Like taking candy from a Baby Doll
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Yesterday, CineVerse delved into a film that was a powderkeg of controversy back in 1956: Baby Doll, directed by Elia Kazan. The movie was rife with pschological subtexts, symbols and themes. Here's a recap of our group discussion:
HOW
WOULD THIS FILM HAVE BEEN CONTROVERSIAL FOR ITS TIME?
· It was
condemned by the Legion of Decency, yet also approved by the production code
administration (PCA; Hollywood censors).
· It was given a
provocative marketing campaign with a salacious poster and trailer.
· Usually, women
of loose morals and characters who violate moral codes of society have to be
punished by the end of the film—the only person punished at the conclusion of
Baby Doll is Archie, not his wife.
· The film
somewhat explicitly suggests female desire/arousal and female sexual fulfillment:
she says she’s “ticklish,” which is code for sexually aroused; consider how
Silva plays footsy on her stomach, suggesting genital stimulation.
· She and Silva
sleep in a crib, insinuating a “robbing of the cradle” and taboo sexuality.
· A sexually free
woman and sensual female would have been deemed a threat to the patriarchal
society of the 1950s.
· Baby Doll
represents a new kind of woman for 1950s America and Hollywood movies: a woman
who refuses to sexually satisfy her husband and be his cook/maid, and a female
who prioritizes her own sexual gratification over her husband’s.
· The film
exposes the double standard prevalent in pre-1960s Hollywood films: when
married characters in these films cheated, it usually wasn’t considered a big
deal; it was more of a casual fling (consider The Seven-Year Itch). Yet, when a
wife cheated, it was a serious offense unless her husband was a murdering
psychopath or a scumbag deserving of punishment; in these cases, adultery by
the wife can be considered justified.
· Ultimately, audiences
and religious types would have found the following points, quoted from Michele
Meek’s outstanding essay on this film (visit http://www.tennesseewilliamsstudies.org/journal/work.php?ID=109),
most controversial about Baby Doll:
· “What offended
audiences was not merely the portrayal of an affair but the depiction of a
woman’s sexual arousal.”
· “Baby Doll
challenges its audience with characters who are neither purely good nor
blatantly evil. Author and director “were deliberately flouting the
time-honored concept of providing compensating moral value to balance the
material that was questionable in code terms” (Palmer and Bray 142). Such
ambiguity muddies the morality of the story: without knowing who is good or
evil, there is no way for the audience to identify if or how “good” wins in the
end.”
· “Williams does
not show her ‘falling in love’ in any conventional sense” This lack of “love”
not only makes moral restitution in the film’s conclusion impossible but,
perhaps more significantly, also presents female sexual desire as independent
of love.”
· “It seems the
film’s implicit challenge of the domesticated woman’s role and its explicit
portrayal of female sexual desire presented an antiestablishmentarian
perspective, and it was this that provoked the greatest fury. Baby Doll was
released at an important juncture in American culture. Superficially, marriage
and motherhood were considered “the only genuinely valued activities” for
women, “every woman’s sole destiny”. A sensual woman was seen a threat to the
sanctity of the nuclear family. In Hollywood films, there was no indication
that women could simultaneously be sensual, successful and respectable.”
· “The film’s
depiction of the voyeur-husband who must peep on his own wife identifies the
audience with the inadequate ogler and, as such, emasculates the gaze of the
viewer as well. The subsequent disruption of Archie’s impotent gaping by his
female object sets a satiric tone for the film, mocks the audience’s peeking
into their lives, and portends the larger theme regarding women’s roles
addressed in the film.”
HOW
DID BABY DOLL GET APPROVED BY THE CENSORS YET BANNED BY THE LEGION OF DECENCY?
· Keep in mind
that the PCA (film censors) required “poetic justice” by the end of the film
for characters who commit immoral acts.
· Kazan convinced
censors, however, that a sexual infidelity never occurs in the film, which
carefully covers its tracks and never really shows any sexual activity
onscreen. However, what is suggested on- and offscreen makes it fairly clear to
audiences that Baby Doll and Silva have sex.
WHAT’S
THE PROOF THEY ARE ENGAGING IN SEXUAL ACTIVITY?
· We see Silva’s
hands run across her body, but the hands fall out of frame before they would
presumably reach her legs/private areas.
· Silva tickles
her with his foot, simulating genital foreplay.
· They retire to
her crib for a nap; the nap isn’t shown in full, but she says her “daddy would
turn over in his grave”.
· After they
awaken, Silva remarks that she is different, “grown up suddenly,” and she says
she feels “cool and rested for the first time in my life.” The implication is
that she has been sexually awakened and liberated; she has achieved orgasm and
consummated the earlier teasing.
WHAT’S
IRONIC ABOUT BABY DOLL?
· It’s not
overtly sexually graphic in what we’re actually shown.
· She’s not even
a minor or “jailbait.”
· Silva is more
interested in revenge than sex.
· We don’t know
what’s going to happen “the next day”. Baby Doll’s closing quote is, there’s “nothing
to do but wait for tomorrow and see if we’re remembered or forgotten.” In other
words, her future is wide open, but now that she is a sexually liberated
female, how will she be viewed by men in society? There’s no certainty that she
will end up in a relationship with Silva.
WHAT
DOES ARCHIE’S HOUSE REPRESENT?
· It stands as a
symbol for Baby Doll’s psychological, sexual and physical development. Most of
the rooms are empty because she hasn’t been “filled up yet” as a sexually and
intellectually satisfied woman.
· The one room
that is filled is her bedroom, with its crib, toys and children’s phonograph,
symbolizing her arrested state of development, immaturity, naïve nature and
relative innocence.
· The barren,
fragile attic could represent her feeble, uneducated mind, which needs to be
reinforced/bolstered by knowledge and experience.
OTHER
FILMS BY ELIA KAZAN
· A Tree Grows in
Brooklyn
- A
Streetcar Named Desire
- Viva
Zapata!
- On the
Waterfront
- A Face in
the Crowd
- East of
Eden
- Splendor in the Grass
- Gentleman’s Agreement