The Academy Award-winning 1950
classic All About Eve is as much
about keeping women in their place as it is an indictment of the cutthroat path
to celebrity. In fact, it uses women to embody a celebrity-obsessed society
gone wrong. This cautionary tale set in the New York theater scene warns bossy
women to reel it in and curb their ambition. Don’t forget your femininity, your
nurturing role as a woman, and your ultimate goal of fulfillment as a man’s
wife. Eve Harrington, a young, naïve super fan manipulates her way into an aging
Broadway star’s life, only to Single
White Female her mentor ruthlessly to the top, leaving a trail of
destruction in her wake. Eve’s false humility masks insatiable ambition and
reveals a heart-sized hole in her heart, while the jealous, older actress Margo
Channing proves paranoid and hysterical in response. The women are pitted
against each other with the ultimate message being that there’s not enough room
for the both of them.
Although Bette Davis acts
the hell out of sassy, salty stage star Margo, skillfully skewering the double
standards women face in the industry and society in general, this black-and-white
drama leaves one with a sick feeling of gendered defeat. No doubt the strong women
in the film are the protagonists, but their real power and agency stem from
evil intentions or at best, too-big-mouthiness. They scheme and connive their
way through each other’s lives, while the men-- save unscrupulous theater
critic Addison DeWitt-- feign ignorance, watching the cat fight from the
sidelines and shaking their heads. It is no mistake that Anne Baxter’s
character has been named after the original woman of original sin, and you
better believe she brings trouble to paradise. The dapper men appear as pawns
in the women’s petty games and fall too easily from innocence into Eve’s traps.
But not so fast. The “nice
guys” in the film really just want Margo to be taken down a notch, exclaiming
she needs “a boot in the rear.” They warn her to shut up and accept her fate,
and by the end, she kind of happily does, admitting that she needs to work on
the role of being a woman-- as if being a true woman and an actor are mutually
exclusive-- and needs a man to help define her: “I wish someone would tell me
about me.” Margo eventually caves in to the sexist, ageist industry, exchanging
her career for the real thing, marriage, saying she “finally got a life to
live.” The men in the film also facilitate and cultivate Eve’s shameless rise
to the top and then shun her for going too far. By the time Eve’s partner in
crime Addison DeWitt puts her in check by blackmailing and slapping her, the
audience is meant to be cheering. DeWitt speaks of their relationship as “killer
to killer,” so the domestic violence must be okay.
Though carried by superb
acting and diaglog, All About Eve
ultimately perpetuates the idea that women must scheme, finagle and sleep their
way up the ladder while the men are, well, just being men and naturally deserve
the positions they’re already in. When these lucky, crazy ladies get too out of
control, the men step in to remind them who’s boss. The award ceremony that
opens the film and brings it full circle in the end feels more like a funeral
for women’s opportunities on Broadway and in Hollywood. The final scene with
Eve behaving cynically like Margo toward her own young stalker-replacement (spinning
in a narcissism of mirrors) really drives the final nail in the coffin of
narrow roles for women. A quick study of All
About Eve would lead you to the conclusion that the women are kind of evil,
or at least suspect, while the men are stupid. I don’t know which is better,
evil or stupid, but both achieve the same thing. After all is said and done,
fought and won (or lost), everyone returns to the same gender roles they were
always confined to.
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