Elizabeth Abele

The Screwball Heroine Saves the Day

 

Joan Wilder: You're leaving? You're leaving me?!
Jack Colton: You're gonna be all right, Joan Wilder. Yea. Youalways were.

     Like a contemporary Dorothy,Romancing the Stone's Joan Wilder must travel to Columbiaand survive incredible adventures to learn that she had alwaysbeen a capable and valuable person. Romancing the Stone(Robert Zemeckis, 1984) is part of a series of 1980s action comediesthat disrupted previous expectations for female heroines. Thesefemale protagonists manage to subvert the standard action narrativeand filmic gaze, learning to rescue themselves and to resist others'limited vision of them. Not only did these action comedies presentstrong female characters, they also offered a new filmic experiencefor female audiences. The commercial success of comic action heroinespaved the way for women to appear in serious action roles--withoutthe personal sacrifices required of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley.Figures like Joan Wilder serve as an important link between previousstrong yet feminine screen personas and current female stars.

     Led by Laura Mulvey, feministfilm critics have discussed the difficulty presented to femalespectators by the controlling male gaze and narrative generallyfound in mainstream film, creating for female spectators a positionthat forces them into limited choices: "bisexual" identificationwith active male characters; identification with the passive,often victimized, female characters; or on occasion, identificationwith a "masculinized" active female character, who isgenerally punished for her unhealthy behavior. Before discussingrecent improvements, it is important to note that a group of ClassicHollywood films regularly offered female spectators positive,female characters who were active in controlling narrative, gazingand desiring: the screwball comedy.

     Comedy often allows for a subversionof the status quo that is not tolerated in more serious genres.Beginning in the 1930s, the subgenre of screwball comedy presentedfemale characters who were active and desiring, without evokingnegative characterizations as "unfeminine" or "trampish."Screwball comedies represent a specific form of romantic comedythat features a complicated situation--or more often a seriesof complications--centered around a strong-willed, unpredictablefemale. The comedy is generally physical as well as verbal. Screwballand other forms of romantic comedy do not just reverse the masculine/active,feminine/passive paradigm--which as E. Ann Kaplan notes accomplisheslittle in terms of change--but instead strengthens the femaleand weakens the male just enough to put them on more equalfooting. This paper will demonstrate how the hybrid screwball/actioncomedies built on audiences’ acceptance of the strong screwballfemale, allowing heroic females to prove ther strength and agencybeyond the home, and without the screwball affect. Strong femalecharacters linked to comedy manage to maintain their emotionalhealth better than non-comic "masculinized" female charactersor their male action counterparts.

     The creation of female actionheroes works against not only societal expectations but the standardconstruction of mainstream film. Though Mulvey describes a femalespectator’s identification with the male hero as naturalyet somehow unhealthy: identifying with the masculine gaze allowswomen to return to the position of the "little man,""offering an identification with the active pointof view allows a woman spectator to rediscover that lost aspectof her sexual identity, the never fully repressed bed-rockof feminine neurosis" (71, emphasis mine). Mulvey seesthis cross-identification of women with the active male hero asoccurring not only in viewing film, but as a common occurrencewith a woman's reading of any standard Western narrative. Trans-sexidentification through narrative provides a weak solace for womenwho are prevented from following their ambition in real life:"However, this Nature does not sit easily and shifts restlesslyin its borrowed transvestite clothes" (Mulvey 72).

     In "Desire in Narrative,"Teresa de Lauretis offers female spectators less conflicted pleasurethrough their dual relationship to standard quest narratives.While the masculine narrative is active, the hero's Oedipal journey,the corresponding feminine narrative involves waiting for thehero at the end of his journey. De Lauretis suggests thatpleasure from narrative is available for women in the double identificationwith the figure of narrative movement (male) and the figure ofnarrative closure (female). Since narrative closure requires bothfigures at once, it allows a resolvable closure of the femalespectator's bisexual identification that her double identificationwith gaze and image (as voyeur and object) does not.

     It might be thought that a femalespectator would find even greater pleasure when the gaze and narrativeis aligned with a female character, as occurs in "women'sfilms," like melodrama. However, Mulvey posits that whena woman becomes the central point of narrative, the narrativediscourse becomes one of "conflicting desires," or inFreudian terms, "an oscillation between 'passive' feminityand regressive 'masculinity'" (74). Instead of naturalizinga woman's assumption of an active (masculine) position, the resultsfor the female character in this position are seen as disastrous,reaffirming the "naturalness" of her passive (feminine)position: "Rather than dramatizing the success of masculineidentification, [the active heroine] brings out its sadness"(79). Sigourney Weaver’s persona demonstrates this problem.Despite her being the only actress with an action franchise, herother roles confirm as an unnatural woman, rather than as a positiverole model: Ripley is closer to the monster than to any humans;she becomes a monster-bride in Ghostbusters; in Copycat,she is the poster-girl for serial killers; and in Ice Storm,she is a coldly poisonous wife, mother, and lover.

     Luckily for female spectators(and the characters they watch), there have been better optionsthat critics have overlooked. Screwball comedy offers women lessconflicted and more pleasurable spectator positions than thosedescribed by Mulvey and De Lauretis, while presenting active femalecharacters who are neither punished, saddened, nor masculinizedby their success. In Screwball Comedy: A Genre of Madcap Romance,Wes D. Gehring describes the balance in these romantic comediesbetween an anti-heroic male and a dominant female. In screwballcomedies, the female character controls the action (often occupyinga superior social/financial position to the anti-hero), but preservesher femininity through her "screwball" affect. Throughthe course of the film, the anti-hero often regains (through thecapers initiated by the screwball heroine) his agency and/or manlinessthat he was lacking at the beginning of the story.

     Though the narrative and thegaze in a screwball comedy may attempt to follow traditional malepatterns, the screwball heroine continually subverts them. Thoughshe present herself as a prospective object of the male gaze,she rarely remains motionless or stops talking long enough toconform to the fully objectified position--in Mulvey's terms,the flow of the action cannot freeze to contemplate her eroticallybecause she won't sit still for it. The only time the heroineslows down is to direct her gaze, and the camera's, to contemplationof the anti-hero. Though her desire for the anti-hero generallybecomes evident early on, the anti-hero's awareness of the screwballheroine as the object of his desire is often blocked to almostthe end of the film. Similarly, the narrative may anticipate followingthe direction put forth by the anti-hero only to have the actionhijacked by the heroine in another direction entirely. In thisgenre it may be more appropriate to discuss a female masculinegaze and male masculine gaze, since both perspectives areactive, but not necessarily supportive of each other.

     Gehring cites Rosalind Russell'sautobiography as an example of the agency of the actresses whoregularly appeared in screwball comedy:

     Hawks] encouraged us [in His Girl Friday] and let us go ...once Cary [Grant] looked straight out of a scene and said to Hawks (about something I was trying), "Is she going to do that?" and Hawks left the moment in the picture--Cary's right there on film asking an unseen director about my plans.

     The fact that Hawks left in Grant'sappeal for aid demonstrates that the anti-heroes inability tocontrol the screwball heroine is a part of the genre–as isthe male star and director’s inability to tame the screwballactress. Perhaps not coincidentally, Gehring individually identifiesKatharine Hepburn and Carole Lombard, two of the defining actressesof this genre, as daughters of suffragettes/proto-feminists.

     Bringing Up Baby (HowardHawks, 1938) is considered a classic screwball text, that canalso be read as a heroic quest/action text. Grant plays DavidHuxley, a paleontologist who is trying to finish reconstructinga brontosaurus skeleton, marry his fiance, and secure a million-dollargift for his museum in one weekend. Not only does Susan consistentlyinterfere with David’s completion of his goals, she draftshim into helping her with a pet leopard, Baby. Susan’s activedesire for David, which leads her to constantly change his narrative,is revealed in the camera’s constant and luscious gaze directedat David/Grant.2

     The camera has a harder timegazing at Katharine Hepburn in this film. Susan first appearsas she interrupts David’s golf game with his potential benefactor,hijacking David’s putt and his car.3

She refuses to acknowledge David or his ownership claims (or the camera), driving away in his car with David on the running-board. The first real close-up that is presented of Susan is not until the next scene, when she is elegantly dressed--but seated at a bar, trying to catch olives in her mouth (a trick she has just learned from the bartender). The silliness again disrupts the gaze from capturing her as an object of desire. Though her actions might be read as masculine (playing golf, driving, doing bar tricks), her constant clumsiness "feminizes" her actions. Though she drives the action of the film, her (seeming) inability to maintain any consistent control of herself or others keeps her from becoming "too masculine," while maintaining a femininity and attractiveness markedly different than the traditional objectified female.

     The action/quest elements ofthe story are introduced when Susan and David take the pet leopardto her aunt’s farm in Connecticut: "Baby" escapes;David’s priceless bone is buried by the dog; and a viciouszoo leopard is also roaming the countryside. Though Susan provesthat she could have solved these misadventures on her own, sheplays the screwball to convince David that she needs him by herside. "Without me, Susan is helpless," he exclaims,just before she drags the wild leopard into the police station.David is given the chance to play the hero, as he drives the leopardinto a jail cell.

     As mentioned before, the screwballheroine generally ends with the upper hand. After the dust hasfallen from David's lost donation, dinosaur bone and fiance, Susancorners David in the museum with his brontosaurus skeleton. Althoughhe scrambles up a platform to avoid her, she climbs a ladder totalk to him, presenting him with the lost bone and the milliondollars. As she laments that he hates her (and her ladder beginsto wobble) David admits that he loves her--a moment that is interruptedby Susan's falling ladder and then the crumbling skeleton. David"saves" Susan, but she immediately takes over with herchattering--"Oh, David. Forgive me. You can. You still loveme. You do."--wrapping up the film's narrative. While inTeresa de Lauretis' discussion of patriarchal narrative the heroinewaits at the end of the hero's journey, the screwball heroinewill journey to claim her man.

     Building on the desire, strengthand agency of the female character in this genre, the screwballcomedy has served as a model to bring female protagonists intothe action genre: Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Siedelman,1983), Romancing the Stone (Robert Zemeckis, 1984), AmericanDreamer (Rick Rosenthal, 1984), and Innerspace (JoeDante, 1987). In her discussion of the first three comedies, MimiWhite focuses on their relation to the melodrama as well as toromance novels, rather than focusing on their use of comedy. WhileWhite acknowledges that the positioning of these narratives withinfantasy allows for greater ideological play, she is concernedthat the films’ use of fantasy may subvert them as depictionsof women's independence1 andagency. However, I believe their connection to writing providesa strong enough foundation for their agency that the charges offantasy become moot. Through their position as writers--from RosannaArquette’s private journal writing to Meg Ryan’s workas an investigative reporter--these women not only question andshape the narrative of their own lives, but also enhance theirprofessional position. As a way of introducing to mainstream cinemathe image of women as creative, courageous, and determined, thesehybrid romance/comedy/fantasy/action films made these "new"women palatable--and highly commercial.

     Like earlier screwball comedies,Romancing the Stone is a female-controlled narrative: thefilm even begins with romance novelist Joan Wilder's (KathleenTurner) voice-over narration of the ending of Angelina's Revenge,that is in turn told through Angelina's first person narration,creating a doubly female-controlled opening narrative. ThoughAngelina is dressed provocatively, the camera's focus is on whatshe sees and her desires. The novel ends with her achievementof her greatest desire, Jesse.

     The author/narrator Joan is revealedin tears, without make-up and in flannel, a figure resistant tothe desire of the male gaze (somehow this film manages to makeKathleen Turner look plain for the first hour). A poster of Jessewatches over Joan; the only man Joan finds worth desiring is thisone that she has created. Despite her professional success, her"screwiness" is suggested in this first scene: sinceshe is out of toilet paper and kleenex, she must blow her noseon the note reminding her to buy these items.

     Joan's humdrum reality is disruptedwhen she must take a treasure map to Columbia to ransom her sister--butthe kidnappers only temporarily manage to highjack Joan's masteryof narrative. The kidnapping introduces two key elements to thefilm: the melodrama of her sister’s danger justifies Joanmoving into an active role; and Joan’s masterful sister isrevealed as a whimpering fraud, dependent on the "softer"Joan.

     The formula for Romancingthe Stone most closely resembles the dynamics of the screwballclassic It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, 1934) in whichClaudette Colbert plays an heiress and Clark Gable plays a roughnewspaper reporter who helps Colbert and travels with her as shetries to evade her father. He starts out helping her out of self-interest,but somewhere along the road his concern for her becomes real.

     But since this is also an adventurefilm, Joan's bus strands her in the midst of the Columbian jungle,not at a Florida bus station. When the sinister General Zola threatensto shoot Joan to get the map, Jack (Michael Douglas) appears overthe hill, presenting the same silhouette as the poster of Jesse.The action freezes on this shadowy figure, before Jack draws hisrifle and drives Zola away. The bedraggled and shaken Joan mustpay Jack to escort her through the jungle to a phone--but shestill maintains enough control to bargain him down from $500 to$375.

     Though it initially seems thatJoan is totally dependent on Jack--she is woefully unpreparedfor walking through the jungle--she soon shows her worth and abilityto set the course of action. When they are attacked by Zola'ssoldiers, she accidentally finds a way across the ravine thatJack follows; when Jack tires, she takes over clearing a trailwith the machete; when they find a village of drug runners, Joanturns a dangerous drug lord into an ally. A fan of her books,Juan begs her to make him a character in her narrative.

     But before she becomes a trueaction heroine, Jack sees her as more of a screwball heroine,controlling the action and him through her misdeeds: "Didyou wake up this morning and say 'today, I am going to ruin aman's life?'" Joan’s opening clumsiness obscures herabilities from herself, Jack, and the audience: she takes thewrong bus; she distracts the bus driver, causing him to wreckinto Jack’s jeep; she has no practical clothes; and a mudslidecarries her down a mountain. The famous scene in which Joan andJack get caught in a mudslide is reminiscent of a (less dramatic)scene from Bringing Up Baby when David and Susan slidedown a small hill. Joan's introduction as a screwball heroineallows the audience and other characters to gradually adjust toher position as action heroine.

     For the majority of the film,Jack's attractiveness is displayed more prominently than Joan's.She initially resists seeing Jack as desirable, resists seeingthe obvious fact that Jack is the living embodiment of Jesse:all she sees is Jack's rudeness, that he's not "trustworthy."Only after he saves her from a poisonous snake does she reallylook at him, asking Jack to talk about himself. He tells his storydirectly to the camera, while she is off to the side gazing sleepilyat him. The scene ends with her asking what the "T"stands for in "Jack T. Colton." When he replies charminglyin full close-up, "Trustworthy," he presents himselfas her object of desire.

     Joan does not begin her duckling-into-swantransformation until after Jack sees Joan through the eyes ofJuan, a die-hard fan of hers, who gives Jack one of her novels.Her professional position is tied to her attractiveness as a woman,rather than presented as a detriment. Before this scene, Jackonly looked at a picture of a sailboat with desire, even addressingit as "honey." But after Juan helps them escape, Jacklooks up from reading Joan's novel to see her picking flowers:Joan's hair is flowing, her legs are exposed, and her face isradiant, resembling Angelina. Though she arrives at the eveningfiesta in a new outfit, his attire and dancing still displayshim as the to-be-looked-at: she seems awkward and her clotheshide her body, while he is suave, his clothes tight-fitting, andhis shirt almost completely unbuttoned. However his greater attractivenessand confidence are needed to balance her superior power and position,making him a worthy partner.

     After they make love, Joan agreesto take a more aggressive stance with the kidnappers, to findthe Stone before they surrender the map. Joan emerges as the morecompetent one in the treasure hunt and the rescue of her sister.Though Jack participates, she is responsible for their success:deciphering the map’s clues, suggesting a solution from hernovel, and driving the car into a wild river to evade Zola’smen. Later while Joan is battling Zola to save herself and hersister, Jack is trying to prevent a yellow-tailed alligator fromdisappearing with the treasure in his stomach. Though he releasesthe alligator to respond to Joan's cries for help, she actuallydefeats Zola before he arrives. However, it was necessary to thestory that he release the alligator to prove that he cared morefor Joan than the Stone. As he is about to disappear after thealligator, he tells her--"You're going to be all right, JoanWilder. You always were."--acknowledging the strength andability that she had before she ever met him.

     The Joan that is seen in NewYork (presenting her publisher with a novelized version of herColumbian adventures) is beautiful, radiant and confident--unlikethe nervous mouse at the start of the film. Also, unlike Susan,Joan is no longer a screwball heroine: she is fully aware of herdesires and her abilities. Her latest novel ends with Jack’scharacter surprising her at the airport--instead he surprisesher in New York. When she sees parked in front of her apartmentbuilding a sailboat and Jack, she climbs the ladder to him, bringinghim flowers (as with Susan’s ascent in Bringing Up Babythis is a "masculine" move, indicative of her activedesire). He tells her that he missed her so much that he evenread one of her books; she replies: "Then you know how theyall end," closing the narrative. As the final shot revealsthat the name of the boat is "Angelina," Joan's controlof this narrative and its ending is reinforced.

     The resolution of the film withJoan confident of her strength and beauty and Jack financiallysecure through the Stone is necessary for the characters to joinon equal footing. As she proved herself to him (and herself) throughthe action narrative, he must prove himself through the unseenfight with the alligator. But the focus of the film is about heragency, her adventure, her desire--not his.

     While Sigourney Weaver’smasculinized persona has proved problematic, Kathleen Turner frequentlyportrayed women who were loving wives or mother, despite consistentlyplaying women of strength, often in stereotypically male professions.Similarly, Meg Ryan, Holly Hunter, Geena Davis, Jamie Lee Curtis,and Helen Hunt have successfully moved from romantic comedy intoserious action roles without having to abandon feminine possibilities.Romance and comedy allows a female actor’s persona to bestrong without becoming emotionally frozen or deformed.

     Following these writer/fantasyfilms, other comedies featured active women in adventure/comedies,presenting characters in a wider range of professions, bringingin elements of others genres, and occasionally relegating romanceto a garnish. While Romancing the Stone focuses on claimingthe narrative, Adventures in Babysitting (Chris Columbus,1987) questions the primacy of the gaze and romance in a youngwoman’s discovery of her own agency. This hybrid film openslike a teen romance, only to push aside romance to the marginsof this adventure parody; Adventures builds on the foundationof Romancing the Stone, but offers a new step forward throughits independence from romance and exotic locales. Despite theirony-laden dialogue ("I’ll guard [Sara] with my life"--whichshe does), the respect and authority expressed toward the heroicbabysitter is meant to be sincere and deserved.

     Chris is first seen as a typicalteen romantic lead, primping for a date and lip-synching to thepassive-female ditty "And Then He Kissed Me."As she rushes down the stairs, she tells herself: "This isgoing to be the greatest night of my life." Alas, her boyfriendMike cancels the date and her best friend Brenda lectures herunsympathetically before abandoning Chris to babysit the Andersons’daughter Sara. Their adolescent son Brad has long worshiped Chrisfrom afar, and his best friend Darrell thinks she looks like thecurrent month’s Playboy centerfold. Prior to thisadventurous evening, Chris has been a compliant and willing objectof masculine gaze.

     The action is again promptedby the melodramatic pleas of the "independent" female:a hysterical Brenda is stranded at the downtown Chicago bus station.Chris can find no solution but to take the three kids with her.Babysitting is treated throughout the film as a professional responsibilitythat cannot be easily laid down once begun.

     Unlike screwball comedies oreven screwball/action comedies, Chris navigates the perilous journeyfrom the suburbs into the heart of the jungle (Chicago) withouta male partner. The kids all try to help, but they are ultimatelydependent on her courage and direction. Despite the absence ofthe anti-hero and a screwy femail, this film maintains the feelof a screwball comedy through the constant flow of extreme situations.As she successfully negotiates a freeway blowout, a domestic disturbance,a carjacking, a highwire escape, a gang standoff, and a frat party,Chris proves that she is more than a pretty face. Brad confessesthat he initially had a crush on her just because she was pretty;now that he understands that she is smart and "really cool,"he tells her that she deserves better than Mike, "a loserairhead." Those who mistake her for the Playboy centerfold,the ultimate objectified female, are portrayed as foolish andare corrected: "she doesn’t hold a candle to you."

     In the opening sequence, Chrisis purely visual, capable of only lip-synching or appearing onher boyfriend’s arm. Through the course of the evening, Chrisgains confidence in her own abilities and find the courage tospeak up for herself and her charges. When they end up on a nightclubstage in their flight from the gangsters, she is told, "noone leaves this stage until they sing the blues." Despiteher protests that she can’t sing, Chris finds her voice,ably singing her troubles in "Those Babysitting Blues."The band joins with her to proclaim that her work is "sohard." Male characters throughout the film affirm that babysittingis difficult and dangerous, and that Chris is doing a great job.She finds strength in her position. "No one fools with thebabysitter," she threatens, as she pulls the knife from Brad’stoe and holds off gang members.

     Chris learns that she can standon her own. Toward the end of the evening, they see her boyfriendMike out with another girl. Chris breaks up with him without hesitationor a great display, though Brad and Darrell can’t resistthe opportunity to tell him off and publicly humiliate him.

     The naturalness of Chris’active role is confirmed by Sara. This curly-haired blond girlworships the comic-book character Thor, wears her helmet constantly,and even steals her brother’s Clearasil to color picturesof her idol. (She has no sympathy for her brother’s fussingover his appearance). Though the youngest, she is brave and resourcefulthroughout the course of the evening, even crawling out a skyscraperwindow to escape a gangster. Sara is also responsible for overcominga major barrier: when the garage owner refuses to release theircar, she insists on believing in his goodness (he resembles Thor)and generously offers him her beloved helmet. Neither Sara norChris need to play the screwball to be strong and girlish.

     When the four have safely returnedto the suburbs--barely beating the parents home--the kids thankChris for giving them the "greatest night of their life."Chris tells them that it was also the greatest night in her life.Joan Wilder similarly tells Jack that he has been her "besttime." While Joan’s best time involved adventure andromance, Chris’s best time involved adventure and friendship,as well as the rejection of Mike and false romance, whom she originallythought would give her "her greatest night." The filmdoes end with the appearance of the nice college boy who helpedthem earlier–someone who respects Chris, and even Brad approvesof–but this promise of romance was not necessary for Chrisor the successful completion of the narrative. She has the courageto stand alone, as well as the courage to not lose herself orher agency in a new relationship.

     My purpose in discussing screwballcomedy is to show one area within classic Hollywood cinemawhere more complex representations of women and female spectatorpositions existed--and with Romancing the Stone and Adventuresin Babysitting to demonstrate how these possibilities forfemale pleasure have been built on and are continuing to be builton. The comedic and/romantic elements of Raising Arizona(Joel Coen, 1987), Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991),True Lies (James Cameron, 1994), Congo (Frank Marshall,1995) and Speed (Jan de Bont, 1994) reinforced the imageof the strong woman, a figure essential to the box office successof films like Twister (Jan de Bont, 1996), Titanic(James Cameron, 1997), Double Jeopardy(1999), and TheBone Collector (Philip Noyce, 1999).

     Robin Wood wrote that "worksare of especial interest when the defined particularities of anauteur interact with specific ideological tensions and when thefilm is fed from more than on generic source" (479). ThoughI am not here to defend the "auteur" status of any ofthese directors, it is safe to say that directors like RobertZemeckis, Chris Columbus, Joel Coen, and James Cameron have proventheir ability to create multivant yet highly popular films thatmanage to challenge previous notions of heroism, family, and gender.And an essential to their success has been the way that they haveblended previous generic formulas, previous familiar images, tocreate new formulas for an evolving society.

     Despite the best efforts of feminism,we still live in a patriarchal society. But as feminism has madeinroads in creating a less rigid version of patriarchy, so hasfeminist attitudes and feminist cinema worked to create less rigidrepresentations of women, their desires and their agency. My purposein this paper has not been to deny the misogynistic attitudesthat were reproduced in Classic Hollywood cinema but to revealsome images of women that were simultaneously present in thesefilms that produced resistant models and pleasures for the femalespectator. As there were strong women in America before feminism,there were strong representations of women before feminist cinema.More can be achieved if we recognize and build on the accomplishmentsof our complete history, rather than to build a resistance fromscratch.

Works Cited

  • Bell-Metereau, Rebecca. Hollywood Androgyny. 2nd ed. New York: Columbia UP, 1993.
  • De Lauretis, Teresa. "Desire in Narrative." Alice Doesn't: Feminism, Semiotics, Cinema. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1984. 103-57.
  • Gehring, Wes D. Screwball Comedy: A Genre of Madcap Romance. New York, Greenwood, 1986.
  • Kaplan, E. Ann. Women and Film: Both Sides of the Camera. New York: Methuen, 1983.
  • Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Feminism and Film Theory. Ed. Constance Penley. New York: Routledge, 1988. (first appeared in Screen, 1974)
  • ---. "Afterthoughts on 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema' inspired by Duel in the Sun." Feminism and Film Theory. Ed. Constance Penley. New York: Routledge, 1988.
  • White, Mimi. "Representing Romance: Reading/Writing/Fantasy and the 'Liberated' Heroine of Hollywood Films of the 1980s." Gender: Literary and Cinematic Representations. Ed.Jeanne Ruppert. Gainesville: UP Florida, 1989. 96-117.

Notes

  • 1. Gehring defines the anti-hero as an American humorous figure, who is urban, apolitical, childlike, with an abundance of leisure who is frustrated by society in general and women in particular.
  • 2. I discuss Bringing Up Baby and active female desire in greater detail in "The Glory of Cary Grant and Other Girlish Desires" in Images.
  • 3. Rebecca Bell-Metereau writes in Hollywood Androgyny: "Part of [Hepburn's] appeal resides in the fact that we see her (not a stand-in) exerting herself, tensing her muscles, and being active in a way that many movie heroines were not" (237).

 

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Elizabeth Abele (sounds like probably) has just moved to the New York City area, where she is editing her dissertation, an examination action films and domesticity. A Ph.D. candidate in English at Temple, her essay on Cary Grant was selected for Best American Movie Writing 1999 from St. Martin's Press.

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