Here's Looking At You, Kid

     To be perfectly honest, I have been lost. I kept thinking about gender and what I can say that will matter; what I can say that will bring attention to a problem. My voice was cut short when I thought of something then immediately thought that the idea of that topic was stupid or poorly developed. For the longest time I beat myself up about the fact of falling behind in class all because I have no voice. But then I thought, this class isn’t specifically just gender – its media too. I’m always listening to music or watching something, even if it’s just playing in the background. What I watch shapes who I am.

     So where did I lose my voice? What went wrong in all that I watch? I’ve watched Marilyn Monroe score the perfect dream guy, seen Vivien Leigh woo a guy in curtains, and even stared starry-eyed as Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra give a stunning performance of heroic proportions all to get a girl. All positive stories, but why is my outlook on myself not so positive?

     Let’s start with Some Like It Hot. For short, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis cross dress to get into an all-girls band to escape the mob. Marilyn Monroe is the front-‘man’ of the band, and Tony Curtis’ character falls in love with her – even goes so far as to deceive her to win her over. Yes, deceive her. Her character has always been given the “fuzzy end of the lollipop”, so it’s no surprise that when this ‘millionaire’ yacht owner does exactly what she tells her friend she wants, she’s all over him. 

     Marilyn Monroe was the icon of sex in the mid to late 1950s and early 1960s – she was everything that every girl wanted to be and everything that every guy wanted. However, though she was quite smart and often misunderstood, her roles were not as smart.

Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe in Some Like It Hot

     Her roles were always laced with as much sex appeal and ditzy moments that will tide anyone over for days. Those moments were what I watched when I was little – so it’s really no surprise that I grew up to question my own intellect. It wasn’t until I was older that I saw how misunderstood she really was, and no, not just because of her tragic death, but because of what she said that could have been useful to a developing mind.

     “No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they're pretty, even if they aren't.”

     Yeah, lying isn’t the greatest of virtues to have. But to a little girl, telling her she’s pretty means the world to her. Marilyn knew that.

“I want to grow old without face-lifts... I want to have the courage to be loyal to the face that I have made.”

     She advocated not only for animal rights and orphans, but also for real beauty. She didn’t want to change her face for anyone and she wanted to be ‘real’, not only to herself but to her fans. I’m sure she knew the effect of aging and what attention actresses who aged got, but she didn’t care. She was comfortable to be her.

“I'm a failure as a woman. My men expect so much of me, because of the image they've made of me and that I've made of myself, as a sex symbol. Men expect so much, and I can't live up to it.”

     Men expect too much. Is there any more that needs to be said? Because they expect something, she’s a failure? 

     
       Even in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, she played the typical ditzy blonde wanting no more other than money - same as Some Like It Hot

Charming, isn't it?

The famous 'Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend' song - that honestly sums up men and women as they age. "Men grow cold as women grow old"

    Vivien Leigh was another prominent actress I watched when I was younger. Instead of tackling the glory that is Gone with the Wind, I’ll analyze the psychological role she played in A Streetcar Named Desire. The rundown: Vivien Leigh plays Blanche DuBois - a school teacher who had a young love that she married years ago who turned out to be gay. She couldn’t take it and told him she despises him, so he shot himself. The trauma of the aftermath threw her in a dark state of mind, turning to alcohol and reaching out to other younger men – including students. After being fired and losing her house, she goes to visit her little sister, Stella, who is unaware at first that she lost the house. Stella’s husband, the dashing Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski, is a very angry man set in his ways, even abusive. Blanche and Stanley butt heads since day one, and that only accelerates Blanche’s condition. Towards the end (spoiler alert) she is taken to a clinic where she can get the help she needs.

The King of mumbling himself, Marlon Brando as Stanley Kowalski and Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois. Their first meeting - every other interaction goes downhill from here.

Blanche's monologue describing her relations with her first love.

     Woo. That’s a bit of a summary to take in, but that’s the great mind of Tennessee William’s at his best for you. Now, where do I go from here? Comparing my life to someone with psychological problems is probably the last thing on my to-do list, but it makes sense. Not the psychological issues themselves, but how she reacted to certain gender norms in the movie and play is the real thing to look at.

     If there’s one thing for sure it’s that women have a harder time in the world. Nothing is more evident to Blanche than that fact.

"She had decked herself out in a somewhat soiled and crumpled white satin evening gown and a pair of scuffed silver slippers with brilliants set in their heels." (Scene 10)

     She clung to old cheap evening gowns that appeared to have class, even though she was thrown out of her town for being a “woman of loose morals”. She wanted to look as if she were young and well-off and everything a strapping young lad would want in a woman. When she met someone and he was interested in her, she only met in the cover of night or darkness. Why? She’s aging, a worried single women in her thirties who even lies about her age. Today, women still fear aging and losing their beauty. Perhaps Blanche's case was she wanted to remain young to somehow bring back her late husband, but women today do not have that issue. So why fear? Why is aging such a bad thing? Why can’t we all be proud of the life we have lived and wear wrinkles as tiger stripes – we certainly have earned them by the time they appear. And suddenly, the enchantment of movies is gone as you realize that your everyday problems are always connected to the story somehow. What you watch to get away from them is secretly building more fears for you. 

    With the romantic stories, women are viewed as nothing without a man. Plainly put. Every story involving love is set mainly in the woman's perspective - she's depressed, finds love, he approves, she's happy, the end. Though I’m sure none of this makes sense as to why a young girl who has just barely begun to jump into life still has no voice and doesn’t view herself as important enough to have one, it actually does. I’ve lived my life on so many stories and so many plays and so many movies – most of them coming from a time when women didn’t have all that we have now. In fact, women have gained way more respect and freedoms to do whatever, though in Blanche’s case, “loose morals” are still looked down upon. However, there is so much more pressure, especially on young teens growing up. Look pretty, dress nicely, act dumb, get a man's approval, and you’ll have the best life can give you. Even when you comply to 'life's rules of beauty', you're still getting the "fuzzy end of the lollipop".

Ad-libbed by the marvelous Marilyn. Telling, isn't it?

Being so enraptured by the development of movies, television, and the technological advances that brought us to the modern age, my favorite genre of film is film noir. Watching I Love Lucy was one of my favorite TV shows when I was younger, and it still stands the test of time today. In fact, Lucille Ball was a very prominent comedian and her husband, Desi Arnaz, was not the typical husband of the era. The show itself was groundbreaking.

In the time where women were not so much as seen with a main role as men were, I Love Lucy took off with flying colors and it’s really no surprise; the show had it all when it came to representation. A Cuban husband and a whimsical red-headed lead was what made the show memorable. In fact, Lucille Ball is one of the few comedians of her time to be a female and be top billed. Even in the time where interracial couples were seen as taboo, I Love Lucy still flourished. The humor was in good taste, with little to no racial remarks for comedic relief. Sure, the humor can be sexist in little ways with stereotypical female behavior – like with the most memorable scene where Lucy and Ethel eat the chocolate off the assembly line. The temptation of eating the chocolate was too much for Ethel, and even gives up before Lucy when the line moves too fast.

But, even with that stereotypical representation of women and chocolate (and maybe in the workforce as well), the show still kept a pretty positive image for women. However, not all the shows of the era were all pretty and perfect when it came to representation.

Though a cartoon, Tom and Jerry had poor taste when it came right down to representation. A cat and a mouse, how racist can it be, right? Wrong. In one of the episodes, a black maid named Mammy is petrified of Jerry. She’s shaken in a chair and drops numerous items – dice, a ring, dentures, a razor, and various buttons and bobby pins. Seems harmless enough, but it points to violence, gambling, and possibly stealing. The ring on her finger would not have fallen off as easily as slipping out of a pocket. (Shown below at 1:18)

Along with that incident, Tom and Jerry and even The Looney Tunes were famous for their blackfaces – especially in the earlier years. In fact, until the civil rights movement, when blackface ended, many cartoons and movies used blackface as a comedic move. Fred Astaire could be seen tapping away with blackface, Ronald Reagan and Shirley Temple as well. For more than fifty years, blackface was a very big laugh to many people and just stayed with the industry – from minstrel shows, to vaudeville, to movies. Shown below is just some of the famous scenes where blackface was used.

I Love Lucy was indeed a diamond in the ruff. Ten years after the first episode aired and one year after the last, The Dick Van Dyke Show came about with a prominent female lead who was her husband’s backbone. Though Mary Tyler Moore’s character was not the main lead (the shows not named for her, after all), she led many movements with housewives all across the nation and spurred about just as much female empowerment as Lucille Ball had.

All in all, the era of movies and shows that I love the most was plagued with the most racism and the most misrepresentation, and often put down in a poor manner, However, as I Love Lucy suggests, not all was bad with the era - the diamonds in the ruff are much better than anything else.