The Feminity in Hitchcock's Film

Through the perspective of the film, The Birds directed by Alfred Hitchcock brought up the point of femininity. In the opening scene one of the protagonist Melanie Daniels comes across Mitch Brenner. It is inferred that he is a wealthy man that lies across the bay. While Mitch was in San Francisco looking for Love Birds fro his sister Cathy this could be an analogy to the instability to the female characters that was presented as he describes he wants to give Cathy birds that are not too destructive and he describes “friendly”. The film also gives a perspective of Melanie being a figure rather than a person, implying that needs to save the female as she is in trouble.

Even when Melanie was making her run around town to find and present the Love Birds to Cathy to surprise Mitch as well. Her desire for him seems to grow as the film progresses. She wanted to make an impression of some sort to Mitch. As she arrives to the bay, which is where the film mainly takes place she asks the mailman about information on MIitch. Shas to run around town to get her information. This leads her to meet the school teacher Annie Hayworth while Melanie has to figure out the name of Mitch’s sister since the mailman did not know. As she asks Annie, she had a figure that she was here to desire Mitch and a sense of jealousy was presented. She then tells her that Mitch is yet a player and Annie describes that a lot of women do intrigue Mitch. Later in the film as Melanie stays at Annie's house, when Annie mentions that her and Mitch were ex-lovers but Mitch mom Lydia was very overprotected after the loss of her husband and her and Mitch was ex-lovers as well. She claimed that her wanted Mitch to herself. In a conversation between Melanie and Lydia speak about Myth and the death of her husband. She told Melanie that she was afraid that if Mitch loved another girl her would abandon her leaving her in more of loneliness. The jealousy in the women over in Mitch plays a huge factor in the film. In the article “What’s Hitchcock's The Birds Really About? the author Megan Burbague presents the statement from the Feminist critic Camille Pagila theory of female anger She proposes that the timing of the attacks correlate with female anger. “The first attack occurs when Melanie enters Cathy and Lydia’s territory, the second when she chooses to sleep overnight at their home. The main attack is at the birthday party, which Melanie attends, suggesting she is not a welcome guest.” The topic of that when the females had a conflict the birds would attack. It was the female characters that have had the most traumatic reactions from the bird attacks. There was one scene where a woman claims that Melanie is evil implying she caused the birds to go crazy which can resemble female fear and hysteria. It is when Melanie sacrifices herself when the birds remain calm thus ending the scene.

While the protagonist was involved or in close range of the birds, it is noticed that Melanie is usually by herself of is protected from the birds. Examples include when the fire was brought out and Melanie trapped herself in the phone booth, and another scene where she was in Mitch’s attic and trapped herself alone as if she was in need of Mitch. In the article “The Inevitable Endangerment of Womanhood in Hitchcock's The Birds” by Matthew Eng describes the encasement as “Hitchcock and production designer Robert F. Boyle are united in envisioning and assembling tense, claustrophobic spaces in which to confine Melanie during each of the film’s set-piece attack sequences: the cramped tightness of a fully-occupied car’s front row, as birds swarm the outside from all angles; the narrowly jammed space of a telephone stand, in which Hedren helplessly wriggles around during one of the film’s most ironically grisly sequences.” This might suggest showing her worth and wanting to see Melaine struggle waiting for the male lead to save her. It was when Melanie sacrifices herself and the lovebirds guide her where the malicious birds attack her. It is then when the birds stopped attacking. I believe this presented the fact that she accepted her role in having no power as throughout the film Melanie was a new adventure for Mitch as he brings another woman into his life. The way she presented herself as a prankster did not impress Mitch but as the film progresses he becomes more fond of her and if she needed a man to come up and save her from her punishments that she has caused.

There is also a deal of objectifying women and putting them in their place is in the film Vertigo also directed by Alfred Hitchcock. This is shown by the female protagonist Judy Barnes disguises herself as Madeleine Elster in order to help Gavin Estler in murdering his real wife. This is done by Gavin having a retired detective John Fergeson, others prefer to call him Johnny O and his friends call him Scottie spy on Judy or so (Madeline). While following her around he notices that she deliberately jumps into the river and Scottie saves her. She convinces him that she is possessed by her grandmother which also killed herself. The trouble was both Judy and Scottie do end up falling in love with each other and at one point convinces Scottie that she killed herself to the spirit of Madeleine's grandmother. This was clever of Gavin to do because Judy went up to the top of the church and knew that Scottie was afraid of heights and knew that he could not go up there. Thus making the murder of Gavin's real-life suicide to the public. Gavin also used women to their own personal advantage. He used Judy to help him gain innocence to the public eye by plotting her into the scheme of having Madeline’s grandmother's spirit rest inside her. While in reality he had killed his wife and needed a cover-up. Once it was settled that the death was caused by suicide Gavin then tells Scottie that he is running away. While Scottie had to grief about the death of what he knew was Madeline he stumbles across Judy. He sees a resemblance as he did with Madeline and decides to stick her around in his life. He does rather get possessive though by making her dress like Melanie and dying her hair as well. At one point Judy comes back from the bathroom with her hair pinned as she used to pretend to be Melanie. Once he takes a glance at her he then begins to kiss her and he begins to now have a full representation of Melanie. He then sees Judy wearing a necklace that he knew belonged to Madeleines' grandmother and has the realization of what Judy's plot was. He then takes her to the church house where the real Madeleine was found dead. At the top Judy then confesses as to what she is done. She then falls as the way it was the way Madeline died.

In the film, it also rests the case in Birds as well that women have no real sense of empowerment and cannot exist without a man. As presented above, After the grieving of the death of Madeleine Scottie sees Judy and makes her dress as Madeline as he was trying to remember her to the woman he fell in love with. Judy knew what she was getting herself into as she was writing a letter to Scottie saying it she pretended to be Madeline. She then decides to stay with Scottie and agree to his terms, which was redesigning her to look like the fake Madeline. At first, she was very displeased, in the scene where Scottie asks the worker in a suit. Judy is hysterically asking him to not put it on. She eventually gave in but looks displeased. In an interview with Hitchcock, he explains this as “she realizes that this is a man unmasking her, but that is the plot. The sex phycological side is that you have a man creating a sex image that he can not go to bed with her until he has got her back.” She only asks for him to love her in return. Suggesting that as long as the man is happy then the woman must be happy too to please him. In both films, it is shown that a man is needed to secure a woman. Both films resemble the act of a feminine standpoint as to a woman. Implying in the films that a male character is in control and help the female character and objectifying and using the female for the male. As to the fact that he uses death in both scenes but uses his own sense of suspense and character usage in the films.