Madeline Logic May 10, 2018 Crime Fiction The Influence of Feminism on Margot Wendice and Emily Taylor In 1954, Alfred Hitchcock directed the film Dial M for Murder, a crime mystery starring Ray Milland and Grace Kelly as husband and wife, Tony and Margot Wendice. This film was based off the play by the same namesake written by playwright Frederick Knott. 44 years later in 1998, Andrew Davis directed the remake, A Perfect Murder starring Michael Douglass and Gwyneth Paltrow as husband and wife, Steven and Emily Taylor (“Dial M for Murder”). While the two films share a common plot, there are distinct differences between the two that assist in telling a different story. If one were to compare the two wife figures, one could argue that there lies distinct differences in the representation of women as embodied by Margot and Emily. The answer potentially lies in events that occurred in the gap between the two films. In the early 1960’s, the second wave of feminism began and lasted into 1990’s. The influence of the differences in representation and characterization of Margot and Emily can be traced back to the second wave of feminism occurring in the gap years between the two films. Many women were not independent and working in 1954, they were usually educated, but not all in a profession and working as a provider for their family. By 1998, many women were educated and had professions, establishing themselves as independent from their male counterparts. The mindset change that potentially influenced the director (and possibly the screenwriter’s) choices could have been brought on by changing mindsets about women during the 1960’s-1990’s. Thus, taking a helpless heiress whose life hangs in the balance, with a male figure in control of the strings, and transforms her into a strong-minded woman that takes control of her own situation. The publishment of Betty Friedman’s The Feminine Mystique in 1963 is credited for sparking the second wave of feminism. Friedman was tasked to conduct a survey of her former Smith College classmates. Startling statistics revealed themselves and that prompted Friedman to conduct further research and eventually publish her book. The survey revealed that women who had a role at home and had a position in the workforce were more satisfied with their quality of life than those who stayed within the private sphere of domesticity. These women reported having feelings of agitation, sadness, and lacking ambitions outside the home. Friedman penned it, “The Problem That Has No Name.” She thus wrote that this perfect image of a nuclear family did not possess any semblance of true happiness and was quite degrading for women. Thus, prompting women to seek change (“The Feminine Mystique”). Another contributing factor was the expectation that women were to return, without complaint, to the private sphere post-war after being thrust into the workforce when men were sent off to fight in World War II. Women not only wanted equality, but now they sought a more specific cause of seeking equality in the workplace and an escape from forced, total domesticity. This movement prompted other discussions including: discriminatory laws and policies; marriage and motherhood expectations; workplace equality; reproductive rights; and violence against women, particularly domestic violence and marital rape (Bisignani). The second wave of feminism was fueled by women seeking to escape the shackles of suburban domesticity and this housewife-ideal. They wanted more independence and equality, they wanted to prove themselves as stronger. The common plot between the two films is a very wealthy wife is cheating on her not as wealthy, and on the verge of financial ruin, husband. The husband is aware of it and devises a plan to blackmail a third party into murdering his wife so he can inherit her money. The plan goes wrong and the wife ends up killing the hired killer in self-defense. The variations include a setting change from London to New York, the hired killer being a college friend to the wife’s boyfriend, and most notable for this conversation is that Emily is wealthier because of her profession. Steven works on Wall Street so he was financially well off until he got himself in trouble. Emily works a reputable, and well-paying job, as a translator for the United Nations. It is not suggested in Dial M for Murder that Margot worked any sort of job, instead she just seems to be a housewife. Even though she does not have a profession, she holds the financial power in the relationship because she is an heiress. Tony was wealthy but potentially will approach financial destitution because he retired from professional tennis. Despite possessing power in the financial sphere, Margot is not a powerful character. The only instance of her exerting physical power is when she overpowers her attacker and stabs him. The rest of the film, she almost willfully submits herself to male control. After she murders the “intruder” she closely follows her husband’s instructions: do not call the police, lie about the events of the evening, etcetera, which effectively seals her eventual murder conviction. She does not crack her own case, instead it is Hubbard, the detective, and Mark, her lover, that do so. Mark is the first to call the facts of the case into question, something Margot does not appear to do. Margot appears to be emblematic of what a good housewife of this time would be, obedient and dependent, and it is those traits that effectively landed her on death row. Similarly to how women in the 1950’s sought to separate themselves from the expectations that they are to emblematize those traits, Emily did so in The Perfect Murder. Contrastingly to Margot, Emily was her own woman. Emily had intentions of leaving Steven from the very beginning of the film. She was not dependent on him whatsoever. Her grit arguably could have partly stemmed from the changes in attitude for women at the tail end of the second wave of feminism. From the moment Emily sensed something was awry, she took it in to her own hands to do some investigating into her husband’s financial situation and connect it back to her attack. Emily does not let the trauma from her attack hinder her living. She does, however, take justice into her own hands, unlike Margot ever did. There are two endings to A Perfect Murder: in the first cut, Emily confronts Steven with evidence of his plan and shoots him in cold blood, then stages a fight to make it look like self-defense; in the second, and final cut, she confronts him with the evidence but then a physical struggle breaks out and she shoots Steven in legitimate self-defense. Both act as examples of a woman taking action into her own hands. The first one would have more catered towards a change in the dynamic of women at the hands of the second wave of feminism. Not suggesting that the second wave of feminism encourages murder, but that it drew more attention to the conversation of domestic violence. Emily was continually threatened, inexplicitly and explicitly, by Steven. The second wave also called for women to demand more independence, freedom, and equal rights in the workplace and in the domestic sphere. The second ending works just as well for the conversation, the first one just appeals more to cinematic allure and expectations. Arguably, the director of The Perfect Murder was influenced, whether intentionally or not, by the outcome of the second wave of feminism. The influences of the feminist movements can weave their way unbeknownst. There is clear differences in the representations of the two main female characters of the two films. Margot is depicted as a wronged damsel in distress that is saved by two knights in shining suit and tie, a common depiction of women in the decades leading up to the second wave of feminism. Emily is contrarily depicted as a woman fighting for herself against her oppressive and controlling husband, taking control of her own situation and investigating. The second wave projected focuses on economic and social inequalities in particular. Friedan sought to change women's mentality about the expectations of a housewife. The second wave was successful in passing laws for women's reproductive rights and started the fight for equal pay in the work place. Most accomplishing of all, it liberated women to change their mindsets, sparking changes for decades to come. The influences of the second wave, and arguably past and future waves, will continue to infiltrate pop culture and other aspects of society for as long as feminism is necessary. Works Cited Bisignani, Dana. “Feminism’s Second Wave.” The Gender Press, 28 Jan. 2015, genderpressing.wordpress.com/2015/01/27/feminisms-second-wave-2/. “The Feminine Mystique.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 30 Apr. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feminine_Mystique. “Second- Wave Feminism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 9 May 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second-wave_feminism.
