Our syllabus poses us with
the question of “why is Satan’s handmaiden a French woman!?” Belle is
indeed an intriguing character, but I think it is further intriguing to think
over this particular question. Tori and
I were discussing it, and one idea that we came to is that the French woman is
an ideal that we hold above many other things.
People strive to have for that “je ne sais quoi” vibe, so in answering
this question I think it would be fair to say Satan’s handmaiden is a French
woman as a means to draw our attention to the fact that the devil appears in
the material things we want most. Of
course not all women strive to be like a French woman, but if you look in popular
culture, the French woman ideal does seem to make its way into our culture
quite often. So by operating under this
stereotype that many people hold the image of the French woman in high regard,
I think Dieterle made a conscious decision to have the devil’s handmaiden as a
French woman because it acts as commentary on how we, as a society, become too
enthralled with material things and concepts.
We always want what we cannot have and will go to great lengths to
procure this thing. Often times, people
only think of material things as physical objects, but in the case of the
French woman, it’s more of an ideal. A
woman cannot physically become a French woman, try as she might, but she can
strive for it and in doing so she is ignoring her own attributes and abilities
which while it might sound extreme could be viewed as the work of the
devil. We are all blessed with gifts
that if used properly and effectively can make a real change in the world, but
when we abandon these for our own desires we fall into the trap of in-consequentialness. I don’t want to make this post all about
women though. Men too fall into the
desire for the ideal that a French woman stands for just as Jabez did in The Devil and Daniel Webster. This desire further fuels the fire of the
devil and for women to think they must live up to certain ideals.
I understand the existential angst below your symbolism here, but I think it is also important to remember that the present appreciation for things French (such as it is) is a product of the present and did not always exist. During WWII, the French were criticized for colluding with the enemy, for example, and in the post WWII era, the American attitude toward the war-torn Old World sometimes resembled Shadenfraude, or pleasure in witnessing the pain of others. Julia Child the French Chef succeeded in 1962, but many others had tried to champion French culture in the US before her and failed. So beware assuming that aesthetic tastes cross generations--they are the most ephemeral of values!
ReplyDelete(p.s. Anyone want a Farah Fawcett haircut these days?!)