Women in Detour

This week I was instructed to watch the 1945 film noir classic, Detour.  Although there's really only 4 prominent characters in this movie, this film has a different outlook on women than what is common in the 1940's.  All of the female roles in this movie (Vera and Sue) seemed to be rather in control of their destiny and very motivated to get what they wanted out of life.  Although Vera definitely had malicious intentions, she was very cunning up until the very moment of her death.  I feel as though this movie is an early representative of feminism in that the 40's were not a time where women were usually out doing whatever they fancied.  The fact that Sue left Al in New York to pursue her dreams in Hollywood, definitely puts her in a place of power over the male protagonist.  Vera also asserted her dominance over Al throughout most of the entire movie by threatening to turn him into the police if he didn't do exactly what she instructed him to do.  And although it eventually leads to her drunken demise, Vera was very clearly in a place of superiority over the other characters.  I'm not sure how common this portrayal of women is in other film noir movies, but Detour definitely puts the female in charge of basically every event that happens.

"Freaks" for Equality

I know that there's a lot of controversy following Tod Browning's 1932 cult classic "Freaks" over whether he was truly depicting the "freaks" as he sought to -- as equals -- or if he ended up portraying them as the monsters the audience believed them to be to begin with.  Personally, I definitely see this movie as an argument in defense of equality and not the latter.

For my class, there was another prompt that we could blog about for this film and that was the argument over whether this film is a melodrama or a horror film.  I think that the these arguments go hand in hand as I feel as though most people who will say that this movie was a melodrama will also argue that it defends equality.  Likewise, viewers who think that this movie is a horror film will likely see it as a "demonization of difference".  To me, it really all boils down to that second to last scene where the "freaks" go after Cleo and Hercules.  If you watch that scene and your sympathy switches to favor Cleo, then you probably view this movie as a horror film.  You see the "freaks" as monsters who are going after this damsel in distress and they mutilate her out of cruelty and without regret.  If you're like me however, you probably would classify this as a melodrama.

A melodrama is defined as representing a struggle against or within the patriarchy.  Cleo creates this struggle by attracting the attention of Hans and encouraging his affections even though he's already engaged to Frieda.  She does this as a joke at first (of course until she finds out about Hans' fortune), which just showcases her affinity for cruelty, especially towards the "freaks."  In a typical melodrama, the issue that a woman causes is usually "solved" by either marriage or death.  In "Freaks," the solution is, I'll admit, a lot more brutal.  But when the "freaks" go after Cleo, I don't see it as them being irrational.  SHE POISONED HANS.  She didn't just break one of their company's hearts... She actually and legitimately tried to murder him.  Because of her murderous intentions, the resulting actions of the "freaks" should be considered as a self defensive move as opposed to in cold blood.

But how cool is that super old wine bottle though?

Something that just dumbfounds me about the reception of this film in the early 1930s though is the fact that the Parent Teacher Association and other organizations tried to ban it because they thought it was "morally indignant."  That, if nothing else, proves why this movie stands much more for equality than anything else.  They weren't lobbying for the ban because they thought that the "freaks" were portrayed as monsters, they were lobbying for the band because the "freaks" were being portrayed at all.  They didn't want their children seeing a movie about the "scourge of society."  Simply the act of putting these people into a movie like this is showing that they deserve to be seen and have their stories heard.  As it even was shown in the opening of the film, these people were outcasts; basically thrown away by their own families.  And on top of all that, they get treated on a regular basis like Cleo treated them in the movie.  And because it was obvious that Cleo was the antagonist of the film, I think it's expressing that "normal" people can be just as bad as disfigured people were believed to be, and that all these "freaks" want is to be accepted.

Humor and Sherlock Jr.

After watching Buster Keaton's 1924 film, Sherlock Jr., I noticed how different (yet still effective) the humor was back in the silent film era compared to how it is now.  After researching more about movies in this time period, I found out that this type of comedy is called "Slapstick Humor," or comedy based on deliberately clumsy actions and humorously embarrassing events (https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=define:slapstick).  The most accurate word in this description being "deliberate."  While watching this film, I could just not get over how perfectly choreographed every small movement was, and how absolutely hilarious that made it!  At the part where Keaton is shadowing the antagonist throughout the town, I was just about crying at how hilariously perfect the actors' timing was.

In movies today, I honestly don't think that directors could get away with something as casually perfect as this kind of gag.  Although we still do all love to see people falling and breaking things, that hasn't changed over the course of time, this kind of humor is now displayed much more sloppily.  In more modern movies, when people fall it is followed with a trail of obscenities or at the very least just seems much more like a real person falling.  Another more modern use of humor is something being ridiculously overdone to the point where it's almost painful to watch.  Example: In the movie Hot Rod with Andy Samberg, Rod falls down the hill for about two minutes.





Although it's the same exact same thing for the entirety of the scene, I laugh the WHOLE TIME.  Obviously what people find humorous in general hasn't changed all that much, but I think what has changed is our perception of film.  Back in the twenties when slapstick was the primary humor medium in film, movies were still a huge breakthrough that were simply amazing to witness.  When your audience is completely awestruck that they can even see you when you aren't there, you use much more finesse in your approach.  Now that movies are something that we all take for granted and a screen is something that you see wherever you look, when it comes to humor we aren't really looking to be wowed anymore.  People seem to find a lot more humor in something relatable which means we find awkwardness funny.  When a clumsy person falls, we don't casually slip into a back flip and land straight on our asses; We try and catch ourselves we fail at doing so and we look like a big bumbling idiot, so a big bumbling idiot is who we want to see fall.