Masculine domination and infantile phantasy: A Kleinian analysis of the Hepburn-Tracy film cycle.

摘要

This dissertation examines the gender politics of the Hepburn-Tracy film cycle. I take as my theoretical framework the object relations theory of Melanie Klein, which suggests that all interpersonal relationships stem from the infant's love/hate relation to the maternal breast. I propose that the Hepburn-Tracy films are not merely concerned with punishing Hepburn, which is the dominant cultural and critical perspective; rather, these films alternately reinforce, interrogate, and reject an infantile phantasy object relation in which women must perpetually nurture men and men must imagine themselves the source of women's power. Each chapter analyzes different sets of films from the couple's collaborations: the first examines the reinforcement of infantile phantasy in Woman of the Year (1942), Adam's Rib (1949), and Pat and Mike (1952); the second explores the interrogation of this phantasy in Keeper of the Flame (1942), The Sea of Grass (1947), and State of the Union (1948); the third marks the rejection of this phantasy in Without Love (1945) and Desk Set (1957). I ultimately argue that, through their articulation of Kleinian infantile phantasy, the Hepburn-Tracy films offer a richer and more varied depiction of heterosexual relationship than the cultural narrative surrounding them will allow.