Censorship
• How can a film with feminism, adultery, gay
characters, and attempted murder get by the
censors under the Hays Code?
• Because the filmmakers use cinematic devices
to neutralize these complex themes. They are
dealt with in a comical way and under the
“competing values” doctrine, the double “happy
ending” compensates: love, marriage, and
heterosexual happiness wins out in the end.
Hooray for Hollywoodland!
In Flagrante
Delicto
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Dating back to at least ancient Greece, husbands could justifiably kill men who
slept with their wives—in flagrante delicto—the theory of defending one’s
property.
At least three American states—Texas, Utah, and New Mexico—had statutes
that provided a complete defense to homicide for husbands who caught their
wives in flagrante delicto.
Juries often bought the defense even in states that did not have such statutory
protections. Indeed, fathers and brothers were similarly acquitted when they
killed an unmarried daughter’s or sister’s seducer.
“Temporary insanity” was often added to the defense to ensure victory.
Though men mounted successful in flagrante delicto defenses, women rarely if
ever used it.
Amanda: “An unwritten law stands back of a man who fights to defend his home.
Apply this same law to this maltreated wife and neglected woman—we ask you
no more—equality.”
Spencer Tracy as Adam Bonner
• Upper-class, educated,
relatively progressive for
the times.
• Assistant District Attorney
in charge of prosecuting a
working-class woman who
attempted to murder her
adulterous husband.
• Ultimately represents the
dominance of men, the law,
and hierarchy.
Katharine Hepburn as Amanda Bonner
• Yale educated attorney, able trial advocate, and an ability to handle elegant
dinner parties and obnoxious neighbors with grace and skill: a success in
both the public sphere (where men traditionally reigned) and the private
sphere (where women are expected to be the masters).
• Though there were very few female attorneys at this time (women comprised
only 4% of all attorneys in the 1950s and 1960s), the message was
unmistakable: women can have it all… but where are the kids?
• Amanda’s outrage over what she sees as a double-standard moves her to
defend the woman her husband is prosecuting.
• Amanda’s strategy: women are equal to men. She parades strong females in
front of the court and urges the jury to reverse the gender roles of those
involved so that they may do justice.
• Amanda: “There’s lots of things a man can do, and in society’s eyes it’s all
hunky-dory.”
Feminist Film?
• Intelligent, female, legal professional, protagonist.
• Surrounded by male colleagues aware of and comfortable with her
knowledge and her status as she competently argues a point of
law or confidently traverses the corridors of power.
• Lesson: viewing female lawyer films is a progressive, positive—
even feminist—experience.
• This is true to some extent and only on the surface.
• A deeper examination reveals that ultimately, these films “turn
against” the female lawyer in order to position her as a threatening
or ineffective figure, if only to neutralize the threat she poses in the
end.
Law as
Metaphor
• Law is used throughout the film as a metaphor for male
dominance.
• Adam: “Contempt for the law, that’s what you’ve got. It’s a
disease, a spreading disease…. The law is the law…. You start
with one law, then pretty soon it’s all laws, pretty soon it’s
everything; then it’s me.”
• Justice, on the other hand, is used as a metaphor for female
submissiveness.
• Is it possible for males to be submissive and females to be
dominant?
• If gender roles were reversed would equality be achieved?
The Recognition
of Justice, but
Triumph of the Law
• Kip Lurie: “Lawyers should never marry other lawyers. This is called
‘inbreeding,’ from which comes idiot children and more lawyers.”
• Why does the gay character Kip, flirt with Amanda? Why is this
included in the film?
• At first, Adam seems to have no problem with it but later threatens
violence. Why the seeming reversal?
• Adam is the law-and-order (male) character but his threat to go
outside the law for justice (with a licorice gun!) demonstrates the
fallacy of her courtroom argument.
• Amanda who is the justice (female) character but who gives law-andorder reasons to Adam in this scene demonstrates the ultimate
triumph of law (male) over justice (female) so that even Amanda
realizes this.
Hierarchy in Law and Life
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The film refuses to conform to traditional
notions of hierarchy:
– Man over woman;
– Dominant over submissive (other);
– Law over justice.
Yet at the same time, it does not completely
repudiate traditional power structures:
– Adam remarks: “You’re cute when you get
causy.”
– Ultimately tax and property law bring Adam
and Amanda back together.
– Amanda has learned only to joke about
running against him for judge.
For its time, the level of equality portrayed in
the film was remarkable and reflected the postwar (and therefore post-Rosie-the-riveter) “New
Woman” discourse going on in America.
However, because the narrative ultimately turns
on Amanda, we see the classic model of
feminism losing out to mainstream liberalism:
limited independence—a narrative that is
present in most female protagonist films and
nearly every female lawyer film.
Credits
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Bergman, Paul and Michael Asimow, Reel Justice (Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1996) 92, 202, 217.
Lucia, Cynthia, Framing Female Lawyers: Women on Trial in Film (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2005).
Spelman, Elizabeth V. and Martha Minow, “Outlaw Women,” in John Denvir, ed., Legal Reelism: Movies as Legal
Texts (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1996) Ch. 13.
Suggs, Jon-Christian, “Adams Ribs: Get ‘em While They’re Hot,” Picturing Justice: The On-Line Journal of Law &
Popular Culture.
Tushnet, Mark V., “Class Action: One View of Gender and Law in Popular Culture,” in John Denvir, ed., Legal
Reelism: Movies as Legal Texts (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1996) Ch. 12.