MovieChat Forums > Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) Discussion > Why didn't...

Why didn't...

posted 10 years ago by TrevorReznick
20 replies | jump to latest

Martha get her own PhD? Instead of railing at George all the time for being a "loser," and going on and on about "daddy," why didn't she just become a professor herself? Couldn't she have taught classes herself and lived up to her own standards, instead of always having to live through either George's "failure" or her father's success? If her dad ruled the college so entirely, couldn't she have easily been placed though his influence?

Then she could personally and proactively have made up for how disappointing George was, without having to self-reference her father all the time. It's like she lived through her dad...

Hard to believe that country used to rule anything...

[–] hka-3 10 years ago

Good points. If Martha had been in her right mind, she certainly would've had the time and means to acquire the required education. I wonder, though, if her father and/or husband would've been supportive of her goal.

[–] moosefeathers 10 years ago

It was still the time when women married and had children and were supported by their successful husbands. And this is what Martha thought what she was getting. Unfortunately for her, he was a flop, a bog...a swamp.....that and the fact that she couldn't have kids caused her to become sunken to the bottom of a cocktail glass, as well as taking George with her to the bottom of the glass.

That's how I see it.

Swing away, Merrill....Merrill, swing away...

[–] TrevorReznick 10 years ago

It was still the time when women married and had children and were supported by their successful husbands.

I disagree with that statement as it relates to Martha's status. It may have been the 1960s, but there were still plenty of women professors then. Education is a field in which women have always had a presence. They may not have been so prominent in, say, big business and the military. But the teaching profession is different.

Martha was obviously intelligent enough to get her own PhD, and her much-vaunted father could have promoted her career quite handily.

I can only surmise that she would have made a lousy teacher and/or scholar, knew it and was afraid of failure, and became frustrated and soured due to that fact. She had obviously planned to ride on what she assumed was going to be George's stellar career and live through him, but the viewer doesn't need to be told that.

Hard to believe that country used to rule anything...

[–] LetThemEatCake01 10 years ago

What makes you think that she didn't?? Doesn't she have a line in the film where she says I went to school just like everybody else? Or she says college? I don't remember the exact words but she clearly stated that she had an education, so she could have been a professional too.

[–] TrevorReznick 10 years ago

What makes you think that she didn't??

What do you mean? If she had her own PhD, why wasn't she a professor herself? That was my original question.

Doesn't she have a line in the film where she says I went to school just like everybody else? Or she says college? I don't remember the exact words but she clearly stated that she had an education

Yes, she has that line, and yes -- of course she has an education.

So if she does have her own PhD (which I guess is what you're claiming) we're back to the original question: Why wasn't she a successful professor herself, in order to make up for George's "failure" and not live through him and her father?

so she could have been a professional too.

So why wasn't she? Why wasn't it Professor Martha, as well as Professor George? Then she wouldn't have had to live through the men in her life.

I can only surmise that the problem is exactly how maxtshea put it:

She couldn't pass grad school muster even if she wanted to.

George isn't the school president -- her dad is still in that position, right? What makes her think her father would ever have wanted to give up the position to anyone -- George or anyone else?

George must have done something right, he's head of the department in his own field -- History, correct?

Hard to believe that country used to rule anything...

[–] LetThemEatCake01 10 years ago

And what makes you think that she's living vicariously through anybody? She's also a middle aged woman in the 60's, which means she went to school in the 30's and 40's, women were not expected to, they weren't even encouraged to get any university education, and if they did go to university like women that were of solvent families, they were almost always not expected to work after graduation, that could have been her case, or maybe she never cared or wanted to work, why does it matter?

And George isn't the history department, he's merely IN the history department! or whatever the quote was.

[–] TrevorReznick 10 years ago

And what makes you think that she's living vicariously through anybody?

Huh? 

What an odd question...

Did you see the same film that everyone else did?

maybe she never cared or wanted to work, why does it matter?

Err...it matters for the reasons I put in my original post. If she wanted to, she could have been a professor herself and had her own academic career. Then she would not have had to "suffer" George's failure or idolize her father and ride on his coattails.

So she went to college in the 1940s, so what? You can get a Master's and PhD at any age. It was the 1960s, she would have had 20 years to do so. There were plenty of women professors -- even back then.

It would have been an effective way of distancing herself from George's "failure."

Hard to believe that country used to rule anything...

[–] LetThemEatCake01 10 years ago

Again, why the hell does it matter? And to me she did get a Phd.

[–] TrevorReznick 10 years ago

Again -- what an odd question.  That's already been answered in my previous post:

...it matters for the reasons I put in my original post. If she wanted to, she could have been a professor herself and had her own academic career. Then she would not have had to "suffer" George's failure or idolize her father and ride on his coattails.

And to me she did get a Phd.

Fine. So she got a PhD. Then she could have put it to use to accomplish Answer Number 1 (quoted above).

Hard to believe that country used to rule anything...

[–] LetThemEatCake01 10 years ago

Do you even know what it was like for women back then? Maybe her father didn't want to give her the reins of the college. That's the way it was back then, prominent families would even favor a son in law to take care of affairs over their only daughters if they had no sons. It's the way it was.

[–] TrevorReznick 10 years ago

Do you even know what it was like for women back then?

Do you? It sounds to me like you're ranting about something you actually know very little about, merely in order to show off so that you can come across as some sort of post-millennial, pseudo-"feminist."

News flash: Any feminist opinions you may state have already been said, and said better -- probably decades before you were born.

You're not the first person on planet earth to recognize that it was unfair back then.

Of course it was -- no one is saying it wasn't.

It doesn't mean that successful women scientists and educators such as Marie Curie, Maria Montessori, Rosalind Franklin, Mary McLeod Bethune, Jane Goodall, Rachel Carson, and Marjorie Lee Browne (one of the first African-American women to receive a doctorate -- in 1949, no less) didn't exist.

If you're a woman, you're really selling your gender short if you don't think your own sex were capable of overcoming all the odds and being outstanding in their chosen fields -- even back then.

Hard to believe that country used to rule anything...

[–] LetThemEatCake01 10 years ago

lol you are beyond pathetic, I'm not selling anything short, they may have been capable, most of them still didn't have a career, you seriously have no grasp.-

[–] TrevorReznick 10 years ago

OMG, another IMDb nut job -- crazy as a shïthouse rat. 

There are way too many of you crackpots on this site, just shove your head back up your ass and take a flying leap off a cliff.

Hard to believe that country used to rule anything...

[–] Stirchley 9 years ago

^Yikes, your posts were interesting and intelligent until you had a meltdown in the above post.

[–] Strazdamonas 8 years ago

Ech, dont take it to hear. There are crackpots everywhere and the zealous members of feminism tend to be very agressive.

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The spirit of abysmal despair

[–] zenstyle 8 years ago

The play is, among other things, a warning to women to NOT depend on a man to get you through, even if it meant going contrary to the norms of that period.

[–] cbkaufman 8 years ago

>>George must have done something right, he's head of the department in his own field -- History, correct?

No. This was made clear. He was only an associate professor.

[–] cbkaufman 8 years ago

>>George must have done something right, he's head of the department in his own field -- History, correct?

No. This was made clear. He was only an associate professor.

[–] cbkaufman 8 years ago

Just because someone is smart and has an automatic "in" with the college's admissions, doesn't mean that they are cut out for academia, to be a student or teacher. Nor does it mean that a person should, therefore, want to pursue such a goal. Plus, in Martha's case, who would she have to blame for dragging her life downward?

[–] maxtshea 10 years ago

Martha didn't want to get a PhD. She wanted to marry daddy. Her complaint against George is he isn't daddy. He doesn't have the stuff to climb to the college presidency. He's a big FLOP! Anyway, Martha was probably a psychiatric basketcase and an alcoholic by her sophomore year. She couldn't pass grad school muster even if she wanted to.