The Importance of Indeterminate Space in Determined Women

Upon reading the first few lines of Rick Altman’s A Semantic/Syntactic Aprroach to Film Genre, I must admit I found it quite reasonable that no one ever asked or answered the questions he labels as fundamental: “What is genre? Which films are genre films? How do we know to which genre they belong?” Though I myself am often guilty of indulging in seemingly irrelevant questions of art (the typical doom of anyone hyper-interested in a subject), I found myself posing my own fundamental question for this essay: Who cares? Why does the method of defining inconcrete labels for so-called “types” of film matter? How would genre ever aid me in analyzing how a film affects its audience. Thus I waded through this essay in manner similar to a woman listening to her significant-other passionately ranting about what exactly is wrong with the current method for measuring and analyzing baseball-player statistics; “Absolutely-honey, could you pass the potatoes?”

And finally, halfway through the meal, the angle on the subject matter is gloriously switched and we are talking about how it is all relevant to the real world: I have just started diving into Thomas Schatz’s “Film Genre and the Genre Film” from Hollywood Genres.

We can agree, based on the writings of Metz as well as our own experiences that, even just momentary, film has influence over the viewer’s sense of identification. While it is perhaps unfair to claim that one’s identity is formed by the films he or she watches, it is absolutely true that each person’s repertoire of role models has a collection of examples from movies they have seen. It is no mistake that “hero” is both a term for the protagonist of a film and a synonym for “role model.” Because in essay form it would not hold to bring examples from real experience, let me point to a filmic example of the influence of role models from genre.Though we are never called out particularly to pay attention to it within the film, there is a shocking disparity between the amount of self-assurance these characters have in proportion to their situations. Hank’s character is praised for his sensitivity “it’s so wonderful when a man can truely express his feelings” yet never truly has a moment of weakness. Despite the lost of his wife and his difficulties with work or his son, he has a plan and does not falter in believing in his decisions; “What we need is change…a new city,” “Jonah and I will be okay.”

Ryan’s character, on the other hand, has a loving family, a devoted fiancée, a caring best friend, and a stable job. Her motivation in this film revolves entirely around her subconscious attraction to ‘Sleepless in Seattle’ – putting her on the same level as the child in the film “The reason I see this is because I’m younger and more pure, so more in touch with cosmic forces.” (The idea of woman being more pure, childlike and connected with her id is one that is left over from Freud and pervades the artwork of the Surrealist movement, which I cannot explain here, despite its relevance.) Yet, unlike Jonah. Ryan is constantly riddled with doubt and asking for the affirmation that she cannot provide for herself; “Is this crazy, Becky?” “It’s just cold feet, isn’t it?” My question is this; Why, if the 8-year-old son of Hanks’ character has the confidence to pursue the attraction with the constant disapproval of his father, cannot Ryan’s well-to-do character have a similar confidence with the constant approval of her best-friend? Even her own fiancée, played by Bill Pullman, is convinced before she is; as she watches the Empire State Building light up Ryan says, “It’s a sign!” Pullman replies simply, “Who needed a sign?”

I believe Meg Ryan’s character’s insecurities in her own beliefs are the symptom of the lack of role model that no amount of encouragement from her friend can alter. When in need of encouragement, Tom Hank’s character in Sleepless in Seattle turns to both of two types genre described by Schatz to aid him in the simplest of daily difficulties- asking a woman out on a date. And he locates his role models – one in the form of an actor who is the embodiment of the male hero of determinate space film: “You do it in your own suave way- think Cary Grant” and the other in the form of a song emblematic of a whole genre within films of indeterminate space: Gene Autry’s 1939 “Back in the Saddle Again.” The lyrics to this song fulfill two of the principles of the indeterminate space hero. “Where you sleep out every night” this cowboy hero is an independent spirit with the ability to do as he pleases. But, as in most westerns (and other genres of indeterminate space) this independent hero also has an important role in creating and codifying community, which he enters and exits in the course of the film; “and the only law is right.” When his logic (concern for community) overrides his romantic inclinations (the Cary Grant lover-boy), Hanks is reinforced in his path by the voice of righteous independent (the cowboy). Thus Hanks has two powerful role models: one who always gets the girl and lives happily ever after, and the other whose independence is a virtue but in the end is always in some sense righteous.

Meg Ryan, on the other hand, has one role model An Affair to Remember and love songs are Ryan’s only sources of inspiration – which all fall rather neatly into Schatz’s description of the themes from determinate space film. She finds as her role model Debra Curar, who plays the engaged woman who, even after the apparent strength of her practicality and duty to her fiancée, is hopeless swept up by her emotions and the “irresistible” charms of the Cary Grant. He too has moved away from his fiancée- but we are to expect this from such a notorious bachelor – he is simply following his already established independent streak and this foray into the unknown is no particular evidence of Curar’s power to influence him. Yet Curar still gets her man, which is to be celebrated, but at what cost to her dignity? “Please, Becky, don’t tell anyone. I would be absolutely mortified if anyone we knew ever did anything remotely close to what I have done.”
At no point in this film is Ryan ever truly confident that her independent nature is correct. She has one, surely, how else could she fall in love haphazardly with a man she had never met? Yet during the whole film she is convinced she is wrong. It is not surprising that she only has one generic mentor to turn to - as the majority of the indeterminate space films have no opening for a heroine. Those women with independence are certainly not virtuous and those who are virtuous are permanently tied to their community as mothers, sisters, wives and perhaps even leaders. Yet no woman ever strolls into town, is briefly attracted to a man, stirs up trouble with the current codified law, pushes the envelope, saves the day, and leaves – free as a bird to wonder again in a whirlwind of righteousness.

What she requires, what I believe I have required in my life (growing up watching movies like An Affair to Remember and Sleepless in Seattle), is a genre within Shatz’s category of “indeterminate space” films to encourage her when her impulses did not fall so neatly into the community hailed in the Yet, how could she find her confidence in the rugged independence, unconcern with the opposite sex, and 5 o’clock shadow of Clint Eastwood? For the most part, Ryan’s heroines and mine are limited to the sort whose strength is based in their ability to make love work within their social constructs. And I believe it will be that way until there is an entire genre (not just a few movies and shows – I willingly recognize that these exist)  that truly glorifies (rather than occasionally represents or mocks) an independent woman who creates her own righteousness and does not allow society to weigh her down.