The Women Movie
The Women Movie
The emotional movie The Women presented by Metro Goldwyn Mayer in 1939 is the story of a family and love. The plot shows the lives of several women and the diversity of their characters, some of them hyperbolic, the others are realistic. Presenting a variety of individuals the comedy-drama film can be a study of stereotype female characters and life situations.
Original opening credits of the movie emphasize the links between humans and animals and present the nature of each character from the very beginning. Sympathetic Mary and her daughter are matched with does while the scandalmongers are compared to a cat, a fox, and a cow. Hyperbolized humorous characters have some features of a monkey and a horse. The only predator in the drama is a man-stealing Crystal Allen.
The combination of a dramatic plot with several comical scenes is a mix of melodrama and comedy. The author linked most humorous scenes to the worst characters trying to make fun on stereotypes about women’s behavior. Every detail including the costumes emphasize the roles of every character in the movie. Clothes of Mary show her femininity. Crystal likes defiant and provocative dresses. The Countess wears a lot of accessories that makes her funny. The difference between the clothes of workers and servants and their masters is evident. The silhouette of Mary's clothes is fashionable and shows the upper-class of the owner. Another important component of the clothes is a hat that depicts the features of each of the characters and their mood throughout the picture. The clothes in the bright and the overwrought scene of Mary's talk to Crystal in a fitting-room show the dignity of each of them - the elegant queen dress of Mary and defiant choice of her opponent. The previous episode on a fashion show highlights the theatric positions of a woman as an actress in real life. The clothes of the models is a symbol of the life of upper-class women isolated from reality. That is why this episode is in colors in spite of black and white format of the whole movie.
The movie describes the lives of various interconnected women in realistic life situations. It can be a good example to study stereotype characters. The emotional scenes show the drama of family destruction.