Not How It Seems: ‘Guys and Dolls’
Let’s get back to the original, intended topic of Not How It Seems and talk about the treatment of women, specifically in Guys and Dolls. What a title in which to talk about gender roles! From 1955, Guys and Dolls is the oldest film we’ve talked about thus far.
In the opening sequence, we immediately begin to get a taste for the gender-fueled world presented in the title. Two women in the busy New York streets pose for a photographer and then rip up the claim ticket, showing they were only doing it to be the center of attention. They then try to get the attention of two men who are ogling a woman on a movie poster. The men ignore them, so they go into a clothing store and change from their bobby-sockser looks into Ann-Margaret sexpot outfits. The men immediately become interested and dance off with the women, indicating that the women know how to manipulate men to their whims and that men are easily influenced by the prospect of a hot body.
Later in the film, we meet two female protagonists: Adelaide, who is Nathan Detroit’s fiance of 13 years, and Sarah Brown, a sergeant for the Save-a-Soul Mission (a knock-off Salvation Army). The women are pretty much opposites, although interestingly, they both have conversations that make this film pass the Bechdel test. Adelaide is a dancer. She wants Detroit to stop gambling and settle down and marry her, so much so that she’s created a family life with five children in letters to her mother, and she’s developed a fake cold from worrying about her situation. Sarah wants to make the people of the city give up sin and stop drinking and gambling.
Their male counterparts — Nathan Detroit and Sky Masterson — have their own problems, both related to gambling. Nathan, despite being asked by Adelaide to go straight, has to organize a craps game somewhere in the city, and the only place he can find wants a grand first because of the legal risks involved. The only way Nathan can think of to get the money is to make a bet with Sky that he can’t get Sarah Brown to go to Havana with him. So Sky has the hard work of getting straight-laced Sarah to accept his invitation just so he can win a bet.
Much the forerunner to Marian the Librarian from The Music Man, Sarah knows what she wants in a man, but has built it up as almost too idealized. Sky retorts with his own proclamation that he, too, will know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3l2myR7ls8
So while Sarah can definitely hold her own, she also falls into the trope of the repressed woman who falls for the bad boy. After offering to help her save the mission by getting gamblers to come in exchange for Sarah’s company in Havana, Sky takes Sarah to Havana as he bet that he would. He gets her drunk and she ends up having a good time (although they do start a bar brawl).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5F0Bk-GtXg
Being that Sky is also a predecessor to Harold Hill, he suddenly feels remorseful about seducing the innocent Sarah, and tells her the truth about his intentions.
Meanwhile, Adelaide gets her wish for a wedding when the meeting of gamblers is visited by the police and the men must find a cover-up.
He feels as though he’s somewhat trapped, but also lucky to have “found” Adelaide after 14 years together. Strange, seeing as he’s the same guy who kept their wedding on hold for over a dozen years. But Nathan realizes he’s fallen in love with Adelaide, much as many guys have fallen for dolls, and been forced to do things typically out of character.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSjtN7lFthE
And in a “hunter gets captured by the game” fashion, Sky falls for Sarah, who’s afraid the trip to Havana was just a setup so gambling could take place in the mission.
Nathan, who had just promised Adelaide that they’ll elope, changes his mind and sends one of his guys to tell her as much. Sky intercepts the message and agrees to tell her himself. No fool, Adelaide knows the craps game is the reason he’s called off their marriage again. Sky tries to tell her that she can’t expect to change people, that she’ll have to accept Nathan for who he is. Adelaide retorts that he’ll understand when he’s in love… which of course, he is.
Adelaide sees Nathan again and argues over whether they can elope:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw6eKxa0puY
Sky helps out the mission by getting the gamblers to the craps game, preventing it from being shut down. He also tells Nathan that he didn’t take Sarah to Havana, information Nathan later passes on to Sarah, making her realize Sky is an okay guy. In the end, both couples are wed in Times Square (somehow getting the whole city involved in it).
Both situations are fairly cliched. The woman desperate to settle down and start a family, paired with the guy who can’t seem to be pinned down and the woman who’s straight-laced but falls for the bad guy, making him fall for her in the process. But that said, the dichotomy of the two makes it work as a story that isn’t even sexist. It’s more in the vein of Ingrid Michaelson’s “Girls Chase Boys,” in that the moral of Guys and Dolls seems to be that people are people and stuff happens and sometimes guys play girls and sometimes it’s the other way.
Yes, the gender roles are dated, but both of the women are pretty strong-willed in their own ways. Adelaide wants marriage, and in the end, she gets it. She’s presented as maybe not being a genius, but she doesn’t let Nathan fool her. Sarah Brown isn’t so much tricked into anything as she is wooed as any person might be. She even wears her mission uniform to the wedding, proving she won’t be giving up her career for marriage.
Adelaide and Sarah are both working women who don’t really need men in their lives. Yes, Adelaide yearns for a family, but not only was this film made in the ’50s and most young women were raised to want that, but wanting a husband and kids is also totally okay! Sarah doesn’t seem to care one way or the other. She sings that she’ll know when her love comes along, but she’s not looking to rush it. Not only is all this true, but despite the seeming moral of the opening sequence and the track “Guys and Dolls,” the couples seem to be on fairly equal footing. Sarah isn’t presented as manipulating Sky at all, and Adelaide is also pretty frank with her feelings.
All in all, the story presented, with as many gender roles as it can throw at you, doesn’t really say anything terrible about women. And for the 1950s, that’s not how it seems it would go.
“Not How It Seems” takes a look at the underlying messages in classic movie musicals.
