Gendered difference

In this sequence from The Exiles (1961) gendered difference is portrayed through the film’s mise-en-scene. Firstly, the contrasting framing of the male and female characters represents the differing social roles between the genders. Lonely housewife Yvonne (Yvonne Williams) is often pictured within different frames and barriers, such as doorways and mirrors (fig.1), and behind the prison-like bars of the gate to the house. This represent her character’s recurrent theme of being isolated and trapped. The shot in the mirror is juxtaposed with the men together in the lounge, further depicting her loneliness as she is the sole female with only her reflection for company. She is rarely pictured in the same frame as the other characters and when she is it is often in the background and out of focus, most poignantly when her husband, Homer (Homer Nish), walks past and barely even glances at her, explicitly displaying the rift in their marriage. Both genders are designated their stereotypical spaces (Yvonne in the kitchen, the men in the lounge) and even when crossed, the organisation of the movement is so that Yvonne is still isolated: men are only pictured entering the kitchen just as she’s leaving and as she drifts through the lounge with the shopping nobody takes notice.

A Cineaste review described the film as being ‘about the terrible gap that forms between men and women’ (Koehler, 2008), which is both metaphorically and literally represented through kinesis and framing. In comparison to Yvonne’s confined framing, the men are often pictured in open frames (fig.2) symbolising the leisure and freedom they have throughout the film both in this sequence as at the film’s close when they party on top of a hill until the early morning and wander the streets freely.

Furthermore, gendered props are used to classify the characters. Yvonne is associated with domestic and cosmetic items, such as cooking pots and a hairbrush: two key symbols associated with stereotypical femininity; namely, housework and beauty. The large grocery bag Yvonne carries from the market is a symbol of domesticity while representing the hidden labour of maintaining a household and the idea of being trapped: even when she is out of the home in a wide open setting, she is burdened by her homely duties (fig.3). Conversely, props associated with male characters are items that symbolise power and stereotypical masculinity and are often used by the men to prove dominance over each other. Homer is pictured stealing cigarettes off his sleeping friend and smoking them. In cinema, cigarettes have often been a symbol of masculinity, famously attached to male film icons like Humphrey Bogart and Jean-Paul Belmondo, while psychoanalyst AA Brill said they were phallic symbols (qtd. in L’Etang et al, 310). Homer is not only showing his masculinity by smoking cigarettes but also exerting power over another man’s metaphorical phallus and using it for himself. Similarly, Tommy tries to steal the same sleeping man’s wallet, a more contemporary capitalist symbol of masculinity. As described by Benshoff and Griffin, as America became an increasingly consumerist society ‘masculinity was tied specifically to economic concerns’ (260) so this act signifies male competitiveness and economic aspiration. These men are unemployed, an emasculating position to be in, so the male characters compensate for this with overt signs of virility such as stealing. The need for the men to prove their masculinity is recurrent throughout the film through, in this scene, interpersonal competitiveness and delinquency, and in the wider film, fighting and picking up women. Overall, this gender contrast is symbolised through the juxtaposing use of the flame of a match which Homer uses light a cigarette but Yvonne uses to light the hob. This use of props invites reflection on the masculinity of the male characters, something even more pronounced in the scene in which Homer and a friend relax in armchairs and beds while reading comic books (fig.2); this behaviour is more typical of teenagers rather than grown men. Their juvenile demeanour could be seen as more accurate representation of the male characters, with the desperate attempts to prove their manliness insecure attempts to show off and disavow their powerlessness and marginalisation.

The doll placed next to Yvonne as she fixes her makeup (fig. 1) could be seen as representing her as also childish. However, the mise-en-scene is here less judgemental, presenting her as aspirational rather than adolescent like the men, with ‘dreams of a middle-class life with a good man’ (Koehler, 2008). These are reminiscent of the schoolgirl fantasies of the ideal life taught in American schools and culture but she is stuck in a working-class life with an unambitious husband. However, more likely, the doll could represent Yvonne’s maternity as her pregnancy is referenced repeatedly in the film and she fulfils a motherly role cooking for the ungrateful, childish men. Also, she carries the groceries maternally, cradling them like a child, and the only visible grocery in the bag are eggs, a symbol of female fertility (fig.3). The seemingly incidental, but actually quite intricate, mise-en-scene in this sequence of The Exiles portrays unequal gendered difference. In particular, a tight restrictive framing of the oppressed and lonely Yvonne is juxtaposed with the open framing of the men, with stereotypically gendered props used to represent a domestic, motherly femininity compared to an immature but powerful masculinity.

References

Benshoff, H. and Griffin, S. America on Film: Representing Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality at the Movies. Wiley Blackwell: 2009. Print.

Koehler, R. (2018). ‘The Exiles‘. cineaste.com. 2008. Web. 14 Mar. 2018.

L’Etang, J., McKie, D., Snow, N., and Xifra. J. The Routledge Handbook of Critical Public Relations. Oxford: Routledge, 2016. Print.

Jake Thompson is a BA Hons film student at QMUL. He is from Shrewsbury, Shropshire and in his spare time he likes to play football and go to live music events. In the future he hopes to have a creative writing role within the film industry.