Emily L. Stephens’ previous work for The Toast can be found here.
On the surface, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes sounds like a delivery system for the tritest sexist jibes of midcentury movies: diamond-enthusiast Lorelei Lee (Marilyn Monroe) and her man-hungry best friend Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell) take their cabaret act overseas, setting sail for Europe to teach a lesson to Lorelei’s fiancé. At sea, they’re surrounded by Olympic athletes and rich older men, temptations that could easily sink the women’s reputations and ambitions. Even the title suggests rivalry between Lorelei and Dorothy, between blonde and brunette, between the soft-voiced siren and her brazen, wisecracking best friend.
Howard Hawks’ 1953 film upends those tired expectations with gleeful abandon. Instead of diminishing or disdaining the women or setting them at odds, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes observes the bonds of female friendship, showing how unfailingly Dorothy and Lorelei adore and defend each other. Their goals are different — Lorelei single-mindedly pursues financial security and Dorothy wants bawdy fun on her own terms — but both women use their smarts and sex appeal to navigate the constraints of a sexist world, each striking the patriarchal bargain that best suits their desires and needs, never selling each other out or selling themselves short.
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a romping example of female agency in limited circumstances. These women work and play together, wresting their power and pleasures from the hands of men with relish. It’s a simple plot: Lorelei and her milquetoast millionaire fiancé Gus (“Missster Essssmond,” Lorelei calls him with sssultry sssibilance) are slated to sail on the Ile de Paris, to be married upon arrival in Cherbourg. When Mr. Esmond, Sr., wises up and forbids his son-and-heir to sail, Lorelei decides to use her ticket anyhow, in hopes of luring Gus (Tommy Noonan) away from his dominating father and into the delights of matrimony. Dorothy comes along for the ride — to see France, to perform abroad, to keep any whiff of scandal away from Lorelei, and just maybe to savor some scandalous good times herself.
From the first frame, their friendship is front and center. The opening number, “Two Little Girls from Little Rock,” is adapted from the Broadway musical’s song about one girl from Little Rock. Instead, the film introduces Lorelei and Dorothy as a pair: they grew up together “on the wrong side of the tracks,” learned about romance and hard knocks together, and achieved success together. The two commiserate over romantic failures, celebrate success, cobble together plans as a pair, and affectionately wrangle over who has the more promising approach to romance.
First and foremost, they look out for each other, each trying to secure the other’s future and save her from heartache. Knowing Lorelei’s penchant for baubles (and the millionaires who bestow them), Dorothy runs interference with fat cats who might spur Lorelei to engagement-endangering hijinks. And as her first duty on board, Lorelei studies the passenger list in search of a worthy (wealthy) escort for Dorothy, who usually runs after any dead-broke hunk who gives her the eye. Just as Dorothy worries that Lorelei might blow her chances with her sweet, spineless scion of industry, Lorelei frets that Dorothy’s high spirits will land her in a loveless marriage. When Dorothy scoffs “Me? Loveless?,” Lorelei points out, “If a girl spends all her time worrying about the money she doesn’t have, how’s she going to have any time for being in love?”
Even when they disagree, they’re on the same side: each other’s. Dorothy razzes her friend, but the minute Dorothy’s shipboard beau Ernie Malone (Elliot Reid) disparages Lorelei, she gets fierce fast: “Let’s get this straight. Nobody talks about Lorelei but me.” True friends can counsel and kid each other, but Dorothy doesn’t truck with anyone — even her newest flame — badmouthing or backstabbing her buddy. When she spots Malone taking compromising photos of Lorelei, Dorothy puts it together fast: he’s a private eye shadowing Lorelei, and (she thinks) he cozied up to Dorothy to get close to his target. But she doesn’t waste time bemoaning her heartache; getting Lorelei out of a jam comes ahead of Dorothy’s good time.
And Dorothy does like a good time. She’s after fun, men, and fun with men, and she doesn’t hide it from anyone. Before they set foot on the ocean liner, Dorothy’s already ogling “the talent in the blue jackets,” a crowd of athletic young men who’ll be cruising to France with them. Told who they are, she gloats, “The Olympic team? For me? Now, wasn’t that thoughtful of somebody?,” adding a throaty “Dibs on the shotputter.” By launch time, she’s brought the relay team to her stateroom for a bon voyage party. When Gus remonstrates, Dorothy shuts him down: “Now, let’s get this straight, Gus. The chaperone’s job is to see that nobody else has any fun. But nobody chaperones the chaperone. That’s why I’m so right for this job.”
More striking than her unblushing candor is the nonchalance with which it’s greeted. The paunchy, graying titans of industry fetching her cocktails and cigarettes might feel slighted at her enthusiasm for hunky athletes (and her dismay at their early curfew). But the wealthy gentlemen accept Dorothy’s outspoken desires without comment or demur. Just as men, in film and in life, have confidently broadcast their sexual appetites for generations, Dorothy unhesitatingly voices and acts on her hankering.
And I mean she acts on it.
And acts on it.
And acts on it.
And acts on it. Aw, heck, just watch the whole number.
Lorelei is just as candid as Dorothy, especially with the men from whom she extracts her prizes. She’s money-minded, but she’s not sly about it. She knows her beauty has value to the men who pursue her, and she demands good value for what she gives. When you see how the world treats Lorelei, her determination seems downright sensible. At every turn, men are angling to enjoy her body and her company. Though they’re quick to stereotype her, Lorelei is no dumb blonde. She knows exactly how men view her, what they want from her, and how to leverage her assets to greatest advantage — and she knows too well that she has no protection or prospects except what she can gin up for herself. Courtship is Lorelei Lee’s livelihood and she means business.
Lorelei, fortune-hunter extraordinaire, isn’t the only one who thinks romance is hard work. It’s laid out by both women in the opening song: “I was young and determined/ To be wined and dined and ermined/ And I worked at it all around the clock.” Later, preparing to hoodwink Ernie Malone out of his compromising photographs, Dorothy advises Lorelei that it’s time to get dolled up in their finery and “get to work.” (An early hat-tip aligns Malone with the two women rather than his fellow men: he also conflates work and romance. When Lorelei, looking out for Dorothy’s future, asks “What’s your line, Mr. Malone?,” he responds with a self-deprecating joke about his own romantic failures.)
Let’s be clear: work means just that. It’s a fair trade, not a scam or a shake-down. If “gentlemen” enjoy Lorelei’s company, she encourages their generosity, but she doesn’t bully or blackmail them. Having secured the damaging photographs of herself and Sir Francis “Piggy” Beekman — in which, she innocently protests, he is only telling her about the dangers of Africa, acting out the deadly embrace of a python — she hands them over freely and assures him there are no other copies to haunt him. When he offers a token of appreciation, she cajoles him into giving her his wife’s heirloom tiara. He shouldn’t agree, but he does. Piggy himself exclaims “You little angel! You don’t even know that there is a certain kind of girl that would take advantage of a thing like this.” Lorelei extracts her prizes but never extorts them; she just takes them as her due.
“Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend,” sometimes decried for glamorizing gold-digging, makes Lorelei’s plight explicit. The song is popularly remembered as this:
when it should be remembered as this:
Lorelei’s lyrics flatly reject the entitlement men feel to use her for their amusement, insisting instead on some tat for tit. If men want to exploit her charms, they’ll pay for the privilege — and pay handsomely, because physical beauty is fleeting, and kisses “won’t pay the rental/ On your humble flat/ Or help you at the automat,” but (as Lorelei tells Piggy) “a diamond tiara is forever.” “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” is cynical or pragmatic depending on your point of view, and it advises women in varying situations, from fortune-hunters to mistresses to working women pressured by “hardboiled employers” (although the latter advice is a fatalistic “get that ice or else no dice.”)
Even before the credits and title, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes prepares us for its witty, knowing appropriation of stereotypes and tropes. In the opening number, Lorelei and Dorothy flick aside the sheer stage curtain, exchange a significant glance, and step forward, shimmering in matching red sequined gowns cut up to here and down to there. Carelessly, they toss their matching white fur coats toward the audience and strike an imperious curtsy before launching into their song.
This spectacular introduction ends with a cut from frontstage to backstage, where a stagehand watches from the wings. These broads are constantly observed from every angle, and the film wants us to know it. Dorothy’s ogling and Lorelei’s self-possession don’t occur in a vacuum: they’re firmly set in a world where men expect to enjoy these privileges — and expect women to be content as objects of pleasure, not agents of it.
But that early glimpse from the wings has an even more potent meaning. The heart of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes resides in the space between backstage and frontstage, between performer and performance, between surface and substance. Nothing is what it seems: not the characters, not the story, not the film itself. At first blush, Lorelei looks like a clichéd gold-digger, with all the trickery and extortion that implies, but she’s just a woman trapped in a sexist world who mines her few resources without compromise or shame. Dorothy sounds like a good-time gal who’d throw over her best friend for a handsome scoundrel, but she’s true through and through, even in the tightest pinch. And Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, which could easily recite stale tales of grasping women getting their comeuppance, lets Lorelei and Dorothy’s desires take the lead — and take everything else they desire.
The last frames of the film spell out Gentlemen Prefer Blonde’s central story one last time, cementing the image of Lorelei and Dorothy as partners, with men on the side for fun or financial security. Against a Grecian mural depicting two female figures, Dorothy and Lorelei enter the ship’s great hall in identical bridal dresses, veils, and bouquets. Each bride has a split-second close-up with her fiancé (and ring), but then the frame narrows, cutting out the men. Dorothy and Lorelei swap the same significant glance they shared in the opening, then turn back to the altar as a pair, just before the words “The End” scroll onto the screen. They end the film as they began: standing shoulder to shoulder against the world.
AHHHHH this is so great!!! I am definitely gonna buy some wine and watch this tonight! Thank you, Emily!
YOU’RE GONNA LOVE IT
I watched it last night first thing! I’ve watched it many times before, and once again in was an excellent decision 🙂
Oooh, I’ve never watched this one! Queuing it up post haste.
I love this movie! They are such Buccaneers together!
“female agency in limited circumstances” is exactly the phrase I was looking for to describe how a story set in a sexist world does not by necessity become sexist. Your female characters can be just as fully developed when working within the system as when breaking out of it (see, for example, Sansa Stark at her best).
This and “How to Marry a Millionaire” are forever entwined in my mind.
Same! I love them both for reasons drawn out so beautifully above.
Although I’m a bit partial to Gentlemen, since I happened to Netflix it while I was working out some body issues. Jane Russell is a powerhouse and flew right up to the top of my Style Icon list, hanging out with Christina-Hendricks-as-Joan.
As it happens, while working on this piece, I had occasion to watch Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How To Marry a Millionaire back-to-back. I have an abiding fondness for both, but GPB is joyfully, wryly inverting a lot of the narrative and tropes that HTMaM plays straight.
When I write about a film, I usually watch it ad nauseam for narrative/thematic structure, to double-check quotes, and to get all the necessary screencaps. Very few films hold up well to this kind of scrutiny, no matter how beloved they are. Repetitive watching wears out the finest film. But I never got tired of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and I got fonder of it as I watched. That rarely happens.
Same here! Love them both.
YES YES YESSSSSSSS
Also, Jane Russell. Jane Russell. I mean. Swoon city.
Another great subversive 1950s comedy! Fits with “Calamity Jane” the Doris Day gender fuck comedy.
Love this movie and applaud your interp. I think Howard Hawks knew who his audience was.
YES. GOOD. I have nothing further to add; you have covered it admirably.
This analysis is a gorgeous thing of beauty! YES! When I first saw it (sometime in Junior High), I couldn’t for the life of me figure what the title had to do with anything in the plot, but it was the first female buddy movie I remember seeing and I was 100% in love with it. Thank you thank you thank you for this write-up. Now I want to watch it again.
One of my favourite films – I didn’t see all of it until fairly recently but when I did it immediately shot up the faves list.
This is the besttttt. I used to watch this all the time as a kid but haven’t seen it in years – but you articulated so perfectly why I loved it, even if I didn’t know why (plus, sparkles! So much sparkles.). Sassy broads for life! Going home to watch it right now (on VHS, with all the awesome ads for Marilyn’s other movies in that collection.)
You’ll notice that Dorothy ends the gym dance number, ah, soaking wet. Ahem.
The official story is that it was accidental, and a close viewing shows how plausible that is: one of the divers clips Russell where she crouches at the pool’s edge and she tumbles in, then it cuts to her being hauled out as she belts the last “FOR LOOOOVE.”
It’s hard to imagine they didn’t have any dry takes before or after… but I gotta say, if I’m Howard Hawks and an accident allows me to showcase a soaking wet Jane Russell being hoisted out of a pool by nearly-naked gymnasts, I’m going to for that dripping-wet shot every time.
Her breasts are so…shiny…
I love this movie so much there aren’t even words – thank you for doing such justice to all my feelings about it!
I think it also deserves extra consideration for how incredibly DEAD ON Marilyn’s comedic timing was.
Yesss.
Having already seen and loved movies like this and HtMaM made me feel deeply conflicted about My Week With Marilyn. I love Eddie Redmayne, love Michelle Williams, but I thought the film portrayed Marilyn as a sort of idiot savant who can light up a room just being herself but has no craft. And I think her comedic performances suggest she was a very smart and aware performer.
Excellent — the reason I have always loved this film. But I would like to have seen two more words: Anita Loos.
Good point! I re-read the original Anita Loos novel preparing to write this, but the distance between that story and the one in the film is vast. That difference would be fascinating to explore, given the space; that’s for another essay, maybe. They share the same rough outline, including the trip to France (though in the novel, Lorelei explores more of Europe and establishes relationships with several men), and their friendship is more pragmatic, less devoted, and of significantly smaller importance.
It’s the intense, unwavering connection of the characters in the film that I wanted to focus on, as well as the film’s playful intelligence as it overthrows old narratives in favor of the two women who stand together through thick and thin.
It’s a fascinating work — Loos was impressed that the Russians recognised the novel as a tragedy. I do love the way the film shaped it as a triumphant comedy. Monroe never got the credit for her comedy work. This is a superb piece. Well done.
Has anyone read the book the movie is adapted from, Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes? It’s incredible–dry and funny. She was an amazing writer/flapper/personality in her own right, although saddled with a terrible husband. I blogged about it a little bit: http://hopebordeaux.com/2012/09/21/hollywood-anit…
I’ve read it backwards and forwards, and it will always make me happy that Loos was inspired by one of H. L. Mencken’s ditsy girlfriends.
Also, more people need to know about the fabulous Ms. Loos!
Love the film, loved this.
Thank you, I love this movie and am so happy to see it provoking a serious think-piece!
Yesss.
Having already seen and loved movies like this and HtMaM made me feel deeply conflicted about My Week With Marilyn. I love Eddie Redmayne, love Michelle Williams, but I thought the film portrayed Marilyn as a sort of idiot savant who can light up a room just being herself but has no craft. And I think her comedic performances suggest she was a very smart and aware performer.
I love the fact that the novel when it came out was not dismissed as a fluffy light novel as one might expect but was rightly given immediate critical acclaim. Edith Wharton even called it The Great American Novel. I think that’s fantastic. I mean considering how sexist the literary world can be STILL and considering how delightful and funny the novel is, I’m really impressed that people recognized that it deserves to be taken seriously.
Just chiming in that “Ain’t There Anyone Here For Love” strikes me as completely homoerotic; not that us ladies (like Jane Russell) can’t enjoy the view.
I love this movie SO much (and also the book), and have watched it, like, 90 times. Only recently, however, did I watch with my husband, who enjoyed it but was also a bit slack-jawed. “What?” I said. “Well,” he said, “I don’t understand how women ever put up with this shit.”
Which is why we’re married.
Also, who has EVER rocked earrings harder than Jane Russell?
This is the greatest. I fucking love this movie, and this brilliant post that explains its brilliance better than I ever have.
One of my favorite musicals. The songs are fantastic, Jane Russell is my idol in this movie, and Marilyn is spot-on hilarious. She has the best line ever towards the end of the movie when talking to her fiance’s father: “Would you want your daughter to marry a poor man? You’d want her to have the most wonderful things in the world. Why is it wrong for me to want those things?”
YES. The whole speech is one of my favourite fem-quotes of all times “Don’t you know that a man being rich is like a girl being pretty. You might not marry a girl JUST because she’s pretty, but my goodness, doesn’t it help?”
Quite.
This reminds me of Margaret’s awesome line from the last (or next-to-last?) episode of Boardwalk Empire. (It’s so much better on screen than in print, but I couldn’t find a clip.)
Joe Kennedy: Three things are difficult to understand. The work of the bees, the movements of the tide and the mind of a woman.
Margaret: Here is an experiment for you. Think about the things you want in life, then picture yourself in a dress.
Read this analysis and then had to rewatch the movie, to see it with an eye for the details mentioned. Must agree, the dunking does look accidental but bless her heart, she stays in character and emerges as if it had been choerographed.
Thank you for directing my eye! I got a lot more enjoyment from watching the movie, armed with this roadmap.
PS As always, the hair and costumes were wonderful/ flattering /incredibly tight-fitting.