I recently watched the film classic All About Eve for the umpteenth
time, and it got me to thinking about what has changed for women
since its 1950 release.
At the time, Bette Davis' career was in decline, a trend that was
happily reversed with the overwhelming success of her outstanding
work in the film. This turn of events is, of course, ironic given her
character, Margo Channing's central conflict: how does a woman
maintain her identity as such while pursuing a career in a man's
world? Who is she when she looks in the mirror, alone in her
dressing room after the day's tasks have been accomplished?
Channing, of course, has chosen a career (one of the few
available to women at the time) that has afforded her great
power and prestige, yet has left her uniquely vulnerable to the
realities of the passage of time. In the film, Davis' character
resolves this conflict not by fighting the prevailing values of the
times but by surrendering to them; she chooses to pursue a
relationship with her significant other, without which, she famously
states, no female can truly be a woman. It is not clear at film's end
whether she completely abandons her stage career, but it is not
difficult to see that it has now assumed a lesser role in her life. (In
one of several ironic plot twists, it is the sociopathic Eve, a person
possessing no recognizably human qualities, who supplants her as
the first lady of the stage.)
Despite the film's domination by strong female characters, its
underlying message seems to be that no matter how much
power women like Margo Channing get, they are still less than
whole without a man to roll over in bed and gaze adoringly at each
morning. As for types like Eve Harrington, a human being
completely lacking in humanity, those are the females that have
successful careers. There is no middle ground here, no balancing
act--one is either a career or a woman but never both.
It is startling to consider how little has really changed for women
in the 55 years since the release of All About Eve. In the movies,
as in popular culture in general, we are still cast aside once we hit
a certain age, made virtually invisible by a society ever more
obsessed with youth. Worse still, our culture continues to demand
that we face Margo's dilemma: that we choose between
relationships/marriage and career. It is, according to the powers
that be, an either/or proposition. Though we see women doing
everything from boxing to microsurgery on screen, we never
seem to see them grow old. In fact, as far as society is concerned
we don't age at all, we simply disappear (unless, of course, one
counts those ubiquitous ads for various geriatric medications).
And without much significant change in the socioeconomic value
placed upon homemaking/relationships/domesticity, we still seem
to be handed the career/woman roles and forced to choose. We
often attempt to do both--to be Superwoman--usually with
disastrous results. And should we have the temerity to assert
that there are, in fact, other alternatives, we are typically
either dismissed as "quirky" or ignored altogether.
Article comments
1 - Distorted Angel
Nicely written, Lisa. I think part of the problem lies in looking to the media for a definition of ourselves. We still see far too many 20-somethings and far too few 40- or 50-somethings on screen, but real life suggests that most of us are living pretty full lives nonetheless. The conflict between family and career is still with us (and likely will always be with us), but the good thing is that I think more men are sharing it with us nowadays. I think, too, that the career/family/self balance is more fluid nowadays - we focus on different things at different stages of our lives, which is undoubtedly more productive than trying to do it all at once. Having lived through all of this already in the '60s and '70s, I do find it disheartening that we as a society are still having this conversation.