down and sobbed for 45 minutes for it reminded her of past pain, anger and trauma, including an attempted rape. This scene portrays the ramifications of patriarchy, racism and rape culture. It shows how society normalizes violence against women.
Anita’s anger, hatred and shame at the boys for what they’ve done to her ultimately causes the tragic ending. Her lie — that Chino murdered Maria — causes Tony to run around screaming for Chino to kill him too, which he does. Tony’s death causes hatred to fester inside Maria, corrupting the ingenue. Rather than evoking sympathy for an assault survivor, it seems we the audience are supposed to be angry at Anita for her treachery.

Anita is considered most people’s favorite character. And in my opinion, rightfully so. She’s a badass. While audiences continually embrace the role of Anita — awarding an Oscar to Rita Moreno, a Tony to Karen Olivo in the ’09 revival — it appears the film tries to vilify her, a cautionary warning to women. Women can be good and nice, like Maria, or sexually assertive and ultimately manipulative liars destroying lives, like Anita.
Women are supposed to choose the “right” kind of woman to emulate or suffer dire consequences.

 

Women and Gender in Musicals Week: Accidental Feminism in ‘Mary Poppins’

Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins
“Practically perfect in every way,” declares Mary Poppins, the quirky, assertive and indomitable nanny played with effervescence by stage and screen legend Julie Andrews. For me, that quote could pretty much sum up not only our protagonist but the film itself. 
I’ve been watching Mary Poppins ever since I was about 8 years old. I was forever drawn to books and movies with strong, intelligent and outspoken female characters. And Mary Poppins is no exception. 
Mary Poppins is kind yet stern, possessing a cheerful disposition. Playing games and singing songs, Mary Poppins is the nanny of Jane and Michael’s dreams. She takes them on fantastical journeys into chalk pictures, dances on the roofs of London with chimney sweeps and holds tea parties on the ceiling. Singing about spoonfuls of sugar, she teaches the children how to infuse fun into chores and the value of a positive perspective. She provides the guidance, attention and nurturing they both crave from their parents, especially their father. 
Beyond a strong and charismatic female protagonist, one of the most memorable feminist scenes? Well of course I’m talking about Mrs. Winifred Banks (Glynis Johns) belting out the song “Sister Suffragette.” When I was young I didn’t realize until I heard this song — and heard that “Mrs. Pankhurst has been clapped in irons again” — that women had to fight for the right to vote.

Mrs. Winifred Banks (Glynis Johns)
“We’re clearly soldiers in petticoats, 
Dauntless crusaders for women’s votes! 
Though we adore men individually, 
We agree that as a group they’re rather stupid. 
Cast off the shackles of yesterday! 
Shoulder to shoulder into the fray! 
Our daughters’ daughters will adore us 
And they’ll sing in grateful chorus, 
“Well done, Sister Suffragette!” 

Interestingly, this bastion of film feminism occurred accidentally. Glynis Johns thought she was the one getting the role of Mary Poppins, not Julie Andrews. In order to assuage her potential furor over this fuck-up, Walt Disney told Johns that she had a phenomenal solo. To cover his ass, Disney called up songwriters Robert B. and Richard M. Sherman and said (while Johns was in earshot) that she couldn’t wait to hear the song. The Sherman Brothers quickly researched women’s movements in 1910 England, and wrote “Sister Suffragette” so Johns could hear the song after her lunch with Disney. 

But why did the Sherman Brothers alter the homemaker into a women’s rights activist? Supposedly they needed to concoct a reason Winifred would be away from her children that would make a nanny necessary. So they made her a suffragette, making the movie accidentally feminist. Regardless, it taught many children — me included! — the struggle women endured. 
Now, there are a lot of reasons to question Mary Poppins as a feminist film. 
Carried on the winds by her umbrella, Mary Poppins differs from other nannies portrayed in the film by her fun whimsicality. But her beauty also sets her apart. We see Mary Poppins gazing at her reflection, powdering her nose, and bearing comely rosy cheeks. She is immediately associated as “good” due to her attractiveness.
The film showcases Winifred’s strength to advocate for women’s rights, saying that women will no longer be subservient. Yet that’s precisely what she is with her husband. 
Mrs. Winifred Banks (Glynis Johns)

George Banks (David Tomlinson) fancies himself “a king astride his noble steed,” envisioning his house a patriarchal castle and calling it “the age of men.” He haughtily berates his wife’s choice of nannies, all of who have been “unqualified disasters,” to which she promptly agrees. So George decides to take matters into his own hands and hire a proper nanny. Winifred continually tries to voice her children’s concerns, pointing out that their attempts to help or that they need kindness and understanding. And George continuously puts her down. The personal is political. Yet Winifred doesn’t seem to comprehend that. 
“In six minutes of film time, Mrs. Banks is changed from a balls-out feminist — ‘No more the meek and mild subservients, we!’ — to a surrendered wife. ‘I’m sorry, dear,’ she says. ‘I’ll try to do better next time.’” 
And it’s true. All her feminist badassery seems to unravel the minute her husband strolls through the door. While Winifred remains assertive in her public life, fighting for “political equality and equal rights with men,” in her personal life she speaks her mind yet obediently acquiesces to her domineering and controlling husband’s every whim.
But Winifred steadfastly continues with her suffrage activism even though she knows “the cause infuriates Mr. Banks.” But if she really let him control her, she would abandon women’s rights altogether. Winifred doesn’t cast aside her convictions merely because her husband doesn’t approve of women’s rights. She continues to fight for suffrage.

Some have criticized and admonished her as a mother for neglecting her children in order to attend meetings and protests. I call bullshit. Yes, she’s flighty. But I say her advocacy bolsters her motherhood. She continues to advocate for women’s rights, trying to make the world a more equitable place for her daughter and son. 

While Winifred talks about Mary Poppins to her husband, and how she positively impacts the children’s lives, the two women never speak to one another. Really? They never talk to each other once?? Bechdel Test fail. Weird, especially considering how both Winifred, in hiring nannies and helping preserve the household trinkets during Admiral Boom’s cannon blasts, and Mary Poppins, as a caretaker to the children, occupy domestic spheres.

Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins
With George’s job in banking and Winifred’s suffrage protests, each gains happiness outside the home. But Mary Poppins whole purpose revolves around the home. She flits from household to household healing dysfunctional families. But what about her personal life? We never really know what makes her happy. While she admirably makes her own decisions always on her own terms, Mary Poppins’ maternal role is strictly to serve others.

Even in the end, when she’s about to leave with the changing wind, her talking umbrella complains that the children never even said goodbye. While she clearly cares for Jane and Michael and her parting is bittersweet, Mary Poppins seems content. She’s finished her job and now she can go. Is that the lesson here? That we should sacrifice our own desire and always serve others? That goals other than family and home are detrimental to personal growth and happiness? 

Walt Disney considered the song “Feed the Birds,” his favorite song, the cornerstone of the movie. Mary Poppins sings about the merits of charity and the generosity of love. It’s this song that helps nudge Mr. Banks changed perspective from emotionally detached and controlling to warm and loving. And charity is certainly a noble trait. But is this subtly reifying traditional gender roles? That men are brutish while women are gentle and nurturing?

Jane Banks, Mary Poppins, Michael Banks
In the beginning of the film, George revels in patriarchy. But Mary Poppins challenges his long-held beliefs with her frivolity and refusal to explain herself. By the end, George realizes the value and importance of spending leisurely time with his family. Sadly, it’s not suffrage or feminism that spur him to realize the folly of treating his family like servile subjects. It’s not even a woman — not Mary Poppins, not Jane his daughter or Winifred his wife — who ultimately causes George’s transformation. Bert’s discussion of toiling away at work (“grind, grind, grind at that grindstone”) while childhood and time slip away “like sand through a sieve” tips George’s metamorphosis. 
You could argue that Mary Poppins’ brand of feminism, her outspoken assertiveness, truly changes all their lives. But George still couldn’t trust a woman’s words. He needed a man to reinforce her advice. 
Many have complained about the “perceived anti-feminist ending,” that Winifred gives up fighting for women’s rights because she attaches one of her “Votes for Women” sashes as the kite’s tail. Author P.L. Travers notoriously despised the film, for its animated sequences and for making Mary Poppins character less strict. But she also supposedly hated its anti-feminist ending. 
The Banks Family

 But I never saw it this way.

In the beginning of the film, Winifred gives out various sashes to Ellen the maid, Mrs. Brill the cook and Katie Nana. So clearly she possessed extras. Why assume she was automatically giving up feminist activism? Since George abhorred suffrage, I saw Winifred’s public display of her sash as a union of the personal and the political. She was bringing feminism into her family rather than merely advocating for equality politically. She was no longer hiding her identity. Finally, Winifred let her feminist flag fly. Literally. 

Portraying a suffragette and an outspoken female protagonist, Mary Poppins possesses brilliant moments of feminist clarity. How many other musicals contain overtly feminist songs advocating gender equality and sisterly solidarity? While it simultaneously seems to reinforce the traditional gender roles it initially rails against, the movie forever reminds me of the need for women to speak their minds and fight for their rights, in politics and in the home. 
It may not be “practically perfect” after all. But it’s pretty damn close.

Feminist Flashback: ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’

Written by Megan Kearns.

When I was young, my mom raised me on classic films: Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, The Great Escape, Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I fondly remember watching Elizabeth Taylor on-screen. Hollywood royalty, we often think of her arresting beauty, numerous marriages, struggle with alcohol, philanthropy and perfume commercials. It’s easy to forget she was an amazing actor; a stellar artist who fluidly exuded strength, sensuality, vitality, passion and pain.Starring in over 50 films, Taylor often chose feminist roles.  In National Velvet, she plays a young girl disguising herself as a male jockey to compete. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, she’s a fiery survivor embracing her sexuality. And in the Texas saga Giant, she plays an educated and outspoken woman, challenging sexism. So after years of my mother urging me, I finally watched Taylor’s legendary performance in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Based on Edward Albee’s Tony Award-winning play (it also won the Pulitzer although it wasn’t awarded it due to its vulgarity and sexual themes), the 1966 film follows Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) and George (Richard Burton), a middle-aged married couple. He’s an assistant professor at a New England college and she’s his wife who happens to be the college president’s daughter. Through their vitriolic and bitter alcohol-fueled feuding, they lash out at each other. When a young couple, new professor Nick (George Segal) and his wife Honey (Sandy Dennis), visit their house after a late-night party, Martha and George continue their battle of wits, interchangeably attacking their guests and using them as ammunition, to further lash out at one another.
Director Mike Nichols wanted to have real-life married couple Taylor and Burton star in the film, a celebrity couple famous for their off-screen turbulent relationship. Known for its acerbic dialogue, Martha and George sling verbal barbs throughout the movie. Martha continually insults George calling him a “dumbbell,” saying he makes her want to “puke.” Critics often focus on Martha’s vicious verbal attacks but George equals her venom. He says she makes him “sick” and equates her voice to “animal noises.” Their guests Nick and Honey initially appear to be the quintessential couple, contrasting Martha and George in appearance, age and demeanor.  But as the night wears on and more alcohol is consumed, the problems both couples face come to the surface.
I’ve read that Who’s Afraid of a Virginia Woolf? is a feminist film.  But when I started watching, I initially thought, what the hell? There’s no way this is feminist as it’s mired in misogyny!  The film follows George’s perspective as there are scenes with just George and Martha, George and Nick, or George and Honey.  George is almost omnipresent. Also, there a few violent scenes in which George attempts to strangle Martha, pushes her, shoves her against a car and pretends to shoot her with a gun (an umbrella pops out instead of a bullet).  But when you begin to peel back the layers, you realize that while it might not be an overtly feminist film, feminist tendencies emerge nonetheless.
In the 1960s, the domesticity paradigm for women reigned.  In the beginning of the film, Martha tells George about a Bette Davis movie she’s trying to remember the name of.  She says, “She [Bette Davis] comes home from a hard day at the grocery store.”  George snidely and skeptically replies, “At the grocery store?” to which she retorts, “Yes, the grocery store. She’s a housewife, she buys things.”  Women were expected to be docile, obedient wives and mothers tending the home. Yet this revealing exchange shows the disdain for domestic duties women in the 60s faced.

Policing of sexuality also appears.  When Martha calls George a floozy in one scene, Honey jovially and drunkenly retorts,  

“He can’t be a floozy.  You’re a floozy!”

The film makes a subtle commentary of the double standard in sexual conduct between women and men.  Men could sleep with whomever they pleased while women who did the same were branded as “sluts.”

A role that earned Taylor her second Oscar, she considered the role of Martha her “personal best.”  A bravura performance, Taylor seamlessly sinks into the part; it’s difficult to ascertain where she begins and the character ends.  A college-educated woman, Martha perpetually humiliates her husband for his lack of ambition and professional failures:

Martha: I hope that was an empty bottle, George! You can’t afford to waste good liquor, not on your salary, not on an associate professor’s salary!

She pushed George to be the head of the History Department and the head of the university.  But why couldn’t she do those things herself?  In an exchange with Nick:

Nick: To you, everybody’s a flop. Your husband’s a flop, I’m a flop.
Martha: You’re all flops. I am the Earth Mother, and you are all flops.

In a time when women weren’t supposed to have jobs beyond wife and mother, perhaps Martha wanted her own career.  As she came from a wealthy family, Martha had money so she didn’t need George to succeed for fiscal security. It seems as if Martha lived vicariously through her husband and his capacity for success which would explain why his lack of ambition was such a blow.
While the play was written a year before the publication of feminist Betty Friedan’s ground-breaking The Feminine Mystique, the play explores the same issues Friedan railed against.  Friedan writes about the “feminine mystique,” where the highest value for women is embracing and maintaining their femininity, and the “problem that has no name,” the unhappiness women faced in the 50s and 60s and their yearning for fulfillment beyond being a housewife and a mother.  Friedan argues:
“They [women] learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights – the independence and the opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for…All they had to do was devote their lives from earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children.” (58)

“Self-esteem in woman, as well as in man, can only be based on real capacity, competence, and achievement; on deserved respect from others rather than unwarranted adulation. Despite the glorification of “Occupation: housewife,” if that occupation does not demand, or permit, realization of women’s full abilities, it cannot provide adequate self-esteem, much less pave the way to a higher level of self-realization…But women in America are no encouraged, or expected, to use their full capacities. In the name of femininity, they are encouraged to evade human growth.” (435-437)

[Warning: Spoilers ahead!!] Motherhood, a reoccurring theme in the film, comprised one of the few ways society allowed fulfillment for women. Both women don’t have children, Martha is unable to and Honey, whose “hysterical pregnancy” led to her marriage with Nick, takes pills to eliminate any pregnancies as she’s scared to conceive. As women were supposed to be good wives and mothers, society viewed reproduction as one of their vital duties.  If a woman didn’t have children, ultimately she was a failure.  Friedan writes:

“Over and over again, stories in women’s magazines insist that woman can know fulfillment only at the moment of giving birth to a child…In the feminine mystique, there is no other way she can even dream about herself, except as her children’s mother, her husband’s wife.” (115)
As someone in their 30s who doesn’t have children (and isn’t even sure I ever want them), even in this day and age, people often act as if there’s something fundamentally wrong with you if you don’t have or want children. Martha invented the story of a son probably because she genuinely wanted one.  But I think she also did it to make it easier for her to fit into society. As a woman, I often feel I don’t fit the stereotypical mold of what a woman “should” be. Perhaps Martha, with her abrasive, obnoxious persona, wanted at least one component of her life to fit. While I genuinely believe Martha wanted a child, her yearning may be tempered by the fact that society views her as an inadequate woman. It’s as if she can handle being a non-conformist woman in every way possible except this one.
What makes Martha so interesting is that she’s not merely a bawdy, angry woman.  Taylor imbues the complicated character with fleeting moments of agony and vulnerability.  In a tender rather than simply rage-filled moment, Martha refutes George’s accusation that she’s a “monster.”  She asserts,

Martha: I’m loud and I’m vulgar, and I wear the pants in the house because somebody’s got to, but I am not a monster. I’m not.

George: You’re a spoiled, self-indulgent, willful, dirty-minded, liquor-ridden…
Martha: SNAP! It went SNAP! I’m not gonna try to get through to you any more. There was a second back there, yeah, there was a second, just a second when I could have gotten through to you, when maybe we could have cut through all this, this CRAP. But it’s past, and I’m not gonna try.
To me, this is such a pivotal scene.  Women are supposed to be, especially during that era, docile, proper and well-mannered; the epitome of femininity.  Blond, thin, meek Honey appears to be the perfect wife while bawdy, brash, raven-haired, curvy Martha stands as the complete opposite.  In the equally ground-breaking The Second Sex published in 1949, philosopher Simone de Beauvoir wrote about the treatment and oppression of women.  In her tome, she argues that society teaches us that passivity is “the essential characteristic of the ‘feminine’ woman.”  Society encourages men and boys to explore their freedom while women and girls are taught to embrace femininity, turning their back on what they themselves want. She asserts:

“In woman, on the contrary, there is from the beginning a conflict between her autonomous existence and her objective self, her “being-the-other;” she is taught that to please she must try to please, she must make herself object; she should therefore renounce her autonomy. She is treated like a live doll and is refused liberty.” (280)

 

Wives were supposed to support their husbands, echoing their desires.  While Martha eventually admits that George is the only man who has ever made her happy, she refuses to silence herself. She is loud, vulgar, shrewd, intelligent, assertive, sexual and outspoken; the antithesis to femininity. And in many ways, society punishes Martha and women like her for it. Yet she rails against constraints, struggling to navigate the sexist terrain on her own terms.

The title of the play and film comes from a riff of “Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf” with the wordplay on Virginia Woolf.  It was a quote that playwright Albee saw scrawled on a bathroom mirror in a bar.  It’s also an allusion to show that people concoct imaginary scenarios and personas in order to cope with their lives, a theme that runs throughout the entire film.  The audience is never quite sure what is fact and what is fiction, the line often blurred.After the pivotal climax and shocking revelations, in the penultimate line of the film, George asks Martha, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to which she replies, “I am, George, I am.”  Some scholars assert that this alludes to being able to live without illusions, which both George and Martha, with their web of lies and treacherous games, clearly find difficult.  But the play/film’s title is also an accidental feminist reference as feminist author and writer Virginia Woolf famously advocated for women to be able to possess their own money and space to be creative and ultimately themselves.

Captivating yet uncomfortable to watch, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? depicts the brutal deterioration of a marriage and the crumbling of hopes, ambitions and illusions.  Through their cruel taunts and insults, the film exposes the illusory facades people create, while challenging stifling gender roles.In the 60s (and to a large extent still today), society demanded men act assertively and women behave passively. As men wield a disproportionate amount of power over women, people often fear female empowerment.  Despite her brazen outspokenness, Martha might be afraid too — afraid of her own power in a society that doesn’t embrace or accept powerful women.

———-
Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. A feminist vegan, Megan blogs at The Opinioness of the World.  In addition to Bitch Flicks, her work has appeared at Arts & Opinion, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly and A Safe World for Women. Megan earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. She currently lives in Boston. She previously contributed reviews of The Kids Are All Right, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest and Something Borrowed to Bitch Flicks.