I think few people would disagree that Hitchcock was the expert of suspense, his films have generated a lot of critical acclaim over time. However, the women in his films rarely come across well, most of the time his female protagonist are scheming, deceitful and manipulative. Hitchcock’s filmic narrative is rampant with misogyny, his female leads are always punished or killed off, to show spectators that his women always end up getting “what they deserve.”
In order to answer the question “Is Kim Novak’s portrayal of Madeline/ Judy in Alfred Hitchcock’s (1958) ‘Vertigo’ one of a Damsel in Distress or Manipulative Feme Fatale?”, I have researched and read a lot of books and papers to broaden my knowledge and address the question. ‘Vertigo’ made during the ‘Golden Era’ (1930-59) is a story of fixation and manipulation, the thriller that can be viewed as a romance, follows the narrative of Scottie and Madeleine/ Judy. Their lives are intertwined by several deceptions on both parts.
One of the first books I looked at was “Intimate Violence, Hitchcock, Sex and Queer Theory” by author David Greven.
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The essay takes a psychoanalytic stance to demonstrate “the way the unconscious of patriarchal society has structured film form.” I found the paper extremely useful, having read it before and having revisited the paper I found that, while possible being slightly outdated due to it’s lack of other view points such as that of a queer spectator, the essay has a core four perceptions that runs throughout the film fetishized scopophilia, castration complex and powerful women, voyeurism and the notion that she famously coined the “male gaze”. Analysing both Kim Novak’s portrayal of both characters and her as a performer using the above ideas discussed in Mulvey’s essay really helped me develop some of the arguments that my essay question brought