In High Noon and The Ballad of Little Jo, women are portrayed very differently than they were portrayed in previous Western films we’ve seen. In High Noon, there are two stronger female characters that both play a prominent role in the film. In The Ballad of Little Jo, Josephine takes on the role of the alpha male cowboy the moment she transforms her image from a woman to a man. In previous Westerns we’ve watched, the female characters practically went unnoticed because their role was insignificant in the diegesis. However, in these two films, women are a primary focus. In High Noon, we have Amy and Helen, both strong females. Even though Amy just married Will Kane, when he decides to stay in his town to face a deadly man he once put in jail, she decides she’ll leave without her new husband. Her religion is important to her, and she doesn’t want to sit around and wait to be made a widow if Will is killed. We also have Helen, who is strong-minded and is also very businesslike. She has a very strong presence when she is with other people, especially when she is with men. It is new to see a woman so independent and on her own, and she lives her life exactly how she chooses to.
In The Ballad of Little Jo, Josephine chooses to be a man when she has an illegitimate child and is shunned by her family. She moves to Ruby City, and although the men still treat women in a negative way, she portrays characteristics of an alpha male cowboy and fools almost all of the townspeople. There are two men who catch on to her secret. One of the men treats women very poorly and eventually leaves town, and the other man is from China and Jo falls in love with him. She acts like a female when she is with him, but when she isn’t she embodies characteristics of an alpha male cowboy. She is alone throughout a lot of the film, and she is also very quiet, which represents control. Tompkins says “not speaking demonstrates control not only over feelings but over one’s physical boundaries as well….The male, by remaining ‘hermetic,’ ‘closed up,’ maintains the integrity of the boundary that divides him from the world” (56). It is essential to Jo’s survival to stay quiet and keep that boundary up between her and the other men in the film or they would catch on and realize she wasn’t really a man. In addition to her isolation and her silence, she also learns how to shoot a gun well and demonstrates this when she is on her way into town one day with another townsman. She is the one to kill two of three men on horseback who are trying to shoot at her and Frank Badger. In both of these films, we start to see the new attitudes of women in the West and how the way they relate to men begins to change.
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In High Noon and The Ballad of Little Jo, women are portrayed very differently than they were portrayed in previous Western films we’ve seen. In High Noon, there are two stronger female characters that both play a prominent role in the film. In The Ballad of Little Jo, Josephine takes on the role of the alpha male cowboy the moment she transforms her image from a woman to a man. In previous Westerns we’ve watched, the female characters practically went unnoticed because their role was insignificant in the diegesis. However, in these two films, women are a primary focus. In High Noon, we have Amy and Helen, both strong females. Even though Amy just married Will Kane, when he decides to stay in his town to face a deadly man he once put in jail, she decides she’ll leave without her new husband. However, she is easily influenced by Helen to stay in town and protect her husband. She isn’t as strong of a female character as Helen, but she does display an act of bravery when she shoots and kills one of the men who are after her husband at the end of the film. We also have Helen, who is strong-minded and is also very businesslike. She has a very strong presence when she is with other people, especially when she is with men. It is new to see a woman so independent and on her own, and she lives her life exactly how she chooses to. She doesn’t depend on any man in town to keep her happy, and she is able to live a liberated life. This is very different from earlier classic films when women needed men to protect them and to make them happy.
ReplyDeleteIn The Ballad of Little Jo, Josephine chooses to be a man when she has an illegitimate child and is shunned by her family. She moves to Ruby City, and although the men still treat women in a negative way, she portrays characteristics of an alpha male cowboy and fools almost all of the townspeople. She is able to transform herself from an object of sexual gratification to a woman who is in control of her life as she chooses to live as a man. There are two men who catch on to her secret. One of the men treats women very poorly and eventually leaves town, and the other man is from China and Jo falls in love with him. She acts like a female when she is with him, but when she isn’t she embodies characteristics of an alpha male cowboy. She is alone throughout a lot of the film, and she is also very quiet, which represents control. Tompkins says “not speaking demonstrates control not only over feelings but over one’s physical boundaries as well….The male, by remaining ‘hermetic,’ ‘closed up,’ maintains the integrity of the boundary that divides him from the world” (56). It is essential to Jo’s survival to stay quiet and keep that boundary up between her and the other men in the film or they would catch on and realize she wasn’t really a man. In addition to her isolation and her silence, she also learns how to shoot a gun well and demonstrates this when she is on her way into town one day with another townsman. She is the one to kill two of three men on horseback who are trying to shoot at her and Frank Badger. In both of these films, we start to see the new attitudes of women in the West and how the way they relate to men begins to change.