DANCE, GIRL, DANCE (Dorothy Arzner, 1940)

The climactic scene of Dance, Girl, Dance offers both a direct challenge to the patriarchal gaze in Judy's speech, and also a cat-fight between Judy and Bubbles that Judith Mayne reads as a "theatricalizing" of "female self-representation." The juxtaposition of these contradictory elements—the female as object and the female as agent—Mayne suggests, constitutes as irresolvable "both/and" dichotomy in which the opposing discourses of patriarchy and the feminine negate each other. Assuming that the force of female agency is great enough to act as opposing binary to the patriarchal position—a rather undeveloped claim made by Mayne—to then posit the result of this opposition as strictly negative in effect does not distinguish "both/and" from "neither/nor"; that is, both Mayne's dichotomy and Johnston's lead to the same result: the female discourse finds no viable voice. Mayne attempts, however, to read the "both/and" contradiction as ironic in nature.

It is possible, here, that Mayne attempts to overtheorize Arzner's work by titling ironic that which could simply be termed paradoxical. For irony to work as a productive gesture, there must be some promise of an elevated/proposed discourse beyond the discourse that it seeks to dismantle. In Kierkegaard's estimation, for example, ironic contradiction does not work by opposing two elements (i.e., female agency vs. male gaze) but by acutely portraying the dominant object to thereby destroy "the given actuality by the given actuality itself"; that is, an ironic indictment of patriarchy would not oppose it but overtly propose it—the inconsistencies of the discourse alone become its own destruction. Female agency as opposition, then, cannot serve to ironically indict patriarchy because its very status as opposition reaffirms patriarchal structure—to offer opposition denotes the object as real and present-whereas irony demystifies the object as always-already imaginary and constructed.

In the opening dance number at the Palais Royale in Dorothy Arzner's Dance, Girl, Dance, the female dancers appear on the screen wearing top hats. While this was not a necessarily shocking sight to audiences of musicals at this time, to dress up her female dancers in male attire in the initial scene of the film was nevertheless a bold and notable move on Arzner's part. In analyzing the films of Dorothy Arzner, Claire Johnston takes it upon herself to make note of the “desires and transgressions” of the two starring women of Dance, Girl, Dance, Judy and Bubbles. The fact that Judy refuses the shelter of Steve Adams’ umbrella ("Thank you very much but I like the rain"), and has no reason to feel offended or threatened by him, shows her independence and self-reliance. Then, when she gives into accepting the degrading "stooge" job, she affirms Johnston's assertion that the discourse of Arzner's women “fail to triumph over the male discourse and the patriarchal ideology, but its very survival in the form of irony is in itself a kind of triumph, a victory against being expelled or erased” (Kaplan, 147). However independent they may be, they will do what they have to do to get by—they will essentially shrug and say, "That’s society—at least for now."

While the ambitions and behaviors of the women in Dance, Girl, Dance are obviously necessary to study, Johnston doesn’t fully address another important aspect of the film: the men. As hard as the girls try to make it on their own, they are highly dependent on the reaction and acceptance of Mr. Hoboken. He sucks on his cigar, his eyes glaze over, and, unblinking, he silently ravishes Judy while she dances for him and thus violently unsettles her confidence. And in a nod to the idea that men should not be the subject of gaze, Arzner sits Jimmy in the audience of the Palais Royale and flickers lights from the on stage show over his face. His reaction, amusingly, is to try and shoo them away. During this, Bubbles, while performing on stage, notices him and proceeds to engage in a little eye-flirtin’. Jimmy clearly doesn’t like being the subject of gaze—as shown through his abrupt hiding behind the table lamp. At this, Bubbles pouts but doesn’t miss a step in her routine. However much Bubbles desires to direct her gaze at someone else doesn’t yet matter in the 1940s—in the words of the dying Madame Basilova, she still must only “dance…dance…dance.”

There is a sense that Hollywood directors who somehow work against the Hollywood norm are revolutionary and work in reaction or opposition to that which is conventionally accepted as something "normal" in culture. There is also sometimes the notion that the director works intuitively, anticipating what will become his/her place in film history. Claire Johnston, in considering the films of Dorothy Arzner as a group, argues that they function to "denaturalize the workings of patriarchal ideology" and that "the central female protagonists react against and thus transgress the male discourse which entraps them." Judith Mayne argues that in Arzner's films, a "critical attitude toward heterosexuality takes the form of inflections—bits and pieces of tone and gesture and emphasis—that result in the conventions of heterosexual behavior becoming loosened up, shaken free of some of their identifications with the patriarchal status quo." Both claim Arzner's film as a "feminist text," elevating the traditional narrative to a political one.

As evidence, both authors discuss the important and much-cited scene in Dance, Girl, Dance, when Arzner exposes and deflates the power of the male "gaze" that underpins most classical American cinema. Judy (Maureen O'Hara), a ballet dancer forced by poverty to dance in a burlesque show, confronts her audience, and in a role-reversal that Johnston claims somehow anticipates much later feminist criticism and feminist filmmaking, tells them exactly how she and the other dancers on the stage see them.

Important to both Johnston and Mayne is Arzner's (seemingly conscious) articulation of the conflict between the dominant position of the man and the subordinate position of the woman. Johnston's analysis of this scene focuses on the attempt of the women to locate their place within this structure and claims that through Judy's speech, the male position is weakened, or altered, and praises the character's transgression of the male order and her ability to assert herself as subject.

Paradoxically, neither author seems to understand that though Judy's speech may have temporarily turned the tables on male subjectivity with Judy turning the male gaze back on itself, and they fail to take into account the fact that in the end, Judy is doomed to negotiate within the same patriarchal structure that existed before her speech. In their eagerness to stress how unusual it was for the woman to put up any struggle for self-definition or to be heard at all in a Hollywood film, they overlook the significant fact that the characters who assert themselves in the end are not transformed.

To illustrate, consider the ending of the narrative of Judy. She appears to have finally gotten what she wants—a chance at a serious dance career, with perhaps a love-interest on the side. She was forced to sleaze it up as a stripper to earn a living. But after refusing to sacrifice either her dignity or her dreams, she gets what she wants. This seems to be a story of an emancipated, free-thinking American woman discovering and flexing her muscles of independence. But she collapses into the arms of her new mentor/boyfriend and says, "when I think how it could have been so easy, I want to cry." The point is, negotiating within the system of patriarchy is a tricky and extraordinarily business. It would have been much easier for her to simply work to attract the male gaze (as Bubbles had done) and accept the help of the Steve Adams (instead of depending on her female dance teacher). Judy may have "worked against male discourse" through "bits and pieces of tone and gesture and inflections," but at tremendous personal cost. That she has no real agency in the end severely modifies the nature of the triumph. So though this film may have "denaturalize[d] the workings of patriarchal ideology" for Johnston and shown "critical attitude[s] toward heterosexuality" for Mayne, the fact remains that this "revolutionary" narrative serves, in the end, to reinforce the status quo.

The published assessments of Dorothy Arzner’s work in Dance, Girl, Dance do not account for the highly fetishistic details that appear, instead choosing to focus on the implied lesbian subtext and critique of patriarchy. The kink does not seem restricted to heterosexual or homosexual, but flits between the two and their convergence.

The “Hoboken Gent”, the club owner looking for hula dancers, eyes Bubbles lasciviously as she dances for him—Bubbles is fully aware of his gaze, and plays on it. At various points, she slaps herself on the rear with a sly look, immediately evoking surprise or shock, at least in a contemporary audience—films prior to 1970 tend to implicitly code sexual content, so the blatant display of it in an earlier, “more conservative” period of filmmaking is quite unexpected. The modern American viewer has a sense of the taboo associated with spanking, calling to mind BDSM, an acronym lumping bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadomasochism. The prevalence of this type of sex play in 1940 is called into question by this, as well as its coded representatives, and perhaps the existence or appearance of other direct filmic examples contemporary to Dance, Girl, Dance.

The stuffed toy bull, Ferdinand, is fetishistic also in the sense of animism. He takes on the role of child for Jimmy and Elinor Harris, and Judy takes him as a suitor. The child persona is indicated when Elinor, referring to the toy, says, “Oh, Jimmy, but he’s our...he’s our Ferdinand”—implying shared possession, but also signifying through tone that this object is a communal treasure. Ferdinand’s role as suitor comes out with Bubbles’ return to Madame Basilova’s studio, just after her hula. She spots the toy in Judy’s hands, sassing, “Well, if it ain’t my old friend, Ferdinand”; she strides over as if to take possession of the bull, but Judy keeps a firm grip on him. After a tight shot-reverse-shot of both women’s intense faces, Bubbles leaves the bull with Judy. Reflecting on the earlier scene in which Bubbles first allows Judy to have the bull, her castoff, the implication of “second hand” goods is clear.

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Last update: 8/27/2004