Sexism in Spellbound

 "Women make the best psychoanalysts until they fall in love. After that they make the best patients."

Today I would like to discuss the sexism and a variety of elements found in the 1945 Hitchcock film Spellbound.

The film stars for the first and only time together Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck.

This was the first time that Ingrid Bergman worked with Alfred Hitchcock as well. It was the beginning of a long, lasting work relationship as well as friendship with "Hitch." The pair met, and the movie casting was partially due to the working of David O. Selznik, the producer of the film (among many others, he and his wife were also mutual friends of Hitch and Bergman's.)

1)Hitchcock, Peck and Bergman discuss things during a scene at the train station. 2)Peck and Bergman together off camera...yet under camera.

Let's get down to brass tacks... this movie has it's extremely sexist moments. Ingrid's character, Dr. Constance Petersen, is a bookworm, female Psychiatrist. She has glasses and dresses in a "less feminine" manner, which she, herself, addresses in the film. She goes through everything as if it were her work, most often, life choices involving her patients and men in her life. She is a woman who's stepping out of her "natural" gender role, if we are to go back to "separate spheres ideology." She is supposed to stay in the sphere of female characteristics and morals. She is the opposite of, let's say, Ingrid's character in the 1946 Hitchcock film, Notorious.

Dr. Anthony Edwards comes to the insane asylum and not only steals Dr. Petersen's heart, but distracts her from her otherwise concentrated objectives. Before he enters her world, the other doctors sexually harrass her and hit on her consistantly.
"Embracing you is somewhat like embracing a text book"
The men in the movie patronize Constance and she falls victim to being a "Gothic woman"
"Gothic women" are different than femme fateles because they are aiding the man who is helpless with out them. Ingrid Bergman plays this role in both Spellbound and Notorious, but in opposite fashions. In Spellbound she is a virgin, bookworm, spinster type while in Notorious she is a former spoiled woman, daugheter of a traitor and drunk. In both types, the woman is due for some sort of reformation. Both movies also have men saying more than demeaning remarks about the woman both in front of and behind her. 

Here are some quotes to shorten an otherwise lengthy essay about evidence of sexism. Mind you this is one of my favorite films, and I'll watch it a hundred times over. I just think these things are worth noting.

Dr. Alex Brulov: You grant me I know more than you, but on the other hand, you know more than me. Women's talk. Bah! 

Dr. Alex Brulov: My dear girl, you can not keep bumping your head against reality and saying it is not there. 

Constance Petersen: Are you making love to me? 
Dr. Fleurot: I will in a moment. I'm just clearing the ground first. 

Constance Petersen: I'm here as your doctor only. It has nothing to do with love. 
[John kisses her and they embrace each other tightly] 
Constance Petersen: Nothing at all. Nothing at all...

Dr. Alex Brulov: What is there for you to see? We both know that the mind of a woman in love is operating on the lowest level of the intellect! 

John Ballantine: If there's anything I hate, it's a smug woman. 

Granted, some of these don't seem so bad out of context, but watch the movie and they'll feel a little more poinent.