The Women

The Womenⁱ makes the dubious stylistical choice of casting absolutely nothing but women. This sort of nonsense was a lot more defensible at the time ; but unfortunately it makes the piece look a lot like blacksploitationⁱⁱ today.

Nevertheless, it's somewhat amusing to watch 1939s liberated girly chafe under the yoke of her kind. "But we're equals now!!!" and so on. You realise, the 1939 upper crust chick was liberated as compared to "those backwards times" her poor mother had to live through! And she ain't gotta put up with any shit she dun wanna! No means no and what is anal ? It's a riot, really, especially if superimposed on the "progress" narrative sung low by minstrels in the background. Speaking of which, time for an intromission :

On top of old Smokey, all covered in snow
She lost her true love for courtin' too slow.
For courtin's a pleasure and parting's a grief
And a false-hearted lover is worse than a thief.

A thief will just rob you, and take what you have,
But a false-hearted lover will put you in the grave.
The grave will decay you, and turn you to dust
Not one boy in a hundred a poor girl can trust

They'll hug you and kiss you, and tell you more lies
Than crossties on the railroad, or stars in the sky.
So come all young maidens, to the clinic with ye
Quit acting like your eggs' works are important to me.

To be perfectly clear : female reproductive biology holds no particular sway over the meaning of love as a noun, as a verb, or as any other part of speech. The she-herd doesn't get to particularly define what "true" love is, and certainly does not get to "educate" the rest of us on the matter. There's no room for special pleading here, and there's certainly no room for "equality" and "agreement" and "consensus" and the usual assortment of bullshit English-droppings.

Nonsense is better when viewed out of fashion, which is why I keep newspapers around : for reading them six to eighteen months after the date of publication. In the exact same vein it turns out Holywood output can be quite entertaining a century or so after its original emission date. So I quite recommend this film, to be honest, today.

Go watch The Women be as utterly irrelevant and entirely impotent as they've always been. It might be good for you, either way.

1. No, I obviously do not mean the modern remake, and for the very specific reason that it's a piece of shit dropped by a glorified horse's ass. There's a reason nobody writes "Opera" to suit a donkey's braying, and for that same reason Diane English should have quit through the traditional route : years of rejection and failure until she were spit out the bottom of the porn industry. It's not, however, the ass' fault, but yours for tolerating it -- a point the thicker underscored by her early career.

   No, I mean the original 1939 Cukor piece, with a resplendent Norma Shearer, an utterly terrible Joan Crawford trying to be Bette "We Aren't Done With The Embalming Yet" Davis in all the wrong parts much like a child trying to be her mother through powder and lipstick, and an otherwise quite edible Miss Goddard. She was a hottie, you know, a hundred or so years ago. [↩]

2. If by your wits the fact they had to make special films for black people with black people in them in the 70s isn't enough proof 1970s black audiences were mentally retarded, your wits do qualify you for watching some. [↩]