Gene Kelly, Anita Hill and the Life Changing Power of Pop Culture
In 1992, my friend Molly and I went to see a movie. Not just any movie. An old movie. A movie we both grew up watching and swooning over as the most romantic movie ever.
The Music Box in Chicago was showing “American in Paris” on a huge screen, in a barn of a theatre. We grew up watching the film on small TV boxes in the late 1970s and ‘80s. The opportunity to see the film as it was meant to be seen in 1951 filled us with excitement.
It was also a great reason to get away from all of the disturbing news around us. The fall before our movie outing, Anita Hill had testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee - headed by Joe Biden - about being sexually harassed by then-SCOTUS nominee Clarence Thomas. Anyone who was over, say, 10 years old in 1991 remembers this. There were only three national TV stations then, and coverage was wall to wall.
Thomas, as we know, was confirmed, after the white men on the committee dismissed Hill’s claims of workplace banter about pubic hair and pornography.
(Also, does anybody remember that this took place at the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission?)
The immediate result was threefold. First, many in the press showed their own sexism in suggesting, for instance, that Hill “never charged Thomas with sexual harassment but ‘talked about {his} behavior’” and “she never did submit and continued to get first-rate assignments.”
Because submitting, or not, is the choice for women. Men will be men, after all.
The second thing the news media did was to start reporting ad nauseam about stalking. Just as we couldn’t escape the original hearings, we also couldn’t escape the articles about how women should be very careful, afraid even, of evil men - as opposed to regular men like the ones writing the articles - becoming obsessive over them. The Thomas hearings had nothing to do with stalking, though they did have to do with not taking no for an answer. That was something the mostly male journalists at the time couldn’t report, or even, I suspect, grasp. I don’t remember any articles asking what the hell was wrong with men that they became so obsessive if a woman said no.
The third thing that came out of this was that there were enough women who had grown out of their naive stage in 1992 who did not believe the bias presented by the press, who had their own experiences with sexual harassment, and who were determined to elect more women to the Senate.
It was in the midst of this awakening that Molly and I found ourselves with about six or eight other people in the 750-seat theatre. People who were clearly as hopelessly romantic as we were.
The first half hour or so of “American in Paris” is a set of non-sequitur song-and-dance scenes with not much plot. They are there to make Gene Kelly shine. And he does. Damn, that man could dance. Then he meets his would-be benefactor, Milo, played by the incomparable actress (and crossword puzzle answer) Nina Foch. It’s not till 37 minutes into this original “meet cute” romantic musical comedy that he meets his love interest, played by Leslie Caron.
Kelly’s character, Jerry Mulligan, meets and wins Leslie Caron’s character, Lise, in three scenes. The power of three at work.
Let’s go through them.
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Scene 1: The Nightclub
This scene was also written in three parts. Part 1 is what I call “Doll.” This part has Kelly, Foch and character actor Hayden Rorke.
Of course, Jerrry says Lise' name the American way, Lisa, but in the IMDB credits, as well as the English captions, it’s Lise. Note this. Just put it in your pocket for a few minutes.
Scene 1, Part 2 - “In a Minute”
This takes place after Milo and Tommy head to the dance floor to talk about why Milo shouldn’t waste her time on Jerry. As soon as they leave the table, Jerry turns around, puts his hand on his cheek and stares at Lise. Like, just… stares. Dreamily. After a few seconds, she notices him, gives him an angry look, and goes back to her friends. At this point, director Vincent Minnelli cuts to a close-up of Caron doing the same thing. She looks at Jerry with disgust. He smiles at her. She looks away.
Let’s repeat that. She looks at him with disgust and he smiles at her.
Then he suddenly gets up from the table, comes around beside her - and LIES. He also… physically controls her.
Watch the scene below.
I feel like that “in a minute” was menacing. Was it menacing to you? More to the point, was it menacing in 1951? Or even 1991?
Here’s the best part, though. As soon as this clip ends, he sings “Our Love is Here to Stay.”
I’m not making this up. I could never have made this up. Unless I wanted to write a script about a sociopath who can’t read any signals and seems to be having a parallel conversation and experience than the person he is harassing.
I’m gonna place this scene in 2022, with my 19-year-old daughters and their Gen Z feminist friends (Caron was 19 when this film was shot, Kelly was 38).
Jerry: (approaching table and grabbing daughter’s hands) Lise! I didn’t see you sitting here…
Friend #1: The fuck, dude, who are you? Get your hands off her!
Friend #2: You’ve been staring at her, what do you mean you didn’t see her. Get the hell out of here!
Daughter: I have never met you. Go away.
If the well-meaning gentleman persisted, my other daughter (in this situation, they are interchangeable) will get between him and her sister and stare him down, while the friends behind them call security.
But wait! That’s not even the end of the first scene! There’s part 3. Part 3 is “Phone Number,” where he LIES AGAIN!
Scene 1, Part 3 - Phone Number
Jerry has just finished “Our Love Is Here to Stay” and he’s pretty pleased with himself.
I’m sorry, can we say CREEPY?
Scene 2: The Phone Call
This is a pretty quick interlude scene. He calls her. At work.
Also, down screen right… is that an abacus in the middle of the phone cage?
Seriously? First of all… seriously? Second of all… he keeps mispronouncing HER name and then gets pissed because she - with her French accent - can’t or doesn’t pronounce his Irish American name correctly? Come on! The movie is not called Parisian in America!
Scene 3: You Win
This scene starts with Jerry jauntily walking down the street in a way that would look very silly if it wasn’t a musical. He is happy. Upbeat. In the previous scene of the film (as opposed to the scenes I am analyzing - all of which come after interlude scenes with Milo), he has been told that Milo is going to help his career despite the fact that he’s a rake. Is that why he’s happy? NO! He’s happy because he is GOING TO THE PERFUMERY TO WOO LISE!
She just hung up on him. She just told him she never wants to talk to him again. She tried to give him the wrong number to begin with. And he is jaunty! Because - in this world - no does not mean no.
And… (rape) scene.
There is so much in this scene. Let’s go backwards. She hates him, she hates him, she’s afraid of him, she hates him. He mimes drinking perfume and she is instantly in love.
O…. K….
Let’s talk about Customer Madge. She is old, for one. Character actress Madge Blake was born in 1899, so she was 52 when “American in Paris” was filmed. That’s the same age that Jennifer Lopez is now.
Minnelli made her look older. She also was… not slim. He shot her mostly in profile and the makeup and costuming made her look like an ugly, old bitty - perhaps even a predatory bird - who might be overlooked but for the fact that she has money. She is from the Midwest of the United States. She is a hick. And stupid. And vain. The fact that she is in Paris alone tells us something, and the fact that she can’t make up her mind how she wants to please her husband’s sense of smell tells us another.
This scene is weird to me, because it is meant to make fun of Customer Madge, but it ends up illustrating the predatory nature of a fashion industry that needs to make women feel bad in order to present - and sell! - the way to make them feel good. Did nobody see this in 1951?
(Also, as were many women in Hollywood in the 20th century - see Hedy Lamar, Julia Child - Madge Blake was actually a badass off screen.)
This scene also tells us something in that Jerry sells her on this perfume by telling her she’ll smell so good men might not be able to stop themselves from sexually assaulting her. And she takes it as a compliment!
When Molly and I were watching this in 1992, she gave me a side glance during the phone call scene and said, “He’s stalking her.”
“Yes,” I said, having just reached the same conclusion. “He is.”
The weird thing is in the perfume shop scene he admits he’s aggressive. Because that’s how men need to be to get a girl.
In 1951, when my parents were children, people thought this was OK. Post-Anita Hill, post-MeToo, these scenes are very clearly not OK. Then again, there are a lot of people - a lot of women - who still don’t see anything wrong with these scenes.
I believe pop culture is incredibly powerful - moreso because it’s so subtle. We’re watching a movie! With dancing! We’re not supposed to take cues about the way we live and the way we love. But the cues are there. And we internalize them.
Let’s look at when “American in Paris” was made. Just a few years before, men had come back from fighting WWII, and the women who had manned the factories and other jobs were told to go home, get married and raise children. They chafed at that. So pop culture had to ease the chafing, with these kinds of movies, and with radio (and later TV) sitcoms like “Father Knows Best” and “The Honeymooners.”
Clarence Thomas is from this generation. So is Oregon Senator Bob Packwood, who, a few years after Anita Hill’s testimony, had to resign because of all the work-related sexual harassment complaints against him. Every woman who voted for Dianne Feinstein or Patty Murray or Carol Moseley Braun for Senate in 1992 knew that the men they worked for learned the lessons pop culture taught them very well.
Watching American Paris in that huge theatre at that moment in time was a seminal turning point in my life. It’s when I - who had just started an arts newspaper - really understood the power of pop culture. It taught us how to be. It still does.
I will write more on the subliminal cues we get from pop culture in the coming months. If you like what you are reading, please subscribe. You will get an email every two weeks and, if you want, a text alerting you to the next Overthinking piece. (Here’s a handy Google form if you want a text.)
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