Daniella Rodriguez
Film 1
Casablanca
Prompt 3
9 March 2015
Please Pull String for Line
As I left the room after class on Monday night, one of the girls behind me said to her friends how she though Casablanca was one of the most romantic movies she’s ever seen. I have to humbly disagree with her. Yes, it is touching how Rick puts aside his relationship with Ilsa in order to help the world, because he knows his problems are miniscule to the world. The part was great. But how can a movie that portrays women in such a bad and ridiculous light be considered romantic? All three women we actually see are nothing more than pawns in the game the men play, props to elevate the glory of the main hero and stepping stones to achieve his full mission. The first woman we meet is Yvonne. She’s obviously gorgeous, and somehow that’s all we know. Through the narrative we learn nothing more than the fact that she sleeps around, and is somehow annoying for wanting more than just sex. Because wanting something more than sex is somehow too much to handle for our lead. She is literally being passed around from man to man, who take her home for sex and then treat her like garbage the next day. There is no difference between her and a high class prostitute. Not only is she an annoying walking sex toy, she also happens to be an alcoholic. During a scene the audience sees Yvonne drinking more than she should, and who comes to the rescue Rick. After she tells him that she doesn’t want to go, we see Rick almost forcing her out of the bar. Her opinion and feelings don’t matter. Rick somehow knows what’s best for her, which wouldn’t be a problem if he would have done the same for a man at the bar. I’m sure many men come to his place and get pissed drunk, but the moment a woman decides to get drunk it’s somehow his responsibility, as a ‘gentlemen’ to stop it. Another horrible representation of women is the young Romanian girl. She doesn’t even have a name. All we know about her is that she was planning on sleeping with the police chief if Rick hadn’t helped her. When I first heard her story I liked it, it was a complex problem and it shows how much she cares for her husband. It also shows how the world is not black and white, and women just like men, are capable of staring into the gray and making a complex decision. She had so much potential, yet she becomes like the majority of women in film, a damsel in distressed that need to be safe by our hero. She is just there as a prop to help us like Rick more and more. Is a good prop, because he helping her is one of the reasons the audience starts to sympathize with Rick. The last beautiful woman is none other than the star of the movie, Ilsa. Ilsa's beauty is praised throughout the whole movie. She is beautiful, and that seems to be it with her. She doesn’t have any ambitions of her own. Her whole life seems to consist of following her husband around or following Rick around. She is like a puppy. All her life and self-interest is devoted to the men in her life. How one-dimensional is that? This woman is the main character in the movie, yet her whole world revolves around men that make all the decisions for her. Her only decision during the whole course of the movie is to pick which man to follow around. But somehow that decision is too hard for her. She tells Rick, "I don't know what's right any longer. You'll have to do the thinking for both of us." She gave up the only power she had to a man. The only thing she could control, literally the only thing she had to do fell in hand of the hero, because she was too weak to make a rational decision about her own life. Casablanca is a great movie. Rick’s change through the movie makes it enjoyable and relatable. The fact that WW2 is happening during the movie give it an air of intrigue and reality. But one thing the movie fails to do is to create full rational three-dimensional women. Given its 1942 the movie kind of gets a free pass with the majority of people. But how is it that people can see this story now and think of it as romantic? As a good representation of what a healthy relationship is like? People this century see this movie and don’t flinch an eye at the storylines of the women. They have becomes such props that the bar gets more attention than they do. Their main goal is to forward the main character arc and offer him a way of perfecting himself in the eyes of the audience. Rick is not a bad person, but those women are not even close to being people. They are trained talking dolls to accept whatever men tell them to do.