Thoughts: Woman As Other and, um, the Pink Panther

I got a lot out of the Simone de Beauvoir chapter (from Woman As Other). It was especially enlightening to have it point out that, unlike other subjects of oppression, it was not an "event" that occurred to be reversed; it has been an ongoing, nearly hardwired paradigm.

Having watched the Pink Panther scene in class, we were to examine it through a de Beauvoiresque lens.

At first I had some difficulty figuring out how to apply Woman as Other and the concept of master/slave to a scene that appears to be fairly equal; a woman is singing, the audience is appreciative, everybody gets into a casual maraca-shaking conga line.

As we discussed it a bit it becomes more apparent: a nameless woman, the only person wearing all-black and exotic jewelry, singing a song not in English, all contrast and teeth and lipstick. (By way of comparison, all other characters are in non-conflicting pastels and basic colors. Peter Sellers' character is in white, creating a binary opposite. He is also the only person in the room initially paying no attention to her. What does this mean? I have no idea, I'm just throwing thoughts at this blog.)

Fellow student Meagan brought up a great point: the singer makes herself attractive to the audience, but she does so through visual entertainment, not through conversation. She is motion, not mind.

She is nameless... but referring to de Beauvoir's essay, we don't HAVE to know her name. She is the focus of objection. Her sex is all that is important in the context of this hedonistic scene, and the other women in the scene are passive. Also, it seems that a woman performing is compelled to perform with her whole body--something I daresay a man isn't expected to do (a similar scene where a man performs might only require he sing and play guitar... he needn't gyrate or include hand gestures, or even be as sharply dressed and coiffed as she). A man's shape in film seems not as necessary a focus in a Western patriarchal society as a woman's shape.