I found several references made by Maxim about his relationship with Rebecca to be rather odd. He mentions Rebecca's relationship to another female friend and how she berates and questions his masculinity. Then there is Mrs. Danvers. They might not have spelled it out in the 40's like they do today but it appears that Rebecca was without a doubt a lesbian who had the misfortune of contracting uteran cancer.I believe the author herself was a lesbian if I'm not mistaken.
shareRebecca? Not likely. Mrs Danvers? Probably.
Esta es mi firma
Danvers was a Lesbian - the scene where Mrs. De Winter drops her gloves and both she and Danvers reach down to pick them up, their faces are photographed in a "kissing" position. That is Hitch's way of showing us. Rebecca was not a Lesbian, but she was very hypersexual. I'd stick to Danvers being the Lesbian, as she is the one Hitch clearly showed us was.
"All I want in life is a thirty share and a twenty rating."
I beg to differ. .. .. in the Special Features section of the DVD I watched the question of Danvers being a lesbian was brought up and one of the contributors to the discussion remarked that when the actress who played Danvers was questioned about this later in life, she replied, no, that it was never meant to be implied or suggested that Danvers was a lesbian.
share[deleted]
I beg to differ. .. .. in the Special Features section of the DVD I watched the question of Danvers being a lesbian was brought up and one of the contributors to the discussion remarked that when the actress who played Danvers was questioned about this later in life, she replied, no, that it was never meant to be implied or suggested that Danvers was a lesbian.
Lesbian? No.
Bisexual? Most likely.
She sounded like she would have slept with anybody.
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💕 JimHutton (1934-79) and ElleryQueen 👍
If she was a lesbian then explain to me about her "favorite cousin".
shareIt seemed pretty clear to me.
When DeWinter tells Mrs. DW2 the truth, he says Rebecca told him 'all about herself', leading to an agreement that they'd pretend to have a real marriage. He goes on to say he hated her but couldn't do anything for the sake of family honor. Then he says she began to have 'friends' to Manderley and that she laughed at the notion anyone would suspect anything. He doesn't say 'men'. We know she rebuffed both DeWinter and Frank as lovers, and the only male lover we know she had was for the purpose of conceiving a child and pissing off De Winter. It's clear she wasn't in love with him.
It's possible she wasn't a lesbian, but there's every possible hint that she was.
She wasn't a lesbian. How could she have claimed to be impregnated by another man if she were? The book makes it plain she slept with a number of men, including Favell. But I'm drawn to the idea she was bisexual. It makes Maxim's revulsion of her even more believable. She'd never have slept with Danvers - not only b/c of the difference in social station, but Rebecca was enraptured by beauty, and Danvers was certainly no beauty. I see Danvers as a desperate, repressed woman obsessed with this dazzling young Venus and without any understanding of her own sexual feelings.
shareThose of you who are saying that Rebecca could not be a lesbian because she sleeps with men are just plain wrong. True, it probably makes her bisexual as opposed to lesbian, but not necessarily. She could just sleep with men to have power over them. And beauty and looks have little to do with it either. Lesbian bonds are much more complex than either one of these issues.
As far as Mrs. Danvers goes, it has been hinted at since day one that she had more-than-maternal feelings for Rebecca. In fact, the censors at the time specifically mentioned things about Danny's behavior that needed to be taken out; Selznick and Hitchcock did NOT take them out and for some reason, the censors let them stay.
In any event, my guess is that, as others have stated here, Rebecca capitalized on Danny's feelings to manipulate her.
A couple of keys for me:
1) The way Danny looks the 2nd Mrs. de Winter up and down after their initial discussion in her room.
2) When she showed the 2nd Mrs. de Winter Rebecca's black, see-through negligee that she said she got for Rebecca, and the fact that it is shown burning up at the end of the movie at the same time Mrs. Danvers is burning up.
M.
i guess R. was like sharon stone's character in basic instinct
It's strange, because although Rebecca is NOT a physical character in the story at all, the presence of her in the story is so strong just from hearsay that you can imagine exactly what she would be like and what she might have done. Her ghost is throughout the story weaving plot for us and we know more about HER character than ANY of the other characters in this film...
While I think the scriptwriters did not intentionally want it to SEEM as if there was any lesbian subtext (after all, this is the day of the Hayes code, and they had to be VERY careful), the way it was shot makes it seem rather cleverly ambiguous and I'm not sure if Hitch did intend it this way or not but it was rather well done - you really can make up your own mind about what you think happened.
It can be up for interpretation since no one comes right out and says for certain in the plot itself that these things did or didn't happen. Was Rebecca a lesbian? No, that's for certain, it's mentioned she has affairs with Favell and almost certainly other men - she clearly loves the attention of men. However, that doesn't rule out bisexual encounters...I think as others mention, Rebecca was probably fairly liberated...an "if it feels good - do it" type judging by how everyone talks of her. If she DID have any bisexual affairs, I don't believe for a single moment that she actually turned her attention to Danvers.
I believe that Danvers possibly did have a longing for Rebecca, one that was probably highly suppressed and never reciprocated. Rebecca was probably quite far aware of it too, she was supposedly a highly desirable and the way people speak of her, probably quite intelligent and perceptive, it Danvers did have feelings for her, Rebecca probably knew about it and probably even USED those feelings to keep Danvers in her thrall. Danvers touching that underwear almost as if she could imagine or see how Rebecca looked in it - had Rebecca paraded around in front of Danvers wearing such items? Possibly...playing games and manipulating the woman, ensuring she could hold her loyalty to keep her secrets and use her as a co-conspirator to keep Maxim's money and maintain the illusion of being happily married to him.
There's a lot of ways it could have played out and the film makes it rather easy to lead us in many possible directions and conclusions.
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We've become a race of peeping toms.