Notes from The Women

This weekend, I was planning to watch an old favorite on TCM: the black and white female romp The Women, with a gaggle of old Hollywood glamour ladies, including Joan Crawford. The movie is known for good writing and a keen eye about the relationships between the fairer sex. I was looking for a good time, and this time around I didn't find it.

I had forgotten about all the backbiting.

It all starts with Rosalind Russell, who is a devilish gossip who just has to know what is going around and what everyone else is up to. From my distant memory, she had seemed fun, but now, watching her in the first few scenes of the movie, I was struck by her distastefulness. Here was a woman who was clearly unhappy, didn't quite know it herself, and looked for misery in everyone else.

I'm overstating it, of course. But, then again, she is a caricature. The problem is not that she's miserable in herself, it's that she spreads it around. When she finds out that the husband of one of her best friends is stepping out, Rosalind makes sure that every woman she knows finds out as well. It's pretty horrible, especially when the movie shifts to the woman in question and you see how happy she is in her "fool's paradise". It's even worse when she finds out the truth and, on top of that, deals with the humiliation of having everyone else know, too.

I'm not here to bash Rosalind Russell. I'm not interested in writing about whether women are happier knowing the truth about their marriages. I don't want to rap women on the nose for behaving in unseemly or unladylike fashions. Truthfully, I don't think there's any women in my life right now who act this way. But, it's got to be in there. We're all capable of it.

Somewhere, in our secret heart of hearts, we're jaded. There's a part of us that doesn't want to see, feel or taste happiness, even in other people, because we can't bear it. It's too painful. When we find out the ugly truth about people's lives, our worst beliefs about the world are proven true, and it's a relief. Because if the world really is as rotten as we think it is, then we can just tell ourselves not to feel it. We can put the pain away.

No one sits down with Rosalind and tells her this. No one lends her an ear about her marriage, about which she quips,"I wouldn't trust my husband on Alcatraz!", a telling phrase. She becomes part of the Bad Girls, in the "Joan Crawford, other woman" camp. A woman to avoid, to ostracize. But perhaps, we can look at someone like Rosalind with a bit of pity and a bit of compassion. Not let her do her mischief or get away with things, but with a kind, firm hand, say, "no, we don't hurt people. But you're hurting now, aren't you?" And when we see Rosalind in the mirror, give ourselves a little bit of the love she so desperately needs.