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You begin to interest me—vaguely
I am aware that David Thomson in his 2000 BFI guide to Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep (1946) is pointing out the absurdity of the male fantasy that all Bogart's Marlowe has to do is walk into a bookstore and the clerk pulls down the shades and takes her glasses off, but I cannot agree with his view of Dorothy Malone's character at the end of their afternoon's tryst: "She does nothing to protest, to ask what now, what next, what about me? What did this mean? She has behaved like a placid whore, an available young bitch. And Marlowe has sought no more." First of all, I think that's a funny thing to say about a pair of people who bond not just over off-the-cuff sexual availability but nonexistent rare editions and people-watching. Second, it never occurred to me to think that the scene was incomplete without Malone's clerk protesting or pining. What next is she closes up the Acme Book Shop and goes home to whatever closer-to-real world she lives in, beyond the half-screwball hall of mirrors that is the plot of The Big Sleep. What about her is she got the same afternoon's fantasy as Marlowe: a smart, sexy stranger, no strings attached. "Placid" is a peculiar adjective to apply to a girl who makes the first move. "Bitch" is even more opaque to me: in heat? Indiscriminate? I don't think Thomson is trying to say she takes her hair down for all the customers; I certainly don't think Hawks implies it. If anything the scene is a testament to the irresistible virility of Humphrey Bogart, which is itself framed a little like a joke: that roll of thunder when he introduces himself as "a private dick on a case" is just a bit too on the nose. He self-consciously sucks in his forty-five-year-old waistline when she describes Geiger as "fattish." And yet women all over this movie throw themselves at him, from both Sternwood sisters to the taxi driver who cracks a racy joke that makes Marlowe blink. Doylistically, is it like a repeating kaleidoscope of the Hawksian woman throughout the script? Sure. But then one of the characteristics of that archetype is that she is not a mere object, not disposable. The girl at the Acme Book Shop watches Marlowe walk away through the steamy afternoon, but I don't think she's seeing the man that got away. She got him and good and now life, with or without a Ben-Hur 1860 third edition with a duplicated line on page 116, goes on.
tl;dr I did not buy Thomson's BFI guide to The Big Sleep because I hit that analysis while I was flicking through it and I thought if he was that wrong about Dorothy Malone, God knows what he thinks about Elisha Cook Jr. or Lauren Bacall. To disclose all biases on the part of the viewer, my major complaint about the scene is that she takes off her glasses at all.
tl;dr I did not buy Thomson's BFI guide to The Big Sleep because I hit that analysis while I was flicking through it and I thought if he was that wrong about Dorothy Malone, God knows what he thinks about Elisha Cook Jr. or Lauren Bacall. To disclose all biases on the part of the viewer, my major complaint about the scene is that she takes off her glasses at all.
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Like, I'm not debating the existence of the male gaze. Book by Raymond Chandler, screenplay by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett, and Jules Furthman, direction by Howard Hawks, Brackett is in the minority there and working within a particular tradition anyway. That's not at issue. But there is a difference between "the male gaze exists" and "NO FEMALE CHARACTER HAD AGENCY EVER UNTIL 2015."
(I am also thinking some slightly grim thoughts here about performative allyship. Hah.)
I'm going to need that unpacked.
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To go back to Whedon, it's like when Nat said "They sterilize you.
It's efficient. One less thing to worry about. The one thing that might matter more than a mission. Makes everything easier. Even killing. You still think you're the only monster on the team?" in AoU, and about half the audience went SAY FUCKING WHAT, and the other half was like "WTF are you pissed about? and Whedon had to clarify "She said she was a monster because she was an assassin. Being rendered infertile made her feel unnatural, made her feel cut off from the natural world. But it was her actions that defined her. Her murdery actions. That’s what 'monster' meant." And I'm willing to believe that's even what he thought he meant. But boy that was not the effect.
And I mean, Whedon bragged about that scene on the DVD commentary -- he said he thought he had unique insight into Natasha and it was one of the best things in the movie and he obviously felt proud of it. And he's still defending it. Obviously the backlash probably made him defensive, but it's pretty telling he apparently never once stopped to think "But what are all these women, whom I claim to admire and speak for, actually so pissed about?"
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There was actually a meme like that on Tumblr -- HA, I lit image Googled "Bucky can never have children monster" and HERE IT IS
original post: http://dellesayah.tumblr.com/post/118247057152/bucky-barnes-gets-picked-up-by-the-russians-his
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I know Thor was chosen for the other side of this conversation pointedly at random, but I can imagine his very nonplussed expression.
(Loki, of course, takes the opportunity to remind everyone that he got knocked up by a horse once and is way more of a monster than Bucky is ever going to be. Steve, from across the room: "LAUFEYJARSON, YOU'RE NOT HELPING.")
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HIS IMPREGNATOR? A HORSE
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Here; this is Bucky-related and has no pregnancy, horse-induced or otherwise.
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