Hitchcock dressed as a woman.
source: FanOFunny
The Emergence of an Alternative Sexuality
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source: FanOFunny |
Although the roles of women and the masculinity of men were being redefined throughout the 1950s, as previously discussed, the emergence of an "alternative" or "deviant" sexuality became apparent - manifesting itself in homosexuality and resulting societal homophobia, as well as through the exhibition of "unhealthy" familial relations. Hitchcock's films from this period (particularly Rope, Psycho, Frenzy and Strangers on a Train) show an insistence of the presence of these "alternative" forms of sexuality - particularly placed at the center of the American suburban middle class sensibility and its institutions, and at the center of national security as well.
A popular opinion at the time stemmed from the ideas of Sigmund Freud. Freud argued that boys frequently adopted a "feminine attitude" toward their father during the pre-Oedipal phase and fantasizes about taking the place of the mother. In order for the boy to resolve the Oedipus complex, he must renounce these fantasies. However, if the boy cannot repress his attachment to his father, he will retain the polymorphous sexuality of the pre-Oedipal phase of development. As one critic points out, Hitchcock's films frequently contain Oedipal references, either through a return to the polymorphous sexuality of the pre-Oedipal phase and the resulting homosexuality, as addressed in Strangers on a Train, or through the full realization of the Oedipal complex, resulting in an overtly sexual attachment to one's mother, as portrayed in Psycho (1).
Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train follows two men, professional tennis player Guy Haines and momma's boy Charles Bruno, on a train trip from New York and Connecticut to Washington DC. Throughout the interaction on the train, Guy becomes increasingly uncomfortable with Bruno's flirtatious behavior, eventually telling Bruno to "Pick up somebody else." Hitchcock's film, therefore, reflects the homophobic ideology of the time that arose during the onset of the Cold War (2).
On February 28, 1950, John Peurifoy of the State Department, made a statement that created allegations that Truman's employment of "sexual deviants with police records" was recklessly endangering the national security of the country. This statement would then insight a legal crisis that threatened to undermine the government's power to regulate same-sex practices. The result was the Cold War construction of the homosexual as a national security risk and the paranoia that followed. Many were worried that because homosexuals were indistinguishable from heterosexuals, as documented by medical research at the time, there was a possibility that these "deviants" had infiltrated all levels of American society (3).
Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, therefore, participated in these attempts to contain the political and sexual upheavals of the postwar period through the deployment of homophobia. In addition, by placing the scene of the film at the nation's capital, Hitchcock creates a narrative surrounding the "homosexual menace" as defined by contemporary juridical discourse. The sentiment conveyed in the film, as a result, identifies individual conformity to the political and sexual norms of the Cold War era as sanctioned by the nation's security department, as an act of supreme patriotism. It is believed by some that these homosexual undertones and homophobic tendencies are also translated into Hitchcock's later films as well (4).
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At the other extreme of the polymorphous sexuality of the pre-Oedipal stage is the fulfillment of the Oedipal complex as demonstrated by Anthony Perkins' character, Norman Bates in Psycho.
As is common to the film noir genre, Psycho constructs a "shadowy world of hidden meanings, a universe where human desire fails to obtain its object, [and] a place where competing discourses are not neatly reconciled in a spirit of social optimism." Additionally, many noir romances "work toward a deconstruction of the couple, a narrative goal that indexes the failure of social forms to either contain or satisfy individual desire" (5).
Encompassing these noir elements and the extreme manifestation of the Oedipal complex, Norman Bates is not capable of adult sexuality, because he is being held in sexual bondage by his mother. Norman becomes the embodiment of dysfunctional sexuality in the film. Norman's dysfunctional desire, a result of the family romance that collapsed under the weight of its own baggage, creates a sentiment that he is the victim of a never completed Oedipal trajectory. Bates is entrapped by his suffocating past and is therefore taken over by his own vision of the mother he poisoned for her sexual transgression. Yet, oddly, it is in becoming his own image of his mother that Norman Bates has reached the emotional stasis in which subject and order are one. This, too, was seen as a threat to security when it resulted in the famous shower scene murder of Marion (played by Janet Leigh). This manifestation of "alternative sexuality" would not become a concern of the national government however as the previous "deviance" did (6).
End Notes:
1. Freedman, Jonathan and Millington, Richard. Hitchcock's America. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
2. Freedman, Jonathan. Hitchcock's America.
3. Freedman, Jonathan. Hitchcock's America.
4. Freedman, Jonathan. Hitchcock's America.
5. Boyd, David. Perspectives on Alfred Hitchcock. New York: G.K. Hall, 1995.
6. Boyd, David. Perspectives on Alfred Hitchcock.
5/08/03 by E. Wennerberg