Where Have All the Strong Women Gone?

By Johann Hari, The Independent UK. Posted April 3, 2008.

Precisely a century ago, in a suburb of Boston, a child called Bette Davis erupted into the world. She was not only a woman; she was an electrical storm with skin. With nothing but raw talent and raw determination, she became the most famous woman in the world, taking on the Hollywood studio system, the FBI and the Catholic Church.

For a while, this not-especially-beautiful woman in her forties ruled Hollywood, playing tough women who chose their careers and their own desires over sacrificing for men or children or a picket fence. She never pretended to be dumb, or a little girl. She didn't do soft, or simpering. She had a voice like sour cream, and eyes like a raven. Humphrey Bogart said about her: "Unless you're very big she can knock you down." And she was one of the great events of her time.

She was popular with the mostly-female movie audience -- women like my grandmother, who gave me my first glimpse of Bette Davis movies from her lap -- in part because her characters will not accept 'their place.' They want more, more, more. It was not easy to be a strong woman then; she said, "When a man gives his opinion he's a man. When a woman gives her opinion she's a bitch." But she fought, and women responded to it. She was only the most shimmering example of a generation of tough Hollywood women whose characters saw the world as a place not to cower from or simper at, but to conquer: Mae West (who made her first film at 40), Lauren Bacall, Katherine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Barbra Stanwyck, Rosalind Russell, Marlene Dietrich, and more.

Bette was self-confident enough to demand to look bad on camera. On the cast of 'Bordertown', she had a four-hour screaming row with the director because she thought it was ridiculous to show her character wake up in bed with a wig and full make-up; she wanted curlers and cold cream all over her face. In' Marked Woman', she was shown with black eyes and a broken face. In Elizabeth and Essex, she wanted to be shown with a completely bald head -- sending the studio into a panic. And she was self-confident enough to be unsympathetic on screen.

But something odd has happened since the reign of Queen Bette: women in cinema have become weaker. If the symbol of 1930s Hollywood was Bette Davis in 'Jezebel', defiantly wearing red to her virgin-white ball, today it is Cameron Diaz in 'There's Something About Mary', rubbing semen into her hair because she is too dumb to realize it's not hair gel.

As women have progressed, the women we idolize -- in the movies, on television -- have dramatically regressed. Who are our female icons now? Nicole Kidman, whose career is empitomized by her role in 'Moulin Rouge', where she plays a limp, passive prostitute, waiting to be saved. Julia Roberts, whose only iconic role is as a screwed-up prostitute, waiting to be saved. The women of 'Desperate Housewives' -- chaotic ditzes, who are either jobless, or have jobs where they merely spread chaos. The women of 'Sex and the City', who are obsessed with shoes and -- in the end -- have to compromise their careers for men. The popular women are numb blondes or bony little girls with submissive smiles. If a female star becomes too 'tough', she becomes box-office poison: Demi Moore was seen after G.I. Jane as too hard, too 'male.' Even Thelma and Louise had to drive into the Grand Canyon in the end.

The closest we have to Bette Davis-style characters today are found in the films and TV shows of Aaron Sorkin. His dream-girl is a woman talking very fast about foreign policy while putting on her make-up. In West Wing, he found two glorious stars who would have held their own with the 1930s generation: Alison Janney, and Stockard Channing. But what happens to their characters? C.J. has to be given a sick father to humanise her -- unlike any of the men -- and in the end has to choose between Washington and love. Abigail Bartlett is stripped of her job entirely. Janney and Channing are now reduced to bit-parts in films about teenage girls.

The biggest female stars have contracted in every sense. As they are reduced emotionally to hollow male fantasies, they are reduced physically to skin and bone too. If Bette Davis has screen presence, skeletons like Keira Knightley have screen absence; you stop seeing her even when she is the only thing in the frame. Almost all of the great Hollywood starlets would be considered uncastably 'fat' now: who can forget Liz Hurley's statement, "If I was as fat as Marilyn Monroe, I'd kill myself too"?

See more stories tagged with: gender, career

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from AlterNet! Sign up now »