MovieChat Forums > Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) Discussion > SEXIST???

SEXIST???

posted 20 years ago by CiNEPHlLE
47 replies | jump to latest

I watched this last night and loved it. I thought the music was wonderful and the dancing was spectacular. It was marvelously directed by Stanley Donen and the widescreen cinematography is gorgeous.

But I've heard people who don't like the film call it sexist, which doesn't really make very much sense to me. The film is certainly old fashioned and low on story, and the brothers, especially Adam, are very sexist in the beginning, but I don't see how that makes the film itself sexist. If anything, the film seemed to be denouncing sexism and how the brothers were so brutish and unrefined in the beginning. Adam is the most sexist of all but in the end seems to realize how wrong he was and makes up for it. And some might say it's silly and sexist for the brides to all fall back in love with the brothers after they kidnapped them idiotically, but I think the point is that the brothers are so ignorant and win the brides' hearts back by gradually becoming gentlemanly again. And most of all, I don't see how this film could seem sexist when the character who shows the most authority of all in the film is Milly. After all, she has the boldness and the power to order the brothers around, kick her husband out of the bedroom on their wedding night, and kick all of the brothers out of the house after kidnapping the girls.

[–] logicalskeptic 10 years ago

Sexist? How could anyone imagine a sexist plot for something inspired by "The Rape of the Sabine Women"?

Only two things are actually knowable:
It is now and you are here. All else is merely a belief.

[–] Noufa 10 years ago

The objections to rape in this movie are misguided. In the story of the Sabine women, the word "rape" just meant kidnapping. There was no non-consensual sex in this movie. IIRC, the only sex implied was between Adam & Milly. And that was clearly on Milly's terms. Milly was an effective advocate for the other women. They still had agency, even after being kidnapped.

And it is commendable for a woman to aspire to be a housewife/mother. Political feminism squandered a lot of its credibility by suggesting otherwise. Whipped Honey nailed the problem with this objection, up-thread.

But IMO, there is an important objection to the sexism in this movie: the portrayal of women as domesticators. There were a lot of rough men on the frontiers. To suggest these men could be redeemed by marriage is dangerous. The modern counterpart to this idea is that men will "settle down" once they get a chick pregnant. People don't work like that.

EDIT-just wanted to add that I still enjoyed this movie.

[–] elena-28 10 years ago

To suggest these men could be redeemed by marriage is dangerous.

I don't get that message from the story though: Adam, for example, isn't redeemed by marriage. Even at the barn raising, he teases Milly by saying he doesn't need manners because he's already married, but there is, I think, a bit of belief in what he says and what she hears. Adam is so unrepentant and unredeemed that he spends the winter in the mountains (where it's still snowy in June). What actually brings him around is the birth of his daughter and putting himself in the shoes of the fathers of the young women who have been stranded in his house all winter ("I'd hang him from the highest tree," he says (or something like that)). It's his responsibility as the father of a little girl that opens him to realizing his love for Milly.

The brothers are all slowly redeemed throughout the winter, and are well on the way to becoming civilized before their marriage to their brides. And the brides go through a process, too, living in that house with Milly and understanding what being a wife and heart of the house is like. I love how they all take charge when Milly's ready for birth.

Incidentally, I think it isn't Milly who tells Adam the story of the Sabine women: way early in the story, in the intro to "Goin' Courtin'", Adam is with everyone else, and he's on the couch, reading one of the books. When he laughs at Milly's attempt to teach the boys, he leaves and takes the book with him. This is the book he's holding in the "Sobbin' Women" number. I guess it's evidence that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing...

[–] liscarkat (18886) a year ago

The movie spoofs the kind of sexism it depicts. An intelligent, strong woman shows up in the midst of these rustics to shame and educate them out of their buffoonish cave-man ways. Audiences of 1954 recognized this easily (not that it's subtle), but many people today don't seem sophisticated enough to get it.