Bringing Up Baby - Identity in Screwball Comedy

Bringing Up Baby is a film about getting a square ball to roll. The screwball comedy, a genre in which the main characters are caught up in a “bizarre predicament” composed of frantic action and witty dialogue, was popularized in the 1930s (Cook 939). Director Howard Hawks made one of the greatest screwball comedies ever produced by masterfully combining the cinematic elements best suited for the genre with the themes of the narrative. Because the action in Bringing Up Baby is heavily dialogue driven Howard Hawks placed more importance on mise-en-scene than montage. Bordwell and Thompson wrote that “what we look at is guided by our assumptions and expectations about what to look for” (Bordwell 19). By playing with the notions of expected norms within the dominant patriarchal ideology Hawks develops the comedy as well as the characters. The plot follows David Huxley, Cary Grant’s character, as surrounding forces attempt to define him within the realm of traditional masculinity. Katharine Hepburn’s character Susan Vance is instrumental in putting Huxley through a series of transformations to reach this point, but complicate his immediate understanding of himself. Hawks used Susan in addition to a handful of other characters as battleground in which normative ideas of identity are challenged and reaffirmed. When looking at the following scenes critically under the feminist criticism theories compiled by Christine Gledhill, mise-en-scene, and how cinematographic techniques compliment the narrative, the viewer can follow David Huxley as he attempts to understand his identity.

The film begins with a number of scenes which give clues for understanding David Huxley’s problems and how the narrative will be driven. It opens with Ms. Swallow on the ground receiving a letter letting the museum know that the intercostal clavicle will be arriving the next day. She calls up to David who is sitting high atop scaffolding in the position of the Thinking Man sculpture. He’s framed in the foreground by the jaw of the incomplete dinosaur and in the background by an illustration of the dinosaur, which alludes to his inability to make his identity whole even though he knows what it’s supposed to look like. The height difference between the two characters might indicate their difference in personality. Alice Swallow is literally down to Earth and David Huxley is a dreamer with his heads in the clouds. Their immediate problem is the same, though, as he asks “I think this one must belong in the tail” in reference to the bone he’s holding and the brontosaurus skeleton suspended from the ceiling. She denies him this thought by reminding him he tried that the day before. Our initial reaction is to identify Huxley as unrealistic, forgetful, and spacey. He speaks a little awkwardly and when he bumps into the skeleton trying to climb down the scaffolding he appears unsure of the spatial relations of his body to everything else. The conflict seems as if it is going to be about a dreamer trying to be normal like the other down to Earth characters. Hawks surprises us by making Ms. Swallow out to be the strange character. Her costume of a black suit jacket, glasses, and tightly pulled back hair is very masculine and makes her look like Cary Grant. Huxley even confuses the Ms. Swallow with the other man as he shakes his hand on the way out and says, “goodbye, Alice, I mean professor.” Hawks switches our opinion of Huxley by making him a sympathetic character who only wants what is normal. His feminine gender role is revealed by his dress-like white lab coat. He is also denied a honeymoon and children because his fiancé feels there should be no “domestic entanglements of any kind.” On the surface it goes against Althusserian theory to form the identities in this manner because it does not reproduce “the natural world of the dominant ideology” (Gledhill 64). But the film will attempt to restore the dominant ideology even if it must go through a series of oppositional trials.

Our ability to recognize where the film strays form the dominant ideology makes it comical. Susan Vance’s position as the driver of the narrative is perhaps the most striking deviation from how feminist theorists have criticized Hollywood cinema. Laura Mulvey, one of the premier psychoanalytical feminist theorists wrote that the social patriarchal order in film “depends on the image of the castrated woman to give order and meaning to its world” (Gledhill 66). But Susan Vance goes against the notion that “[women] cannot wield control over the symbolic; they do not carry in themselves the symbol of the signifier…” because the film contrasts Huxley against her since she’s the only character that seems to know what is going on, even if it’s imagined (Gledhill 67). She is always sure of herself until the very end of the film when Huxley’s identity in the dominant ideology is finally crafted. For most of the film Susan deviates from the erotic gaze, which would stop the narrative, and instead pushes the plot forward. She quite literally drives Huxley forward as they move from the golf course to the restaurant. The camera shows the viewpoint of the car passing by from the view of Mr. Peabody. In this shot Huxley’s body is cut in half because of the car and the bushes in front of him. When he tries to regain some agency and yells, “I’ll be with you in a minute Mr. Peabody!” we see his entire body. The battle over the whole of Huxley’s body (and therefore his identity) continues in the restaurant scene.

Huxley comes into the scene in a long shot, but the instant he crosses paths with Susan the camera moves closer and his body is cut off by a man in the foreground when he falls on his hat. When he walks away from Susan at the bar the camera pulls back to show more of his body, but when she approaches him it returns to a medium shot. There are other cues to how Susan works at cutting up Huxley so that he can explore identities. The psychologist tells her of Huxley’s fixation, which can be equated to the male gaze, but his fixation is hardly at work. When she approaches him about the “love impulse” which “frequently reveals itself in terms of conflict,” there’s a façade in the background of a man with a sword over Susan’s head facing Huxley. Costuming again comes into play when she emasculates him by handing him a purse, which Huxley strangely refuses to give it up to Dr. Fritz Lehman. Susan again attempts to deconstruct him when she rips his coat. Though she claims it is an accident it does hold positive ramifications for her efforts. Both characters are brought together physically when their costumes have been ruined (a theme that will recur later) and Huxley’s identity is fused with Susan if only for a moment.

Costuming continues to play an important role throughout the film. It is explored with the most detail once they arrive at Susan’s country home. Because Susan sent Huxley’s suit into town to be cleaned she forces him to try on a number of different costumes which provide him with different identities. Naked in the bathroom, he yells, “don’t leave me here like this” to which she replies, “Don’t be impatient, David. We’ll talk it over once I’m finished. Everything’s going to be alright.” This can be interpreted as once she’s done fixing him everything will be alright. He uncomfortably tires on the feminine robe which only serves to make him angry. This is the first time in the film, unlike the dress-like lab coat, the dress-train-like long tail tuxedo, or the purse, that Huxley receives this role negatively. The lighting also reveals that this identity change is not going to work. According to Mulvey’s theories it would be impossible for the male to be the subject of the gaze. Soft key-lighting is important in highlighting the female object in cinema, but the highlighted gaze cannot be turned onto the male. The lighting on David is sharp and imitates natural light. It makes it such that even though he is in a sexy-frilly bathrobe the camera cannot emphasize his female identity. Instead it is a place for conflict and confusion.

Aunt Elizabeth is received at the door by Huxley with an exchange revealing this confusion. “Well, who are you?!” she asks. “I don’t know. I’m not quite myself today,” responds Huxley. Throughout the rest of the day Huxley will move further from his original self. He tries on riding clothes which make him look more masculine but still do not suit him. The camera also works to make him more masculine by making Susan more feminine. The close-up of her face when Huxley is explaining that she cannot tell Aunt Elizabeth who he really is puts her under the soft star lighting. She also delivers her first romantic line during this moment when the dominant patriarchal ideology is being represented. She tells him that he does look good without his glasses, to which he immediately responds by going and putting them on. The glasses as well as the intercostal clavicle serve as two places of retreat for him; they tie him back to the identity originally presented in the film. Once both of these ties are lost he can fully make the leap to a new identity. The latter disappears early, hidden away in the yard by George as an indirect consequence of Susan’s actions. The glasses take much longer to break. It is not until the second wild leopard is released that Susan falls on top of David and breaks his glasses. There is a dramatic shift in his personality after this moment. He appears less bumbling and more capable of driving the narrative. Susan’s role is reverted to the secondary position of the female in cinema. She is once again shot in the soft lighting and shown crying. It is also the first time that David gives her actual permission to join him. In addition, it is the first time the two characters sing in unison, making the necessary connection in their ability to affect the most immediate problem in the story: Baby the leopard. Now, instead of getting into trouble together, David and Susan get into trouble when they’re not with each other. In a return to the patriarchal society, she needs him for protection and he needs her difference or lack to define his abilities as a man.

David’s masculinity gets challenged and proven during the jailhouse scene. The jail cells serve to contain every character that has experienced some form of identity confusion in the film. When the constable, Susan, and David are arguing over what happened that evening, David freely exits the jail cell to prove who he is. David does have the ability to exit the containment structure he’s created around his identity but this frightens the people who haven’t watched him develop. The camera is never placed behind bars facing out; it must remain on the outside looking in so that the characters can prove to the Repressive State Apparatus (the police) and the psychologist that they’re happy in fitting into the dominant ideology. For example, when the police make the mistake of letting Susan out, she immediately takes on a masculine gangster role (”Hey! You ain’t no lady!”) and makes a break for it. It is not until she returns with the bad leopard and David saves her that she these outside spectators believe who she is because they assume she needs to fit into patriarchal society. This shift affects the audience as well. Now that the film is not playing against the dominant ideology there is less humor in it. The resolution of David and Susan getting together is more like that of a romantic comedy than a screwball comedy, but fits the new identities created by the film.

Works Cited:

Bordwell, David and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. Fifth Edition. McGraw-Hill, New York 1997.

Cook, David A. A History of Narrative Film. Fourth Edition. W.W. Norton and Company, New York 2004.