Images - The Glory of Cary Grant

The Glory of Cary Grant
by Elizabeth Abele -- page 6 of 6

Conclusion
An argument could be made that Grant was able to become the spectacle for a masculine gaze because his persona was "feminized," the explanation that Steve Neale presents for Hudson's and Travolta's appearances as spectacles. Grant did often appear "emasculated" in his films: in Bringing Up Baby he runs around in a woman's bathrobe; in Suspicion he is unable to support his wife and is shown dwarfed in his father-in-law's chairs; in My Favorite Wife his physique is unfavorably compared with "he-man" Randolph Scott; in North by Northwest he is a mama's boy who is taken advantage of by other men and then protected by a woman. But Neale's argument does not capture the strength and sexuality of Grant's screen presence.

On one hand, Grant's screen persona, despite these emasculating moves, remained balanced and thoroughly masculine through the eventual recuperations of manliness achieved by his characters, as well as through the many thoroughly macho characters that he played. Despite his constant failures in Suspicion to be the man of the house, Grant's character retains enough strength and masculinity for Lina and the audience to think him a murderer. On the other hand, the "feminized" aspect of his appeal seems to provide further support of his body being able to support a bisexual, desiring gaze. While the desiring gaze directed at Cary Grant can offer a female spectator "comfortable" pleasure as a woman, it can offer a male spectator an "uncomfortable" bisexual pleasure, that can be shrugged off as Grant moves into the more "natural" position as active male protagonist at the end of the narrative.

This "discomfort" to the male spectator position can actually work to heighten the enjoyment of Grant's films. The films where Grant is most clearly a passive object of desire, for at least distinct moments in the film, are comedies and suspense films, genres that depend on spectator discomfort for their effect. Grant's prominent position in classic Hollywood cinema demonstrates that spaces did exist for active female desire--as well as covert male bisexual desire.

Though both Grant's Hitchcock films and his romantic comedies allowed space for a desiring, active woman, screwball comedy may have been more significant in the continued development of strong women on screen. Building on the strength and agency of the female character in this genre, the screwball comedy has served as a model to bring female protagonists into the action genre: Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Siedelman, 1983), Romancing the Stone (Robert Zemeckis, 1984) and American Dreamer (1984), followed by True Lies (James Cameron, 1994) and Speed (Jan de Bont, 1994). In introducing to mainstream cinema the image of women as creative, courageous and determined, these hybrid romance/comedy/action films made these "new" women palatable--and commercial. If the glorious Cary Grant could love the screwball heroine, why shouldn't we all?

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Go to Works cited.

After 12 years as an arts/university administrator, Elizabeth Abele is currently a Ph.D. candidate in English at Temple University. She has presented papers at meetings of the Popular Culture Association, the Shakespeare Association of America, and Mid-Atlantic Popular Culture Association. She can be reached at eabele@astro.ocis.temple.edu.


	Page One Introduction
Page Two Unmasking the Female Gaze
	Page Three Suspicious Looks
Page Four Screwball Cary
	Page Five Bringing Up Desire
Page Six Conclusion