Unlike most Westerns, Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon and Maggie Greenwald’s The Ballad of Little Jo feature a peculiar type of character considering the genre: strong women. In High Noon, Grace Kelly plays Amy Kane, a recently converted Quaker who marries an ex-lawman. She knows since now he is married, he is no longer obligated to stay as the marshal of Hadleyville and will be able to live with her in peace elsewhere. This all changes when Will, her husband, decides that he needs to protect the town from a newly freed from prison outlaw, Frank Miller. Being a Quaker and thus not believing in killing for any reason, Amy threatens to leave Will should he stay and fight Miller and his gang. Will does decide to fight the Miller Gang and Amy gets on a train to leave, but changes her mind once the train starts moving. She proves her worth as a strong character by killing one of the Miller Gang by herself and distracting Frank for long enough to allow Will to kill him. This is clearly a change in the attitude of what women are and are not able to do.
In The Ballad of Little Jo, Josephine Monaghan, played by Suzy Amis, is almost immediately shown as a somewhat strong character as she decides to become a man, changing her appearance so much as to add a huge scar on her face. When she first changes her appearance, however, she is not yet as strong as she later becomes. At first, she does not know how to handle a gun and is terrified of wolves. She does learn these skills later as time progresses and uses her skills as a marksman to rid Ruby City of the Eastern Cattle Company’s assassins. There is also somewhat of a traditional role reversal in this film as Jo’s Chinese servant, and later lover Tinman, stays home cleaning and cooking, while Jo goes out and works outside. The series of scenes between Jo and Tinman shows that it is possible, and in some cases best, that the woman in a family go out and have a career while the man in the family takes care of the homestead. This is a progressive way of thinking even today where most traditional families still have men going out to work and women cleaning and cooking.
Unlike most Westerns, Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon and Maggie Greenwald’s The Ballad of Little Jo feature a peculiar type of character considering the genre: strong women. In High Noon, Grace Kelly plays Amy Kane, a recently converted Quaker who marries an ex-lawman. She knows since now he is married, he is no longer obligated to stay as the marshal of Hadleyville and will be able to live with her in peace elsewhere. This all changes when Will, her husband, decides that he needs to protect the town from a newly freed from prison outlaw, Frank Miller. Being a Quaker and thus not believing in killing for any reason, Amy threatens to leave Will should he stay and fight Miller and his gang. Will does decide to fight the Miller Gang and Amy gets on a train to leave, but changes her mind once the train starts moving. She proves her worth as a strong character by killing one of the Miller Gang by herself and distracting Frank for long enough to allow Will to kill him. This is clearly a change in the attitude of what women are and are not able to do. This film was in response to the Hollywood blacklist, the people who didn’t say a word against it, and the unlikely heroes that emerged from it.
ReplyDeleteIn The Ballad of Little Jo, Josephine Monaghan, played by Suzy Amis, is almost immediately shown as a somewhat strong character as she decides to become a man, changing her appearance so much as to add a huge scar on her face. When she first changes her appearance, however, she is not yet as strong as she later becomes. At first, she does not know how to handle a gun and is terrified of wolves. She does learn these skills later as time progresses and uses her skills as a marksman to rid Ruby City of the Eastern Cattle Company’s assassins. There is also somewhat of a traditional role reversal in this film as Jo’s Chinese servant, and later lover Tinman, stays home cleaning and cooking, while Jo goes out and works outside. The series of scenes between Jo and Tinman shows that it is possible, and in some cases best, that the woman in a family go out and have a career while the man in the family takes care of the homestead. This is a progressive way of thinking even today where most traditional families still have men going out to work and women cleaning and cooking. Little Jo in many ways mirrors real life, as in the early ‘90s, many households had switch from the traditional positions of men and women going to work and staying home to take care of the children.