Today discussion of women being looked upon differently and having different standards than men made me want to write this post.  This ties into the two films we’ve watched in class so far; Blonde Venus and Klute.  In Blonde Venus, Helen plays the role of a single mother for most of the movie as she travels around with Johnny and in Klute, Bri does spend most of her time with detective Klute, but always has the mentality of a independent woman.

In class we talked about how being a single mom comes with the negative connotation of being looked down upon and being slutty.  People also associate the  single mom as a struggling mom who can’t be a good parents without help from a partner.  While in contrast to that, when single dads are mentioned, they are looked highly upon and seen as responsible.; people question where the mom is and place the label of a “bad mom” for not being there with her child and boyfriend/husband.

Helen was not really looked upon as a bad mother, in fact in this movie she shined as being a great mother.  She fought to keep custody of her child by making sure her husband wouldn’t find Johnny, and while being unstable with money and constantly worried about her husband finding them, she still managed to be a good mother to Johnny and make everything seem as if it was fine.  One scene that stood out to me was when she could not afford the meal she had at the restaurant and offered to  wash dishes in exchange for the meal, and she told Johnny “come, lets go see a big kitchen.” That to me proved how much she cared about Johnny and didn’t want him to worry about their current situation.  This film went out of the norm of single women looked upon as being weak.  Helen was the apidimi of a strong independent woman.

Bri in Klute plays a strong woman as well.  She is first the suspect of Klute, but the tables quickly turn as she uses her sex appeal to her advantage and soon enough she was in bed with Klute.  It first starts with that scene where she comes into his room and said she can’t sleep, and he kindly lets her sleep in his bed as he pulls out a bed adjacent to her.  As expected, the only reason she went to his room was to sleep with him and thats exactly what she does.  She is the one controlling Klute, when he should be the one controlling her, being the investigator.

Both Helen and Bri are not your typical femme fetal character, they posses “female sexuality and male desire” as Gledhill describes it.  They are both very wanted by men, but are able to be strong and say yes to the things they want and say no to the things they don’t want.