Mike Frank observes:

 

 

> . . . freed from the burden of this presupposition  i now find myself

> inclined to see the glasses as a version of the glasses worn by other

> hitchcock women, most signally by midge in VERTIGO . . . midge's glasses, i

> take it, work quite differently than as an "obvious sexual symbol" and in

> fact seem designed to mark the woman as UN-sexualized, a marking that is

> most obvious in the shot comparing midge and carlotta . . . in that famous

> shot it is midge's eye-glasses that are the most blatant signifier of her

> absolute inability to achieve the feminine sexuality [or sexualized

> femininity] of which carlotta is the icon . . .

 

 

 

> . . . by this reading miriam's glasses are not the signifier of female

> sexuality, they are the opposite, the signifier of the danger of the  not

> [or no longer] attractive woman who nevertheless puruses her own goals

> rather than submitting to those of men . . . of course the sexualized

> female is also dangerous [madeleine, marion, usw.] but that is another and

> already very well known hitchcockian story

 

Fine points here, though the signifier is not unique to Hitchcock.  In

fact, there is a general use of glasses that suggests two different

aspects of the "unsexualized" woman in classic American films:

 

There are the glasses (plain, usually roundish) that connote

bookishness, and hence pending spinsterhood.  To "free" the woman into

the male presence (as lover or as wife) is to lose the glasses.  Midge

in VERTIGO is of this type, but so is the initial view of the Joan

Fontaine character in SUSPICION and Mary in the "alternate reality"

section of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, where--without George Bailey--she has

descended into the tragedy of being a (gasp!) *librarian*.  (Of course,

such glasses are considered fitting for women beyond the age of

reproduction who may even be real librarians or teachers and become

established as wisdom figures in some films.)

 

But glasses don't necessarily erase sexuality.  There is the kind of

glasses that I *think* Miriam wears in STRANGERS ON A TRAIN--with

pointy corners, sometimes adorned with rhinestones (rather like the ones

all those housewife snakes wear in Far Side cartoons!).  These maintain

some element of sexuality to them but one that is more threatening, even

castrating.  The women who wear these glasses do not cast their eyes

down but confront the male and even seem to revel in their sexual excess

(as Miriam does in confronting Guy).  If Rebecca DeWinter wore glasses,

she'd wear this type as well.  Such glasses are often worn by women in

some position of power--Eve Arden's designer in FUNNY FACE, for

example (though I suspect she based her look on Edith Head herself!).

But if overdone and too beset with rhinestones, they become a mere

signifier of bad taste (the stereotypical Jewish housewife, including

Mike Meyers' "Cawfee Tawk" host from SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE).

 

Don Larsson

 

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Donald Larsson

Minnesota State U, Mankato

[log in to unmask]

 

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