Gender and positions of power in Psycho, Vertigo and Rebecca

Gender and positions of power in Psycho, Vertigo and Rebecca Film directors particularly male ones, from Sam Peckinpah to Lars von Trier have often been defended by critics against claims that their films are misogynistic and sexually pernicious. Speaking on behalf of such directors in relation to Vertigo for instance, Erich Kuersten suggests there is a difference between exploring issues of misogyny and actually being misogynist, noting that Alfred Hitchcock s 1958 thriller does the former. 1 Hitchcock himself is also surely the director most associated with the objectification of women. As a pioneer of the use of the camera to mimic a person s gaze a technique most acutely utilised in Rear Window partnered with his somewhat sadistic relationship with certain female stars, it is easy to form an argument for his use of voyeurism as a dirty, powerful masculine tool. Like Antichrist (von Trier, 2009) or Straw Dogs (Peckinpah, 1971) however, gender constructs in Hitchcock s films are often more subverting than they are indulgent. This essay will argue against the claim that women in Hitchcock s films are wholly submissive, suggesting instead that they often possess more power over their male counterparts. His constructions of both female and male characters serve to explore the complicated issues of gender roles and misogyny in cinema, as shall be seen in relation to Psycho, Vertigo and Rebecca. The foundations for gender-related Hitchcock criticism were laid by feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey in her 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, in which she specifically refers to several Hitchcock films to support her argument. Influenced by the research of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan, Mulvey aligns psychoanalytic, feminist and film theory to confront the objectification of the woman 1 Erich Kuersten, Antichrist s Cine-Chthonic Relations, Bright Lights Film Journal, 66 (2009) <http:// brightlightsfilm.com/antichrists-cine-chthonic-relations/#.u2prbvldwsq> [accessed 7 May 2014] (para. 1 of 10). 1

by the male spectator. That is, she suggests through Freud that the woman is only existent when in contrast to the male penis: Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other [ ] tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning. 2 The objectification of women can be linked to film spectatorship and the use of the camera to determine audience identification. Mulvey asserts that the woman is subjected to the powerful, controlling gaze of the male protagonist. The man, who is the projection of the audience s voyeuristic phantasies, is able to exploit the events of the film. Referring to Lacan s mirror stage, Mulvey argues that the male protagonist more complete, more perfect than he experiences his own body is more in control of the desires of the male viewer, just like the child s reflection in the mirror at a young age is seemingly more in control of motor functions. He is an idealised projection of the male self. The camera moves in relation to the male star and he is able to perform freely on the stage as he wishes, controlling the cinematic space. The female is dressed up for erotic impact and merely represents a distraction or love interest for him: The man controls the film phantasy and also emerges as the representative of power. 3 Mulvey s spelling of phantasy of course refers to the phallus, both the signification of dominance often shown through the signifying male penis, though for Lacan the male penis is only ever a symbol and of an insatiable desire. Moreover, while it holds connotations of power, it should be stated 2 Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Screen, 16.3 (1975), 6-18 http://imlportfolio.usc.edu/ctcs505/mulveyvisualpleasurenarrativecinema.pdf [Accessed 23 April 2014] (p. 6). 3 Ibid., pp. 7-11. 2

that a constant threat of castration burdens the phallus: [the woman] first symbolises the castration threat by her real absence of a penis. 4 Referring to Rear Window, Marnie and Vertigo, Mulvey explains the importance of the look in the work of Hitchcock. His heroes are exemplary of the symbolic order and the law, Mulvey says; be it a policeman (Scottie in Vertigo) or a rich, influential figure (Mark Rutland in Marnie, or Maxim de Winter in Rebecca). 5 These male characters are placed within the realms of the law the order so as to have the power to deal with the outsider, the female outlaw, though she ultimately serves as the siren who leads the man to danger through her erotic prowess. 6 A central problem with this essay is evidenced by Mulvey s own sweeping statement about Hitchcock s films to suggest all of his leading males fall into this generalisation is not true. It is fair to place Mark Rutland and Scottie in the realms of the Symbolic, even L.B. Jeffries (Rear Window) to a lesser extent (he does not apparently represent power or order and is driven more by a boisterous curiosity than an erotic fantasy), however what Mulvey ignores is that there are numerous examples of more nefarious or imperfect male characters that do not fall under her paradigm: Uncle Charlie, though charming, is Shadow of a Doubt s villain; Richard Blaney (Frenzy) is a rather unloving and volatile ex-husband; and Norman Bates is a psychotic murderer. Each is a viable example of a male character that stands outside of Lacan s Symbolic order, though all three conveniently elude Mulvey s essay. Thus, it is important to note that, while clearly applicable to a large number of films, her theory of spectatorship and the male gaze is not always adequate. 4 Keith Reader, The Abject Object: Avatars of the Phallus in Contemporary French Theory, Literature and Film (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2006), pp. 17-19. 5 Mulvey, p. 13. 6 Charles Shepherdson, Lacan and the Limits of Language (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008), p. 13. 3

Psycho itself does not have an obviously dominant male character: Norman would appear symbolic of this supreme role, but his own Fig. 1 femininity and commitment to Mrs. Bates s matriarchy as we shall see suggest otherwise; Arbogast is not central or significant enough to the plot or to the audience through identification, appearing briefly in the film s second act; and Sam only appears intermittently throughout, serving more as a link to the identifiable Marion. 7 In fact, Norman and Sam actually cancel each other s screen presence out. The two meet when Lila and Sam book their room in the Bates Motel. Norman stands opposite Sam, looking back at him, and Hitchcock places the camera almost on the office counter, giving the impression that the two men are looking back at their own reflection. They are equally as powerless in this matriarchal film, their interchangeability represented by the actual mirror on the wall in the background as well as Hitchcock s visual representation of their failed attempts to control the frame (fig. 1). This scene sits in stark contrast to a similar one at the beginning of Vertigo; Scottie visits Gavin Elster s shipbuilding office, except here it is clear who is in control of who through James Stewart and Tom Helmore s positions on the stage. In fact, for much of the first third of Psycho, Hitchcock does not give us many options for identification aside from Marion. For him, making the audience identify with an innocent character being wrongly accused of something provides a greater sense of danger, and while Marion is not entirely innocent, Hitchcock positions us in such a 7 Robin Wood, Hitchcock s Films Revisited, rev. edn (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 144-306 (pp. 305-306). 4

way that we feel sympathy for her. 8 For Robin Wood, the loathsome Mr. Cassidy minimises our moral opposition to the notion of stealing $40,000. We are positioned on the side of Marion as he flirts with her. Hitchcock continues to create scenarios where we empathise with Marion right up until the point where she is murdered. There are certainly moments on the drive to the Bates Motel where our identification with Marion is strengthened: when she is seen by her boss as she escapes with Mr. Cassidy s money we feel her anguish; Bernard Herrmann s music accompanies her actions, such as when she is preparing the money to pay for her new car in the toilet; and Janet Leigh s long look into the camera as we hear voices in her head. 9 This audience identification with the female protagonist completely subverts Mulvey s assertions of male-dominated spectatorship. As mentioned above, there is almost no sign of a male nemesis to Marion s gaze until she reaches the motel. We side with her for the first forty minutes of Psycho, but Hitchcock soon takes this subversion to deeper levels. Throughout the film Mrs. Bates crops up incrementally either through supposed sightings or mentions in characters dialogue. Though she does not reveal herself until one of the film s climactic scenes in the fruit cellar, Norman s mother clearly controls nearly all of the events in Psycho. As Norman spies on and subsequently murders Marion, he appears to steal our identification away from her, supporting Mulvey s claim of a male-dominated gaze. Questionable, however, is how masculine Norman s gaze actually is; not only is he psychologically possessed by his deceased mother, but the whole film seems to be too. Influenced by writers such as Edgar Allan Poe and E. T. A. Hoffman, whose works explored the psychology and split 8 François Truffaut, Hitchcock, rev. edn (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1986), p. 48. 9 Wood, pp. 144-145. 5

personality of their characters, Hitchcock incorporates various gothic horror motifs into Psycho, most notably that of duality. A study by Otto Rank suggests that a person and their doppelgänger share a physical resemblance; however in Hitchcock s films this is often not true. For Rank, the doubles are often instead linked psychologically, with one carrying out the repressed desires of the other. 10 Mrs. Bates, then, is Norman s doppelgänger, carrying out heinous acts that he cannot do himself. However, Norman is never in control of his mother s actions, rather she seems to completely control him. Similarly to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mrs. Bates is a suppressed side of Norman s character, though unlike Hyde who is the completely rampant id figure of Jekyll, as Michael Walker describes him mother is rather an extension of Norman; a sort of superego. For Walker, the double ends up completely embodying its subject: At the end of Psycho, Norman [ ] has been completely taken over by his double, and although this does not lead to his actual death, as with Dr. Jekyll, it results in a living death. Throughout the whole film Norman s transformation process has been represented through Mrs. Bates s murders; by the end of the film she is entirely in control of him and has succeeded in killing off any of her son s remaining characteristics. 11 Saul Bass, graphic designer for Psycho, drew out concept art for the film s final scene featuring Norman in his cell. Joseph Stefano s script describes Bass s vision: The walls are white and plain. There is no window. There is no furniture except the straight-back chair in which Norman sits, in 10 Michael Walker, Hitchcock s Motifs (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005), 137-152 (pp. 146-147). 11 Ibid., p. 150. 6

the center of the room. The room has a quality of no-whereness, of calm separation from the world. 12 The no-whereness that Stefano speaks of is evidenced in Bass s storyboard of the scene. A painting by James Abbott McNeill Whistler, entitled Whistler s Mother, depicts an old lady sitting in a chair against a blank wall, under a picture frame, similar to that of Norman in his cell (fig. 2). Bass initially set up the final shot of Norman to look identical to this motherly painting, drawing him sat under a vent to substitute for the picture frame; however Hitchcock wanted to eliminate any direct visual link to the painting. The matriarchal connotations of Whistler s painting are clearly defined in Norman s final scene: the ghostly pose of the painting s mother figure is almost exactly copied by Anthony Perkins in the film, his hand on his lap as he stares blankly ahead; the blanket he cowers in symbolises masculinity Fig. 2 lost; and his now-fixed impersonation of Mrs. Bates represents her success in sabotaging Norman s identity. 13 Much like Poe s The Tell- Tale Heart, the deceased corpse of the victim has come back to haunt and conquer the murderer; in Psycho s case however, the gender subtexts are the most significant aspect. Norman s gaze has never been a particularly masculine one. By the film s end it has been truly deconstructed by the alive and cackling presence of Mrs. Bates, 12 Robert Bloch and Joseph Stefano, Psycho Script, The Internet Movie Script Database (2005) <http:// www.imsdb.com/scripts/psycho.html> [accessed 11 May 2014]. 13 Stephen Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho (London: Marion Boyers Publishers, 1990), p. 101. 7

brought to life by a swinging light bulb illuminating her corpse s deep, black eyes; the same all-seeing eyes foreshadowed by the policeman s aviators earlier in the film. In Vertigo, Hitchcock takes an antithetical approach to show the subversion of gender constructs by the female. For much of the film it is true that Scottie s subjective camera dominates, contrary to Marion s subjective camera in most of Psycho. Up until the flashback sequence at the beginning of the third act, we witness everything that he does: the camera moves in time with his walking through the graveyard as he follows Madeleine, and we are situated behind the windscreen of his car as he drives around San Francisco, to provide a couple of examples: the narrative is woven around what Scottie sees or fails to see, suggests Mulvey. 14 She argues that the flashback sequence shifts audience identification from Scottie to Judy for the remainder of the film. What the flashback actually represents however is, as Tania Modleski describes it, a painful split for the audience between Scottie and Judy for the remainder of the film. We are no longer identifying with Vertigo on the side of Scottie true but we are neither identifying with Judy nor adopting any kind of female gaze. Hitchcock instead attempts to diminish the power of the masculine gaze. We are placed as a third party observer waiting to see Scottie s reaction to what we already know. The male gaze in Vertigo along with Psycho and Rebecca is deconstructed as much as it is constructed. This fascination with the deconstruction of the male reveals a fascination with femininity that throws masculine identity into question and crisis. This fascination opens a space for the female spectator. 15 The question posed by Mulvey of Hitchcock s apathy towards his female characters is, then, turned on the 14 Mulvey, p. 14. 15 Tania Modleski, The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory, 2 nd edn (New York: Routledge, 2005), 1-108 (p. 89). 8

men of his films. They are not the dominant, immaculate spectators that she would have us believe. Nevertheless, for the masculine identity to be deconstructed it must first be constructed. Hitchcock does this for much of Vertigo, but perhaps most notably in the scenes involving Midge and Scottie. After a brief prologue involving a chase, we see James Stewart in the comfort and normality of Midge s apartment a friend who we soon understand feels much more towards him than he does towards her. Midge appears to be an underwear designer; we see her sketching a new brassiere which, she claims, was designed by an engineer on the peninsula and works on the principle of the cantilever bridge. There is an apparent link here between high landmarks which dominate Vertigo and Scottie s loss of masculinity through his acrophobia (we see him drop his walking stick and cry out in pain before complaining about his corset at the beginning of this scene). Various low angle shots of Scottie standing beneath a cathedral or church as he follows Madeleine around San Francisco ensue shortly after, again accentuating his Fig. 3 powerlessness over heights, though the landmark perhaps most invading throughout the film is the Golden Gate Bridge. Not only does it cast a shadow over Madeleine jumping into the bay later in the film, but it also appears in the background when Scottie drops Midge off home after they visit the book store (fig. 3). Through this, Hitchcock manages to link Midge s brassiere sketches, Scottie s acrophobia, and tall buildings specifically the Golden Gate Bridge to deconstruct the male order. Though not built on a cantilever design, it is difficult to doubt the 9

significance of the famous San Francisco landmark; Midge s sketch of the maleconstructed brassiere a symbol of femininity is an allegory for femininity as a literal male construct. 16 In a psychoanalytic context, this feminine construct by the male stems from the threat of castration that the woman poses. Mulvey, again, picks up on this in her essay, stating, She first symbolises the castration threat by her real absence of a penis. In Vertigo, Psycho and Rebecca, however, this castration threat is not only evident but actually diminishes the power of the films men. 17 In contrast to Mulvey s assertions, Hitchcock reveals the male characters nothingness through the vortex that is the powerful, sometimes omnipotent, woman. The revelation - through Eve s interrogation in North by Northwest that the O in Roger O. Thornhill means nothing is echoed here in Vertigo; Midge calls Scottie Johnny-O, though his identity is even more unstable than that. 18 Speaking to Madeleine for the first time, Scottie establishes his various aliases: Old friends call me John, acquaintances call me Scottie. Madeleine claims that John Ferguson is a good, strong name, but his identity is really quite the opposite. As the audience we tend to settle on Scottie, but his identity as a masculine figure wavers every time he is referred to as Johnny-O, John or even, at one point, Mr. Ferguson. Attention should also be paid to the theme of resurrection in Vertigo: a motif often attributed to Hitchcock. As we saw with Psycho and Mrs. Bates, the seemingly supernatural restoration of a deceased woman is evidenced by Madeleine and Judy s presence in the film; Madeleine later recreated through Judy physically resembles the deceased Carlotta Valdes of the painting in the gallery. Often, though, we 16 Ibid., p. 92. 17 Mulvey, p. 6. 18 Modleski, p. 93. 10

experience Scottie s inability to control the female characters, particularly Madeleine. He is unable to hold her as the object of his gaze, further deconstructing his masculinity, but also rendering Vertigo s centre of identification problematic. As he initially begins to follow her through San Francisco, she leads him to a flower show where she buys a bouquet similar to Carlotta s. Scottie watches from behind a door; as a kind of Peeping Tom, he is presumably objectifying Madeleine as Mulvey suggests men do in Hitchcock s films. We see her from Scottie s perspective through the open door as she chooses her flowers and begins to walk towards the camera. The subsequent shot is shocking however; rather than a close-up shot of Scottie s face one that would distinguish him as the possessor of the dominant gaze we instead get a close-up of the whole door. The mirror on the other side reflects Madeleine s image back at us, but what is significant is that she commands the frame as Scottie continues to cower in the shadows (fig. 4). In Freudian terms, what Scottie sees here is not some sexual other but an example of the uncanny. Hitchcock constantly reminds us of the woman s similarities to the male in Vertigo, though no more apparently than in this scene. Scottie sees his double, or a ghost, in Madeleine; the reappearance of what Fig. 4 one thought had been overcome or lost forever, suggests Sarah Koffman. For Scottie, his likeness to Madeleine through his love for her, represented by the mirror as it was between Norman and Sam, is intolerable to contemplate intolerable because this resemblance throws into question his own fullness of being. Above it was established that Scottie s very identity is not grounded because of his 11

various aliases. Similarly, here his very masculinity is once more wavered by his inability to control the woman he has been sent to protect. Scottie will frequently be thrust into a mirroring identification with Madeleine, but not only does this deconstruct his gaze, it also as has been stated makes identifying solely with him problematic. Woman thus becomes the ultimate point of identification for all of the film s spectators, claims Modleski; we identify with Scottie identifying with Madeleine who, consequently, is identifying with Carlotta Valdes. 19 The fallacy of gender constructs is also contradicted in Rebecca. This film is interesting, though, in that it almost fits in to the claims of Mulvey s essay. Unlike Vertigo, we see most of Hitchcock s first Hollywood film through the eyes of Mrs. de Winter (Joan Fontaine) as she strives to become the perfect object of Maxim s (Laurence Olivier) gaze. Raymond Durgnat observes however that Rebecca is a sort of oedipal drama, one in which the heroine, Mrs. De Winter, attempts to overcome the powerful mother figure in order to truly belong to Maxim, the patriarchal figure: In Freudian terms, [Rebecca is] The Mother as triumphant rival. 20 The matriarchy of Rebecca is channelled through both Mrs. Danvers and the titular ex-wife of Maxim, representing a kind of love rival for the heroine in much the same way that Sam s partner challenges Marion in Psycho, or Carlotta/Madeleine challenge Scottie in Vertigo; both protagonists must overcome a dominant mother figure to achieve what they want. By the end of the film then we witness the various female characters escape the control of Maxim de Winter, but this very control is simultaneously thrown into doubt by Rebecca herself. 19 Modleski, pp. 94-95. 20 Raymond Durgnat, A Long Hard Look at Psycho (Basingstoke: British Film Institute Publishing, 2002), p. 30. 12

As has already been mentioned, Manderley signifies a kind of oedipal battleground in Rebecca as Mrs. de Winter attempts to succumb to both Maxim s objectifying gaze and the wants of the motherly Mrs. Danvers. We are constantly reminded of the brilliance of Rebecca and the insignificance of the new Mrs. de Winter; an R is embroidered into various napkins and pillowcases throughout the estate, and the Alice in Wonderland evocations in Manderley s dwarfing halls and shoulder-height door knobs twinned with her clumsiness give Joan Fontaine s character a child-like demeanour (fig. 5). This is accentuated by Maxim himself who says you ought to have married a boy, someone of your own Fig. 5 age. As he struggles to come to terms with not being able to control his new wife, Mrs. Danvers a physical incarnation of the spirit-like Rebecca succeeds in doing so. The more competent and domineering characteristics of Mrs. Danvers terrify the daughterly Mrs. de Winter who obeys her mother at every turn. 21 In a poignant scene where Mrs. de Winter explores Rebecca s room, she allows herself to be Mrs. Danvers doll: she is made to touch Rebecca s clothes and allows her hair to be brushed in much the same way as the old Mrs. de Winter s would have been. Up until this point it would be fair to say that Mrs. Danvers is attempting to diminish the new Mrs. de Winter s identity; to make her feel her insignificance in the face of the vastly superior Rebecca. What soon becomes apparent however is that Mrs. Danvers is actually attempting to recreate Rebecca through the new Mrs. de 21 Modleski, p. 45. 13

Winter, much in the same way Scottie attempts to recreate the deceased Madeleine through Judy. When it is suggested that she dress up like a lady in a portrait above the main staircase to impress Maxim, for example, Mrs. de Winter does so obediently. Of course, he is horrified by the dress that we are led to believe Rebecca has previously worn, and it becomes apparent that Mrs. de Winter is unable to achieve her two aims simultaneously: she cannot become the object of Maxim s gaze and impress her mother figure Mrs. Danvers at the same time. 22 More importantly, this scene represents Mrs. de Winter s move away from Fig. 6 Maxim s control into that of Rebecca. As she descends the stairs dressed as Maxim s late wife, Hitchcock positions us in the perspective of Joan Fontaine: we see Maxim and his guests backs turned to us as she steps down, and subsequent cuts back to Mrs. de Winter s face to emphasise this. When Maxim becomes horrified at Rebecca reappearing in front of him, we feel the disappointment that she does. Not only this, it is clear that the identity of the new Mrs. de Winter is being slowly annihilated by the motherly Rebecca. She has begun to fully articulate herself on the blank canvas that the heroine represents (fig. 6). 23 By embodying Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca also takes control of her subjective camera, thus enabling her to determine our the audience s own gaze. In staggering 22 Ibid., p. 49. 23 Ibid., p. 47. 14

contrast to Mulvey s essay, Rebecca effectively jumps from being the object of the gaze to being the one who gazes. This is perhaps most clear in the scene in the beach house, in which Maxim explains the true fate of his ex-wife. Geographically, the camera is positioned from the point of view of our heroine, Mrs. de Winter, as Maxim remembers how Rebecca, that night, lay on the divan: suddenly she got up, started to walk toward me. As Maxim verbally articulates Rebecca s movements across the room, she utilises her newly-acquired subjective camera to follow herself. What we see is no longer the second Mrs. de Winter s, but the old Mrs. de Winter s, point of view; she has completely embodied Maxim s new lover and recreated herself through both Joan Fontaine s and our own gaze. Speaking in relation to the film noir picture Dark Passage (Daves, 1947), J. P. Telotte refers to Pascal Bonitzer s blind space, a technique used to position the film s audience and primary spectator in this case Vincent Parry outside of the camera s view. This gives the effect of the audience inhabiting the perspective of an invisible entity: we find it hard to embrace that absent identity, Telotte asserts, particularly when identity and viewer identification are so fundamentally intertwined. Though in Dark Passage there are passing first person shots of Parry s hands to remind us of our fictional embodiment of a physical being, if we relate this to the beach house scene in Rebecca we get quite a different response. 24 It is clear Rebecca now dominates Mrs. de Winter s subjective camera, but we are never consciously, truly aware of her presence. Like the most memorable and powerful villains in cinema history the Blair Witch or, as Modleski suggests, the shark in Jaws Rebecca is never able to be brought under control by her other. Maxim s 24 J. P. Telotte, Voices in the Dark: The Narrative Patterns of Film Noir (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1989), p. 123. 15

attempts to rid himself of her memory are constantly thwarted by her refusal to be domesticated, meaning that, because of her non-existent screen presence, her space Manderley and her female spirit remain unconquered by man. 25 From early on, however, Rebecca manages to reverse the gaze of the male. After the opening introduction to Manderley, we see Maxim looking out to sea, stood on a cliff top. Clearly he sees something; at this point in the film though we do not identify with him and therefore do not share his vision. If we revisit this scene after watching Rebecca through once, it becomes apparent that he is staring at Rebecca herself. Despite this, much like in Vertigo, Maxim is not the one in control of the gaze here. Modleski refers to the typical system of suture which, in this case, is reversed. Normally the woman is presented as the Fig. 7 object of the look of an implied character the absent one who is made present in the reverse shot, and thus shown to be the possessor of the former image. In this case, the woman is the absent one, not Maxim. It is almost as if Rebecca the character who does not physically exist in the film is objectifying Maxim through her own gaze, similar to the scene in the beach house (fig. 7). Modleski argues that this is unsettling for us, leading us to root for Mrs. de Winter to become the object of the widowed Maxim s gaze. However, the biggest shock here is simply that a woman like Mrs. Bates in Hitchcock s films has been given the privilege of an objectifying gaze. Her lack of a physical being means she is able to elude the possession of man. Moreover, while the film s final shot depicts a burning R, are we really supposed to 25 Modleski, p. 50. 16

believe that Rebecca has been truly disempowered? She lives on in Maxim s mind; if she could not be controlled through his drowning her, burning her living quarters will not achieve a great deal more either. 26 The question of gender constructs in Hitchcock s films is not a simple one, then. In all three examples above the supposed dominant male observer has had his masculinity diminished considerably by his female counterpart. Likewise, Scottie, Norman and Maxim all, eventually, become overpowered by a subverting, supernatural force. Though it is difficult to say that Hitchcock goes out of his way to raise the importance of his female characters gaze, to assert that his treatment of women is misogynistic is to oversimplify the case. He serves instead to bring his male characters down from their pedestal and to match them against a female rival, making for much more riveting drama. Norman Bates often cited by critics as a filmic representation of Alfred Hitchcock himself speaks of private traps that we are each born into; if these traps are a metaphor for gender constructs then Hitchcock has proven himself wrong. 26 Modleski, pp. 48-52. 17

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Telotte, J. P., Voices in the Dark: The Narrative Patterns of Film Noir (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1989) Truffaut, François, Hitchcock, rev. edn (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1986) Vertigo, dir. by Alfred Hitchcock (Universal, 1958) [On DVD] Walker, Michael, Hitchcock s Motifs (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2005), 137-52 Wood, Robin, Hitchcock s Films Revisited, rev. edn (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 144-306 19