The 30's was full of movies with sexist tropes and sexist behavior from both men and women, but "Female" has to be the most sexist movie I've seen from that time period and probably the most sexist movie I've ever seen. It was as if they said, "Let's dispense with any innuendos, symbolism, or beating around the bush and put it plainly what the roles of women are."
The movie stars Ruth Chatterton as Alison Drake. She was the president of a car manufacturer and she was good. She was better than good. She knew the business inside and out and she was on top of everything, and a part of every important decision. In other words, she ran the company like "a man."
Alison was the complete package. She was beautiful, young, intelligent, rich, and powerful. She was perfect. Just about any man would be happy to have her as a wife, yet that's not what Hollywood led us to believe.
Those around her pejoratively called her a "superwoman," which I thought was a complement. She made the conscious decision to operate like "a man" in order to be effective as a business leader. This meant she didn't have time for romances, marriage, or falling in love. She treated her male employees like escorts. She would use them for a night of intimacy and then it was all business the next day at work.
In a way I could appreciate it. I'm not a fan of promiscuity, but I could appreciate that she wasn't in love with every charming, handsome guy she spent time with. In every 30's movie the woman fell in love with every man she was intimate with unless A.) she was doing it for the money or B.) she was an antagonist. Alison had money and she was the protagonist in this film which made her extremely atypical.
When she said that she'd never marry or fall in love I knew it was a given that she'd fall in love and marry. It seems like that was the blueprint for many romances back then. Whenever a woman said she wouldn't fall in love and/or she wouldn't marry, it was nothing but blatant and dull foreshadowing.
I also knew that Alison would only fall in love with the man that was hard to get. This was another weak plot device used back then with rich women who always got what they wanted. They were most attracted to the men they couldn't easily get.
The man in this case was Jim Thorne (George Brent). He was an engineer she wanted for her company because he designed an automatic transmission.
When she first saw him she was dressed down and hanging out in an area where working folks went to have a good time. She all but threw herself at Jim and he rebuffed her.
The next time she saw him was at her company. She didn't know he was the engineer she'd hired and he didn't know she was the company president. After they bumped into each other on the factory floor she arranged for him to come to her office to, no doubt, impress him. She had him brought into her large office while she busily attended to tasks and requests with the curt efficiency she always had. Then she invited him to her home to discuss his design in detail, a move she'd done with other male employees of hers.
Her invitations went like this:
She'd invite the man over under the pretense of business. The man would show up thinking it was business. She'd ring for vodka because vodka was the best way to lower the inhibitions of her male guest. Then she'd tell her guest to drop the shop talk and she'd begin to flirt. They'd spend an intimate night together and the next day at work it was business as usual. If the guy caught feelings she'd have him transferred to another location.
When she invited Jim to her home she couldn't break him, which you know meant she'd want him even more. The vodka didn't inebriate him and he was not moved by her flirting. As he put it, he was an engineer not a gigolo.
Now Alison was really perturbed. She had to have Jim. She almost fired his secretary because she thought she was Jim's sweetheart. Instead, she asked her manservant Pettigrew (Ferdinand Gottschalk), "What kind of woman do men like? How do they want them to act?"
To which he responded, "Well that depends. A man of Jim Thorne's type, for example, wants a woman that will look up to him. Gentle. Feminine. Someone he can protect. That's because Jim Thorne is strong and rather primitive perhaps. The dominant male my dear."
This is the point in the movie where things could've gone one of two ways:
1.) Alison stays true to herself and moves on from Jim.
2.) Alison contorts herself into the image that would please Jim.
I'm sure you can guess which way it went.
Alison devised a plan to be alone with Jim where she could show how vulnerable she was and how Jim could protect her and provide for her. It was embarrassing, and it worked. Alison made herself into a dependant, fragile weakling, and "strong Jim" did the manly thing and took the lead. As he said, he liked this version of her because he likes to be the one doing the hunting. They spent an intimate night together and the wonderful image I had of Alison crumbled.
Then, something interesting happened. The next day Jim came into her office with a marriage certificate for the two of them. Alison said she wasn't interested in marriage. At that rejection I rejoiced. Alison was back. It was all an act in order for her to make Jim a conquest. She had to play a role to get what she wanted. Now that she got him she could go back to her normal self.
Hooray!
Jim was crushed (snicker). "Then you don't love me?" he asked. Because intimacy, especially for women at that time, was only reserved for those you loved.
"Oh Jim you're being unreasonable," Alison retorted, which was a very appropriate answer. You mean she should love you just because you spent one night together?
He launched into a harangue saying, "I suppose you think you're too superior for marriage, and love, and children. The things that women were born for."
My man, why not just club her in the head and drag her back to your cave while you're at it. If that wasn't one of the most sexist things you could say it sure ranks up there.
And this was the protagonist!
He continued his diatribe, "Say who do you think you are? Are you so drunk with your own importance you think you can make your own rules?"
Meaning she's not following the rules of nature. The rules that state she should be serving a man and not the other way around.
"You've been playing this role so long you're starting to believe it," he continued.
What role is that you might ask. The role of a "man." Someone who could keep her feelings in check and be decisive, calculating, and efficient.
"You're a fake," he continued. "You've been playing this part so long you've begun to believe it. The great superwoman," he said derisively. "Cracking her whip and making these poor fools jump around. You and your new freedom. Why if you weren't so pathetic you'd be funny."
He said a few more words, tore up the marriage certificate, and stormed out.
Again, Alison could've gone one of two ways and they were virtually the same as before. And if you thought the sexism was done, hang on to your hats.
The next scene Alison was in a very important board meeting. Her staff was all in an uproar about credit and their inability to secure loans from any bank. They looked to Alison for guidance but in a way in which the writer was trying to force feed the viewer. It was as if they had to remind us what kind of leader Alison was. At the moment she was listless and afar. She wasn't paying any attention to the proceedings because Jim was on her mind. In meetings past her voice was the most commanding and decisive voice in the room. Exactly what you'd want from a leader, but not today.
Then she spoke.
"I can't go on!" she cried. "I don't belong here. This is no place for a woman. I know I've always thought I was different. I've always tried to beat life the way men beat it but I can't. I can't!
All this crazy frantic struggle, fighting with bankers, trying to save the business. What's it to me?! You do what you like with it, I don't care!" she bawled as she ran out of the room.
And like that, Alison was dead to me.
The sexism didn't stop there. She went to her office to cry. Pettigrew, seeing her all broken up over a man, said, "That's right my dear. Have a good cry. It's just what you need. Of course, I've been expecting this for some time, it's only natural. You couldn't go on as you had been, living on your nerves, running this big business by yourself." Then he drove home the point of the movie:
"You're just a woman after all."
With that reinforcement of her true nature she knew what she had to do. She went back to the board room to say she was sorry and then she made a call to a New York bank. She claimed she was going to the bank to secure a loan, but really she was going after Jim. She was willing to let her entire business collapse to be what Jim wanted her to be.
The movie concluded with her telling Jim that he could run the company. And when he asked what she'd do, she said she'd have nine babies. It was a chauvinist's dream.
I'm far from a feminist, but this movie had me reeling. I don't think I could cringe anymore. This was one of the most dated, didactic, preachy, moralistic movies about being a woman that I've ever seen. Cam Newton couldn't have written a more sexist movie. What's more, it's rated 6.7/10 on IMDb! Who the hell stuffed this ballot box?
What really sucks is that this movie had a chance to set itself apart and show something meaningful. Was Alison flawed? Sure she was, but not in the way she ran her business. Not in the way she handled all the potential suitors that were beating down her door. Not in her core personality. Instead of making a real statement about women and what they CAN be, Hollywood balked, yet again, and fed us straight hog slop about what women SHOULD be.
Free on YouTube.
The movie stars Ruth Chatterton as Alison Drake. She was the president of a car manufacturer and she was good. She was better than good. She knew the business inside and out and she was on top of everything, and a part of every important decision. In other words, she ran the company like "a man."
Alison was the complete package. She was beautiful, young, intelligent, rich, and powerful. She was perfect. Just about any man would be happy to have her as a wife, yet that's not what Hollywood led us to believe.
Those around her pejoratively called her a "superwoman," which I thought was a complement. She made the conscious decision to operate like "a man" in order to be effective as a business leader. This meant she didn't have time for romances, marriage, or falling in love. She treated her male employees like escorts. She would use them for a night of intimacy and then it was all business the next day at work.
In a way I could appreciate it. I'm not a fan of promiscuity, but I could appreciate that she wasn't in love with every charming, handsome guy she spent time with. In every 30's movie the woman fell in love with every man she was intimate with unless A.) she was doing it for the money or B.) she was an antagonist. Alison had money and she was the protagonist in this film which made her extremely atypical.
When she said that she'd never marry or fall in love I knew it was a given that she'd fall in love and marry. It seems like that was the blueprint for many romances back then. Whenever a woman said she wouldn't fall in love and/or she wouldn't marry, it was nothing but blatant and dull foreshadowing.
I also knew that Alison would only fall in love with the man that was hard to get. This was another weak plot device used back then with rich women who always got what they wanted. They were most attracted to the men they couldn't easily get.
The man in this case was Jim Thorne (George Brent). He was an engineer she wanted for her company because he designed an automatic transmission.
When she first saw him she was dressed down and hanging out in an area where working folks went to have a good time. She all but threw herself at Jim and he rebuffed her.
The next time she saw him was at her company. She didn't know he was the engineer she'd hired and he didn't know she was the company president. After they bumped into each other on the factory floor she arranged for him to come to her office to, no doubt, impress him. She had him brought into her large office while she busily attended to tasks and requests with the curt efficiency she always had. Then she invited him to her home to discuss his design in detail, a move she'd done with other male employees of hers.
Her invitations went like this:
She'd invite the man over under the pretense of business. The man would show up thinking it was business. She'd ring for vodka because vodka was the best way to lower the inhibitions of her male guest. Then she'd tell her guest to drop the shop talk and she'd begin to flirt. They'd spend an intimate night together and the next day at work it was business as usual. If the guy caught feelings she'd have him transferred to another location.
When she invited Jim to her home she couldn't break him, which you know meant she'd want him even more. The vodka didn't inebriate him and he was not moved by her flirting. As he put it, he was an engineer not a gigolo.
Now Alison was really perturbed. She had to have Jim. She almost fired his secretary because she thought she was Jim's sweetheart. Instead, she asked her manservant Pettigrew (Ferdinand Gottschalk), "What kind of woman do men like? How do they want them to act?"
To which he responded, "Well that depends. A man of Jim Thorne's type, for example, wants a woman that will look up to him. Gentle. Feminine. Someone he can protect. That's because Jim Thorne is strong and rather primitive perhaps. The dominant male my dear."
This is the point in the movie where things could've gone one of two ways:
1.) Alison stays true to herself and moves on from Jim.
2.) Alison contorts herself into the image that would please Jim.
I'm sure you can guess which way it went.
Alison devised a plan to be alone with Jim where she could show how vulnerable she was and how Jim could protect her and provide for her. It was embarrassing, and it worked. Alison made herself into a dependant, fragile weakling, and "strong Jim" did the manly thing and took the lead. As he said, he liked this version of her because he likes to be the one doing the hunting. They spent an intimate night together and the wonderful image I had of Alison crumbled.
Then, something interesting happened. The next day Jim came into her office with a marriage certificate for the two of them. Alison said she wasn't interested in marriage. At that rejection I rejoiced. Alison was back. It was all an act in order for her to make Jim a conquest. She had to play a role to get what she wanted. Now that she got him she could go back to her normal self.
Hooray!
Jim was crushed (snicker). "Then you don't love me?" he asked. Because intimacy, especially for women at that time, was only reserved for those you loved.
"Oh Jim you're being unreasonable," Alison retorted, which was a very appropriate answer. You mean she should love you just because you spent one night together?
He launched into a harangue saying, "I suppose you think you're too superior for marriage, and love, and children. The things that women were born for."
My man, why not just club her in the head and drag her back to your cave while you're at it. If that wasn't one of the most sexist things you could say it sure ranks up there.
And this was the protagonist!
He continued his diatribe, "Say who do you think you are? Are you so drunk with your own importance you think you can make your own rules?"
Meaning she's not following the rules of nature. The rules that state she should be serving a man and not the other way around.
"You've been playing this role so long you're starting to believe it," he continued.
What role is that you might ask. The role of a "man." Someone who could keep her feelings in check and be decisive, calculating, and efficient.
"You're a fake," he continued. "You've been playing this part so long you've begun to believe it. The great superwoman," he said derisively. "Cracking her whip and making these poor fools jump around. You and your new freedom. Why if you weren't so pathetic you'd be funny."
He said a few more words, tore up the marriage certificate, and stormed out.
Again, Alison could've gone one of two ways and they were virtually the same as before. And if you thought the sexism was done, hang on to your hats.
The next scene Alison was in a very important board meeting. Her staff was all in an uproar about credit and their inability to secure loans from any bank. They looked to Alison for guidance but in a way in which the writer was trying to force feed the viewer. It was as if they had to remind us what kind of leader Alison was. At the moment she was listless and afar. She wasn't paying any attention to the proceedings because Jim was on her mind. In meetings past her voice was the most commanding and decisive voice in the room. Exactly what you'd want from a leader, but not today.
Then she spoke.
"I can't go on!" she cried. "I don't belong here. This is no place for a woman. I know I've always thought I was different. I've always tried to beat life the way men beat it but I can't. I can't!
All this crazy frantic struggle, fighting with bankers, trying to save the business. What's it to me?! You do what you like with it, I don't care!" she bawled as she ran out of the room.
And like that, Alison was dead to me.
The sexism didn't stop there. She went to her office to cry. Pettigrew, seeing her all broken up over a man, said, "That's right my dear. Have a good cry. It's just what you need. Of course, I've been expecting this for some time, it's only natural. You couldn't go on as you had been, living on your nerves, running this big business by yourself." Then he drove home the point of the movie:
"You're just a woman after all."
With that reinforcement of her true nature she knew what she had to do. She went back to the board room to say she was sorry and then she made a call to a New York bank. She claimed she was going to the bank to secure a loan, but really she was going after Jim. She was willing to let her entire business collapse to be what Jim wanted her to be.
The movie concluded with her telling Jim that he could run the company. And when he asked what she'd do, she said she'd have nine babies. It was a chauvinist's dream.
I'm far from a feminist, but this movie had me reeling. I don't think I could cringe anymore. This was one of the most dated, didactic, preachy, moralistic movies about being a woman that I've ever seen. Cam Newton couldn't have written a more sexist movie. What's more, it's rated 6.7/10 on IMDb! Who the hell stuffed this ballot box?
What really sucks is that this movie had a chance to set itself apart and show something meaningful. Was Alison flawed? Sure she was, but not in the way she ran her business. Not in the way she handled all the potential suitors that were beating down her door. Not in her core personality. Instead of making a real statement about women and what they CAN be, Hollywood balked, yet again, and fed us straight hog slop about what women SHOULD be.
Free on YouTube.