Haskell identifies 4 categories related to the melodrama: Choice, Competition, Sacrifice and Affliction.
Clearly, in Way Down East it is the sacrifice that Anna makes for her mother (by going to the cousins’ to ask for financial assistance) that initiates the narrative. The drama however, stems from Anna’s need to conceal her affliction (her child born out of wedlock). The built-up tension comes to an explosive head at the climax of the film, when Anna’s secret past is revealed at the dinner table.
It could be argued that the title character in Stella is afflicted by her class standing. However in this film, Stella doesn’t necessarily work to hide who she is or from where she comes. What drives this story are the repeated sacrifices she makes in an effort to provide an improved life for her daughter, who not unlike that of Anna’s was born to a single parent.
Central to each of these characters is an unarticulated but clearly visible desire to conform to standards set by someone/anyone/society other than the characters themselves. Why is it that neither of these women is content with who she is, where she comes from or whom she is about?
This need to conform and more specifically, the inner turmoil it creates, is perhaps more obvious in “Stella”, particularly prior to her pregnancy. Stella is quick to push aside the men who make inappropriate sexual verbal and physical advances. She knows she is better than the slut the men treat her as and refuses to succumb to their level. However, she caves when cheered to the bar for a strip tease. Although she keeps it G-Rated, she sets herself up to be objectified by the men in the bar. A woman watching this film can’t help but feel pity for Stella, who despite how strong she is at her core, so desperately needs to be validated by men.
On a different level, Stella repeats this behavior with Steve Dallas. She drills him on his intentions until she is satisfied he’s genuinely interested in her and not just looking for a good time. It’s realistic that his interest is indeed genuine but at the same time, painfully obvious that these two are not a match. Stella is aware of this as well but allows herself to suffer, making a sacrifice here to trade her self-respect to please a man.
It’s easier to overlook this troubling behavior in “Way Down East” than it is in “Stella” as by the limitations of silent film, one respects exaggerated characterizations and heightened drama as necessary tools for holding the attention of the audience. Additionally, “Way Down East” is set in 1920, its own era and one different from today. “Stella” was released less than 15 years ago but the story commenced in 1969, a time when women had a lot of choices and proudly exercised the power to make them. One would like to believe that women have grown past this victim mentality but as it continues to appear in films today, it seems not to be the case.
It’s easy to cast blame for reinforcement of negative stereotypes on the men who write, direct, produce, distribute, market and critique these films. However, it’s arguable that a more relevant concern is the symbiotic relationship between the melodrama and the women who watch them. It’s disconcerting that so many women so enjoy the very films that define their societal role in a way so contrary to how they articulate they want to be perceived. The result is a negative cycle of art imitating life imitating art imitating life…
Haskell’s comments about soap operas as filling a “masturbatory need” for the frustrated housewife underscores this concern. One can’t help but question if women as a whole are frustrated and unfulfilled and why those repressed emotions are released through the woman’s relationship with the melodrama and other related film and literary genres.
Although often tragic, the romanticism of the melodrama, gothic novel and literature of the Romantic Period is as appealing to some women as reality programs are to another demographic. What is it that allows women who love these films (and if you include soap operas here, you can argue that for some, the love is as intense as an addiction) to suspend reality to a point that they are unable to see how the continued denigration of the woman in theses stories perpetuates patriarchal structure that women have been fighting against for so many years? If women would halt their interest in these films, the industry would eventually stop making them, perhaps in exchange for films containing more positive representations of women as they manage choice, competition, sacrifice and affliction.
Brooks writes that in the melodrama, moral alternatives are brought into sharper focus than in other genres by the heightened importance placed on every gesture, thought, expressions, etc… This is clearly apparent in older films such as “Way Down East” and discernable in “Stella” but much more subtle in newer, more sophisticated films. As both filmmaking and audiences have matured, so has the methodology by which messages are conveyed.
In a film such as “Way Down East”, it is not uncommon for the use of color to differentiate the good from the bad (white costumes or lighting for the good guys, black for the bad) or exaggerated facial expressions to alternated between happy and sad. In “Stella” however, the viewer must look closer for indications that a specific action has moral implications. The example used above of Stella dancing on the bar can be used here as well. While on the surface this is just a fun bit of entertainment for the audience (in the bar as well as in the movie theatre), Stella makes a choice right then and there to succumb to the desires of a roomful of men who see her as an object instead of a human being.
While on screen Stella’s struggles may be less apparent than those of Anna, in reality they are more relevant when considering the impact of film on society. Stella’s situation is more realistic to today’s audience and therefore easier for the viewer not only to relate to Stella but to lose him or herself in the story, without tuning into the metaphors. This presents a real danger in that the over arching message that women must not deviate from societal norms is very subtly implanted in the viewers mind, thus preventing the aforementioned art imitating life imitating art cycle to be broken.
References
“The Women in Film” from Molly Haskell’s From Reverence to Rape
“The Melodramatic Imagination” by Peter Brooks
Home is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Woman’s Film by Christine Gledhill
Stella (1990)
Way Down East (1920)