Man’s Fear Become Woman’s Fate

Paper by Clara Pavesi. Viewed on DVD.

The figure of the women in Hitchcock’s film is an over debated topic that has been often misunderstood among critics. The stereotypical male gaze, representing the patriarchy,has been argued to relegate the women to a position of instability and weakness, depicting them as object of seduction and erotic desire. Hitchcock has often been accused of violence and cruelty on his female characters, as influential part of the classical contemporary main hollywoodian trend. We don’t have to forget that between the 1930s and the 50s, in which most of the Hitchcockian movies were product, the entire word was paralyzed by the World War II and the Cold War later. In this atmosphere of fear and repression, the surrealistic word of the movies was the only way to escape the reality. This lead to an excess of amorality, sexuality and violence in the early 30s movies and ended up with the emission of the Product Code, that gave to the filmography an “industrial logic”(Lincoln 615).

In such an atmosphere of historical changes and innovation, it’s easy to understand why the label of “misogynist” it is an oversimplified view of the complexity that Hitchcock hides behind his females characters. Indeed,in his movies, the fascination with femininity seems often to throw the male power and authority into question and his identity into crisis, as we see in Vertigo. This fascination toward the feminine character is reflected Hitchcock’s sort of obsession in analyzing the human tormented psyche. As Paul Thomas points out in his critic review, this interest toward victimized and instable women has nothing to do with a “sadistic delight in seeing his leading ladies suffering” but represent instead “a way of keeping femininity at a safe psychic distance” (41). The Hitchcock’s double attitude toward his women, both “sympathetic and misogynist ” (Thomas 40) can be better understood by analyzing deeper three of his films, The Lady Vanishes (1938), Vertigo (1958) and The Birds (1963).

Chronologically, The Lady Vanishes marks the end of the Hitchcock’s British period and the begin of his great international success. Here he starts to develop this later main themes, such as vanishing, paranoia and obsession. The lead female characters, Iris, doesn’t have any of the common Hitchcockian characteristics: she is not a blonde young girl imprisoned in social costumes but instead she is represented at the beginning as a rich, self confident and provocative young women that assert to do not regret nothing in life. Her weakness though is hidden in the decision to marry a man she doesn’t love and her authority and control are destined to crumble when Miss Froy disappear. All the story is told by his point of view,with an able use of the crane shot. The apex of her crisis is reached in the cabin of the train: the subjective shots show each face of the people in the cabin overlapped by Miss Froy’s face at an increasing speedness, creating a feeling of anxiety and panic. Reading this moment as a simple fall back into the common female character would be a simplification. Indeed Iris’s character, as Gilbert’s one, shows the androgenicity that according to Hitchcock resides in each of us. If Iris’s masculinity is recognizable in the beginning behavior, confident in her possibilities and determined in solve the case of Miss Froy’ s disappearance, Gilbert’s femininity on the other hand is hidden in the maternal behaviour he shows toward Iris,taking care of her as if she was instable. Someone could assert that this behaviour is nothing but a confirmation of the male protective gaze over unstable and weak women. At this point the paradox would be clear: how can androgenicity be used as an evidence of man’s superiority? Modlesky clarify this concept in her “The Women Who Knew Too Much. Hitchcock and Feminist Theory”, saying that “Women’s bisexual nature is less a problem for women that for patriarchy”. Here Gilbert represents the patriarchy of the film, taking over Miss Froy’s maternal role in Iris’s life,and eventually turning the maternal gaze back to a male gaze. Gilbert even says something that shows this patriarchy: “My father always taught me, never desert a lady in trouble.” The creation of the male gaze represent indeed a mean of protection against women. “Men fascination and identification with the feminine undermines their effort to achieve masculine strength and autonomy”(Thomas 41) and leads the man’s effort of having control over women. This can eventually result into violence toward women, as we see for instance in Vertigo.

In Vertigo, the theme of androgenicity returns. In the second scene indeed is introduced Scott’s ex­fiancèe, Midge, who is taking care of Scottie after the accident he had on San Francisco’s roof. Her figure is in clear contrast with the common mysterious and attractive femme­fatale Madeline. She has a what at a first view seems a manly name, but show all the characteristic of a mother toward Scottie, that at one point bursts into a “Midge, don’t be so motherly”. Midge reacts to his provocation glaring at him but he he doesn’t even notice her reaction. This little moment is told by an incredible use of the subjective crane­shot and for a second the viewer has a chance to view from the female perspective,shifting from the male gaze to the women gaze. Even if we see the rest of the story from Scottie’s point of view, we can’t define it a real “male gaze”.This is what Manlove, in his “Visual Drive and Cinematic Narrative”, calls “split between the eye and its gaze”. The lead male figure indeed is already been emasculated and disempowered by his acrophobia. In the second scene, he is depicted sitting next to Midge,in pain, asking her if many men wear corset. As Manlove points out “what castrates Scottie is not the image of a woman, or her subsequent failure to be the women he desires, but rather his own failure as a subject, as a professional, and as a man.(10)”

The other female character embody the lead male’s sexual desire. From the scene in the restaurant, in which the crane shot on her naked back wrapped in a silk green dress, Scottie seems to be hypnotized by her presence. All the narrative is constructed around what Scottie sees or fails to see(Manlove 9). From Scottie’s perspective we keep seen Madeline as a dream, always portrayed with an external point of view shot: staring at the portrait, choosing flower,disappearing with her car. When the audience become aware of Elster’s plan to mislead Scottie, Madeleine/Judy figure shifts from dreamlike to ghostly. An example of that is the shot in which she’s coming out to the bathroom all dressed up like Madeline,walking slowly and staring at the void.She reveals her duplicity and all the other representation of women she has hid from the beginning. At this point Scottie reacts, trying to show an active “male gaze” he forces and shape Judy as a Madeline’s imago, but he is only “a passive victim of another, more powerful gaze”(Manlove 9).

The lead female character of The Birds, Melanie, has both Madeleine’s and Iris’s characteristics. One one hand, in fact she is blonde, icy and femme­fatale as Madeleine but in the other hand she is a strong, provocative independent women as Iris is. The use of a subjective point of view shot shows the effect her beauty does on her self confidence. A scene at the beginning of the movie shows her in the elevator with a gentleman,holding the lovebirds cage. From her perspective we see, as she leaves the elevator, her eyes going discreetly to the side to see whether the mas is watching her walking out. As in the Lady Vanishes,the two main characters start arguing and hating each other and they they end up fall in love but differently from , the “madness” of the female character in this case comes later, at the end of the film.When she arrives at Bagoda Bay, when a man asks her whether she is able to drive the little boat,she answers “Of course!”. Her figure seems so strong and arrogant that even the audience could be lead to develop a bit of the Hitchcockian mysoginism. During the movie thought the duplicity of her characters starts to show up. When she confronts with Mitch’s mother weakness and insecurity (“I wish I could be as strong as you are”) she seems to shape her character. She shift from the rebel independent women to a more mellow and docile characters, as a free birds get use to its cage. She became a wife for Mitch, a mother for Mitch’s little sister and a daughter for Mitch’s mother,serving her the tea. After the last birds attack she becomes so shock that now is Mitch’s mother trying to comfort her.She is finally become the daughter that she has never been. This evolution in the character can be linked to the typical ability of the male gaze to mold his women according to his desire.This, again, would be an oversimplification of the incredible number of variables that Hitchcock’s women embody. As McCombe suggest in his “The Birds and the Culmination of Hitchcock’s Hyper­ Romantic Vision”, the use of careful high­angle and extreme long shot, “offer the possibility that the birds are their own agents, exercising desire and bent on exacting revenge for the unspecified crimes of humanity (69)”.

Different it’s Annie’s destiny. She is a smart and attractive women that has given up on her love for Mitch. From this point of view she resembles Vertigo’s Midge. If it’s easy to percipe her jealousy toward Melanie in more than one shot, she have inside her the goodness and generosity to make Melanie aware of Mitch’s mother possession toward the son. Here we see again the androgynous
aspect of the female character: she is indeed partly feminine, with her sensibility and love, partly masculine, with her final act of sacrifice in order to save Mitch’s little sister. The birds final attack( in which she dies and that leaves Melanie in shock) could represent another illogical violence over the two main female characters but has indeed a deeper meaning. As previously stated, the representation of pain and suffering women should not be considered male sadism but a form of fear. Aware of his feminine part, each men fell the risk of this feminization in his subconscious. The only way to repress these aspect of himself is to project them into the woman’s body who then has to suffer for both of them, being victimized by the male gaze. And in this way “man’s fear become woman’s fate”(Thomas 42).

WORK CITED

Lincoln, Anne E., Michael Patrick. “Double Jeopardy in Hollywood: Age and Gender in the Careers of Film Actors, 1926 – 1999.” Sociological Forum, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Dec 2004), pp. 611­631. JSTOR,
June 29.
Paul Thomas, “The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Criticism by Tania Modleski; TheHitchcock Romance: Love and Irony in Hitchcock’s Films by Lesley Brill,Review by: Paul Thomas”,Film Quarterly, Vol. 42, No.4 (Summer, 1989), pp. 40­42, JSTOR, June 29
Clifford T. Manlove,” Visual Drive and Cinematic Narrative: Reading Gaze Theory in Lacan, Hitchcock,and Mulvey”,Cinema Journal 46,No.3,Spring 2007,pp.83­108,JSTOR, June 29
Jhon P. McCombe, “Oh I see..: The Birds and the Culmination of Hitchcock’s Hyper Romantic Vision”,Cinema Journal, vol 44,no.3,Spring 2005, pp. 64­80, JSTOR, June 29