Undoing Gender in Hitchcock's Vertigo

Undoing Gender in Hitchcock's Vertigo

In Laura Mulveys essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, she uses psychoanalytic theory to show how the unconscious desires of patriarchal society position women as the “bearers, not makers, of meaning”(Mulvey, 15). She maintains that in Alfred Hitchcock's film, Vertigo, this notion is echoed through his use of film form. However, by only focusing on the binaries of active/male passive/female gaze in the film, this inhibits her analysis from recognizing the larger social order that is constructing these normative ideas of gender. In Judith Butlers book, Undergoing Gender, she states, “Psychoanalysis can also serve as a critique of cultural adaption as well as a theory for understanding the ways in which sexuality fails to conform to the social norms by which it is regulated.”(Butler, 14) Through this lens, I hope to reveal that Mulveys gender binaries are more complex than she claims. I will illustrate this by expanding on Scotties development of masculinity through three scenes. Through these examples, I hope to bring to light how race, class and sexuality are essential contributors to the analysis of gender and it’s reductive notion of masculinity.

As a starting point, I would like to look at this film in relation to the context of what produced it, being the extremely hetero normative ideology that dominated America in the 1950’s. At that time, an individual’s primary goal in life was to marry and reproduce a beautiful nuclear family. Vertigo reflects a lot of those narrow gender roles if looked at in those terms. However, those roles are not by any means natural in the sense that they are biological. Today, that is the last thing that the majority of my generation wants to do. These gender roles are a product of a larger social construction with multiple variables. Butler states, “It is crucial to understand the workings of gender in global contexts, in transnational formations, not only to see what problems are posed for the term of “gender” but to combat false forms of universalism that service a tacit or explicit cultural imperialism.” (Butler, 9) Once we can get past these universal stereotypes in Vertigo, the gender of the male characters becomes much more complex. The film can be read as the progression of Scottie’s masculine identity building in the literal sense as the film progresses. However, by looking at the broader influences of these scenes, these one-dimensional progressions are always undermined by a larger construct- a series of misdirections.

For example, in the beginning of the film, there is a literal foreshadowing of Scotties masculinity development to come. However, I wouldn’t just look at this “low point” in the spectrum; there is also a sort of interdependence on feminine structures. As the scene opens up to an establishing shot of Scottie sitting, it zooms into him trying to balance the phallic object in his hand being his cane. He then drops the cane and screams in pain because of the structure of the corset. This perhaps an introduction to his current state of masculinity as being unstable and weak as well as very dependent on this effeminate structure of the corset. Later on in the scene, Scottie states this theory that if he can progressively get used to heights, then he’ll be able to get rid of his acrophobia. As he says this, he raises his cane in small increments hinging from his midsection thus resembling an erection as he projects his theory into the future. But when he tests his theory by standing on various stool heights, he suddenly sees a flashback of his accident and a diegenic sound begins to absorb the close-up of Scotties face. Then we see a high-angle shot of Midge from Scotties point of view and then another close up of Scotties face embodying a damsel in distress as he falls off the stool into Midge’s arms. Thus, Midge and the corset echo a sort of effeminate structure that becomes an integral element of safety and support for Scottie. This scene becomes an important foreshadowing moment not for the narrative progression of Scotties masculinity, but for the interdependence of the two binaries.

            Another example of Scottie’s masculine progression is when Scottie first meets with Ester and the class power dynamic between the two men is set in motion though body language, the environment and the camera angles. The environment is set with an establishing shot of the phallic cranes navigating the natural landscape behind the window where the men sit. As the camera moves inside, we see the room full of heavy mahogany furniture, large ship models and aggressively red carpet. The power relationship is then coded into the dialogue and camera shots. For example, Scotties first asks how Ester got into the ship building business. Ester simply states, “I married into it,” which doesn’t fit into the stereotypical American self-made man trope of the 1950’s. To be a man in America in the 1950s was all about the hardworking, war-supporting family man.  Ester then goes on to explain that he thinks this job is dull and really doesn’t need to be doing it, but feels the responsibility because his wife’s family is gone. It’s also important to note that this scene is shot from behind Scotties back with the emphasis on Ester. This foreshadows Ester’s ulterior motives in the conversation and Scottie’s blindness to that. Ester also states, “the things that spell San Francisco are dying fast.” This can be read as a very literal way of hinting to his intentions of fleeing

, because his ties to the city will soon die along with his wife.

Literal and metaphorical hierarchies are also established between the two men in this scene, reiterating their class differences through their coded interaction in the ultra-masculine room. For example, when they’re looking at a serene landscape painting in his office. Ester describes it in terms of “color, excitement, power and freedom,” reiterating his intentions through the coded dialogue. Also, when Ester brings up Scotties acrophobia and asks if he would like to sit down, Scottie insists that he will stand up and overtly declares that this is not a permanent disability. His tone of voice is unnecessarily loud and dominating while the man who really holds the power is soft and even-toned. He says, “ I just can’t climb stairs that are too steep.” And “I’m a retired detective and you’re in the ship building business.” These comparisons are perhaps in reference to the class hierarchies established between the two. We also see this hierarchy echoed visually when Ester goes to ask for a favor and stands on a step above Scottie, now visually higher than him in the camera frame. As their conversation progresses they both shuffle around the room touching all the furniture as perhaps an effort of claiming ground or trying to find a conformability that doesn’t quite exist in the overly masculine room. Thus, their masculine gender performance is being largely undermined by their class and power relationship here.

            In the end, Scottie reaches the literal “pinnacle” of his masculinity in the bell tower, as he comes to realize the fictional elements of these gender roles though recognizing Judy’s constructed identity. Scottie says, “You played his wife so well, Judy! He made you over, didn't he? Just as I've done. But better! Not just the hair and the clothes! the look! the manner! the words! Those beautiful phony trances!” This is a critical part where Scottie points out that Judy’s identity as Madeleine is entirely constructed by both of the leading male characters. This identity construction was used as a manipulation tool casting him, the real Madeleine, and even Judy as victims. He continues, “Oh, Judy!! When he had all her money, and the freedom and the power...  he ditched you? What a shame! But he knew he was safe. You couldn't talk. Didn't he give you anything?” This statement sort of circles back to what Ester said about the picturesque painting during their first meeting, full of “color, excitement, power and freedom.”

            This scene in the bell tower marks the point in the film where the idea of a woman’s role in film is totally subverted. In bell hooks essay, Oppositional Gaze, she mentions Burchell who examines “the intersection of race and gender in relation to the construction of the category “women” in film as object of the phallocentric gaze.”(hooks, 292) By acknowledging Madeleine’s identity as a social construction, Scottie points out this obsession with the female, white, blond film star as being a construction of the phallocentric gaze, thus debunking it through acknowledgment. Burchell further deconstructs the obsession that viewer had with white, blonde women film stars as a choice made to perpetuate this idea of white supremacy. Something Mulvey points out about this topic is this desire of the spectator to identify with the character—which is not always the case. She states, “ Black female spectators who refused to identify with White womanhood, who would not take on the phallocentric gaze of desire and possession, created a critical space where the binary opposition Mulvey posits of “women as image, man as bearer of the look” was continually deconstructed.”(Mulvey, 295) This deconstruction from the view of the Black Female spectator is another example of the importance of taking into consideration the larger surrounding structures of power and noticing who is being excluded.

By pointing out examples of the seen and unseen structures of power, we are able to dismantle the binaries of male/ female gender roles. I hope to bring to light the importance of doing this when discussing gender. Through these examples, I have illustrated how race, class and sexuality are important contributors to the analysis of gender and crucial to the transformation of reductive active/male passive/female gender norms.