Mildred Pierce: The Death of the Independent Woman

Mildred Pierce

                In Mildred Pierce, Joan Crawford plays a newly single housewife trying to support her two children after her cheating husband walks out on her.  Her younger daughter, Kay, is sweet, loving, and supportive of her mother.  The older daughter, Veda, on the other hand, is spoiled, petty, and disrespectful towards her mother.  Mildred Pierce, it seems, bases most of her actions on the premise of gaining Veda’s affection.  Mildred gets a job as a waitress and begins to make pies in order to support her children and give Veda all the things she wants.  Slowly saves up enough money to open her own restaurant.  Even though she is now a successful businesswoman, Mildred is both rewarded and punished several times throughout the film for being an independent.  She is mostly punished by her bratty daughter, Veda.  Veda only wants the finer things in life and is only kind to her mother when she gets what she wants.  So blinded by a mother’s love and the desire for her daughter’s affection and well-being, Mildred does whatever Veda wants, including buying her nice clothes, a car for her birthday along with a lavish party, trips to the races, singing lessons, and more.  However, Veda continually chastises her mother for being a working woman.  When Veda finds her mother’s waitress uniform, Veda gives it to the maid (played by Butterfly McQueen) and complains that the pies her mother makes and the restaurant Mildred works in cause her to smell like “grease”, a remark her second husband, Monte Beragon, a now broke man bred in high society, also makes to Mildred.  Beragon is a sort of punishment to Mildred.  Even though he says he is in love with her, it seems fairly obvious that he is just after her for her money and his greed causes Mildred to eventually lose the restaurant and all she has worked for.   Veda, of course, falls in love with him and it is hinted that the two carry out an affair under Mildred’s nose until they are discovered on the eve of Veda’s birthday party, in which Veda kills Monte after he says he does not want to marry her.  In the most selfless of motherless acts, Mildred tries to get her daughter off by framing Wally Fay, her ex-husband Bert’s old partner.  However, the police figure out Veda’s guilt through her mother’s testimony and Veda’s own accidental confession.  This film sends the message that mothers can never be wholly independent women, since their children will always be dependent on their mothers.  Even though Mildred is given small, brief rewards, such as Veda’s brief and wavering affection, a new house and husband, and a great new business, the rewards are constantly overshadowed by the punishments.  From Kay’s death, Veda’s harsh words, and the loss of her business due to Monte and Veda’s greed, and the death of Monte and the loss of her daughter to the judicial system, the prospects of being a woman full of life and success are down casted.  In the end, Mildred appears to return the realm of the married housewife when she walks away with Bert, signaling that even though women may be able to make it alone for a short time, they are always going to be dependent on a man.     

(This is the trailer for the HBO adaption of Mildred Pierce, starring Kate Winslet and Evan Rachel Wood, with Far From Heaven's Todd Haynes as the director.  The premiere is set for March 27 at 9 PM.)

Adam's Rib

            The 1949 classic Adam’s Rib was a film that was ahead of its time.  Directed by George Cukor and starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn as Adam and Amanda Bonner.  The Bonners are a married pair of lawyers that tackled issues of women’s equality and raised the question of who really “wears the pants” in a relationship. 

The characters in Adam’s Rib play pivital roles in addressing public opinions on the sexes in society, and with mainstream players such as Tracy and Hepburn, the film is obviously set up to bring more liberal views into mainstream society and set up the path of American ideals for the 1950s.  Amanda Bonner is meant to be received as successful, especially for a woman.  As a lawyer alongside her husband, Adam, she is a fighter for women’s rights and equality.  Amanda can be seen as a role model for the women of the time, most of whom were longing to escape the “quiet concentration camp” lifestlye of the postwar suburban housewife.  After the boys came home from fighting and reclaimed the jobs their women had filled, many women lost the sense of independence and strength they had aquired during the war.  Seeing a woman like Amanda Bonner on the screen reassured them that they could perhaps have it all- a college education, a successful career, and a perfect marriage.  Even Adam Bonner can be seen as an open-minded man.  Even though he was on the side of the male defendant, Warren Attinger, during the trial, he is very supportive to his wife’s career and listens to and supports most of her ideas and opinions. 

Adam Bonner is not afraid to call his wife out on some of her hypocrisies on wanting equality when some of her opinions favor women and he holds an unbiased view of the law in regards to sex.  Today, the Bonner’s marriage would be considered ideal, though very common.  However, even though in most marriages today both spouses are employed, it is often portrayed as rare that the union can last without a divorce due to the strain employment can often put on marriages.  Their marriage can be viewed as more of a partnership than a traditional marriage where the man calls the shots, such as in the case of the Attingers.  In today’s society, a marriage such as the Attingers seems very ustable and abusive, though many turned a blind eye to such issues such as spousal abuse in the time this film was made.  The ideals and behaviors of the Attigenrs contratsts sharply with the Bonner’s, presnting the idea that socioeconomic status influences the view of the “new woman”.  Adam, though he disagrees with his wife and still occassionally demeans her (“You get cute when you get causey.”), he  still seems to accept his wife as more of an equal than Mr. Attinger treats his wife.  He is a crude blue-collar man, a cheat and a poor husband and father.  He trates Doris as property moreso than a companion.  However, with Amanda and Doris winning the trial, this film clearly shows the beginning of the wave of more liberal opinions towards the role of women in society.