Everything I learned I learned from the movies.”
Audrey Hepburn, Actress
When I’m not in my office writing, I’m in the kitchen baking. I’m still thinking of my next chapter, poem, or essay, but baking keeps me active doing something I rarely fail.
Sometimes, I have the television tuned into a rom-com or an old movie I listen to in the background, even if I’m not really watching. However, I’ll catch a line here and there that either makes me laugh or roll my eyes.
I’ve noticed in the last few years with old movies or musicals I loved as a teenager and throughout my young adult life, I now find I’m scrutinizing more. Whether due to my age or increased understanding of people and backgrounds, helping me change my attitude toward them, I seem to cringe or not laugh at something I found funny years ago.
For instance, movies from the 1940s and 1950s often portray women as helpless, or in need of pills to settle their nerves. One old movie has the female character saying to the masculine male hero: “I don’t know if what you’re doing is right or wrong, but if it’s you, it must be right.” Um, you sure? Love apparently is blind.
Another movie, and the one I had playing today, has a great cast of actresses, all grappling with divorce and unfaithful husbands. One woman, despite how horrific her husband treated her, took the blame from both the husband and her daughter, and then accepted him back with her arms literally open in the final shot. I’m neither advocating nor begrudging anything, just expressing how I pick up on certain things more.
There are plenty of old movies that will not work by today’s standards. Men kidnapping women to force them to marry them, which the women, with smiles on their faces, do in the end; or force of any kind; or slapping women to ‘shut them up’ or stop their hysterics. I could list out a great many things from either old movies or comedies in recent decades which portray certain behaviors as normal or funny when they really are not.
None of this is to point out that all old movies, all women, or all men, were depicted as weak and naïve. Notable people and characters, such as Nick and Nora (The Thin Man series), or Humphry Bogart and Lauren Becall (a real-life married couple), were often shown as intelligent, strong, and witty.
Some of my recent writings in progress take place in the 1940s and 1950s, so I’ve had to do quite a bit of research on the eras, especially involving women. What is depicted in these movies are Hollywood’s version of how women should behave and how they should be treated (although I’ve had older friends from those eras tell me that that is how things were in real life too), but I also realize not a lot has changed. As women, we still take on a lot of roles, we still take blame from others (even other women), our feelings are often dismissed, and we accept this as normal. While I’m attempting to remain historically accurate in my work, women have always had their own views toward events and decisions in their lives despite what others told them they were expected to feel. They fought to be heard, but they persevered despite the scrutiny. I choose to focus on the real woman. I desire them to be strong and bold, without shying away from the obstacles in their way.
As we grow and mature, and increase our understanding of certain matters, events, and cultures, we tend to change our behaviors. Of course, this requires us to realize the old behaviors were either wrong and/or need adjustment.
When we open our hearts and our minds, we allow ourselves the chance to see real beauty. We learn much from a variety of people and cultures. And that’s why reading the stories of people is important for our own growth, because we are taken into others’ confidences that help us view the world a little differently.
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