Baby Doll

I am now officially on Winter Break. I finished my last final on the 14th, flew back last night and spent the day today taking a much needed break from doing anything at all, whatsoever. 

But now it's time I get back to business. And by business, I mean writing this blog post that I've started approximately five times, but have never finished. It's about Baby Doll, the very last movie of my summer list that I actually watched while still on Summer Break. So, it's high time I write about it.

Baby Doll isn't a movie that's very well known. It's one I put on the list before I decided the theme of this blog would be classic movies in pop culture. My parents are film buffs and they had never even heard of this movie. But, that doesn't mean I went into this movie without any expectations.

I'm not exactly sure how this movie got on my radar. It's written by Tennessee Williams, so that might be how I found out about it. I was in a little play written by Tennessee Williams my freshman year of high school called The Dark Room. To try and understand the play better, we all sat down and watched a PBS-esque documentary on Tennessee Williams' life... and boy, did he have quite a life. If you don't know anything about Tennessee Williams, the main thing you should know is that he was incredibly afraid of going insane his entire life. His sister, who he was very close to, suffered from schizophrenia (and his mother might of as well, I don't remember exactly... look it up yourself). She was in and out of mental hospitals and eventually got a lobotomy. Since insanity was so close to him, he was desperately afraid of going insane. This makes a whole lot of sense when you watch his works, especially A Streetcar Named Desire.

Now on to Baby Doll. The movie's about a woman nicknamed "Baby Doll". Her father arranged a marriage for her at the age of 18, right before he died, with the clause that his daughter and her new husband, would not consummate the marriage (that means have sex, folks), until she turned 20. Before her 20th birthday, she sleeps in a separate room, the nursery. It's like the picture on the movie poster above. It's strangely childish, yet seductive, which is the perfect description of her character and the whole tone of the movie.

With my background knowledge of Tennessee Williams, his other work and the subject matter, I viewed this whole movie as a terrifying drama about a woman who is completely trapped. Her husband is creepy (at the beginning of the movie he watches her sleep in her crib through a peep hole) and demanding. Her only escape comes from Eli Wallach's character, who is equally sleazy. He seduces her in order to get information about his burnt down cotton gin. Half the time during this movie I was afraid of her getting raped, and half the time I was sure she was going to get killed.

Apparently this movie is a comedy.

I was shocked, SHOCKED, when I saw that it was categorized as a "Dark Comedy", and people's reviews on Netflix said things like "This movie was sooo funny" (that was not an actual quote, but you get the point). Now, I'm in an improv troupe at USC. I watch stand up comedy more than I listen to music. I know comedy. And I know dark comedy. I consider Harold and Maude dark comedy. But Baby Doll is NOT a dark comedy. It is just dark. And Tennessee Williams is NOT a comedic writer. He's a man who is terrified of going insane, and has the constant feeling of being trapped, and that's exactly what this movie reflects. The only thing funny about this movie is that someone labelled it with a "comedy" sticker at the DVD store. 

Perhaps I did miss something. Perhaps I do need to give the film a second chance, and try and see it through a more comedic lens. But, I would like to do a poll. My dear readers, (oh my dear inexistent readers) please watch this movie. Watch this movie and get back to me about whether you think it's a comedy or not. I would really like to know.

Sincerely,

Lila

COMING SOON: 69 minutes of the Masteress of Innuendo- Ms. Mae West in She Done Him Wrong.