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An Exploration of Female Characters Within Stanley Kubrick Movies

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An Exploration of Female Characters Within Stanley Kubrick Movies

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Films viewed for LIBS 320C

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This is a film about a group of men planning a heist.

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Seen at 7:21-9-47 & 78:17-84:03

Fay is one of our main characters, Jonny's, love interest. We see her in two scenes. First, she is lamenting the time she spent away from Jonny, crying, and saying how she is not pretty, etc. so she needs Jonny.
In the second scene, she says nothing and is simply at Jonny's side as his plans go sideways

Her portrayal is simply as a love interest to Jonny, she holds no character depth other than her love for this man. This will not be the last time in this film alone that we see a female character used simply to give a slight backstory to a male character.

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Seen 9:51-10:08

We see Ruthie only this one time throughout the film, she is sick lying in bed. Her husband is shown to be doing his crimes in order to care for her. Again she is a character put there only to act as backstory to a man with no character of her own other then being something to another character.

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Seen many times throughout the film
Characterizing scenes include 10:42-15:38 & 15:39- 19:15 & 76:25-78:06

Sherry is one of the few female characters who we see as having asperations beyond her spouse; however, her aspirations are that of the classical seductress only doing her dastardly plans to screw over the sympathetic main character and run into the arms of another man.

Now there is nothing wrong with the seductress role in and of itself but Kubrik uses the seductress character template nearly exclusively when portraying female characters. This trend leads me to wonder how Kubrik views women as a whole. His characters tend to fall into the role of either conniving seductress or woeful arm candy.

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This is a film about a man Humbert and his relationship with the 14 year old Lolita Haze and her mother Charlotte Haze.

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Seen throughout the film
Characterizing scenes include- 37:24-38:14 & 61:25- 62:30

Charlotte is the mom of the titular character Lolita, she is renting out a room in her house to the main character. Charlotte is infatuated with the main character and tried seducing him at every given time.

When the main character does not return her feeling instead eyeing her 14-year-old daughter, instead of condemning the main character for being a pedophile she instead sends her daughter away, choosing the role of a romantic rival over a mother.

Again we see a female character who could have had an important role, stuck to cooking, doing household chores, and being a romantic interest for our male lead.

Charlotte gives me one of the largest pauses when it comes to Kubrick films. While I understand he was adapting this film from a novel it is shilling his creative vision, so him choosing to place another in the position of being romantic rivals with her child leaves a bad taste in my mouth. She is characterized as a stupid love-struck woman adding to the list of Kubrick characters who lack goals separate from male characters.

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Seen throughout the film
Characterizing scenes include- 38:32-41:52

Lolita is the titular character in this film, as well as the love interest for our male lead character. She is a 14-year-old girl framed as a seductress to our fully grown male lead. While I feel this in and of itself is enough to cause discomfort she is often seen in scenes that are to be interpreted as flirting, I personally interpret them as grooming however it has become clear throughout the film that this is not the idea Kubrik was trying to imply.

Yet again we see a female character place in the role of a seductress that exists to lead on our male lead and abandon him. Not to mention again that she is a child

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Jean Farlow
we see this character briefly trying to invite our male lead and charlotte to "swing". She is referenced a handful of other times but she appears on screen only once.

Vivian Darkbloom
We see her throughout the film looking dark and brooding on the arm of a male character, never saying a word.

Mrs. Lebone- Seen 118:03-119:17
We see he come over after a large fight between Lolita and the male lead. she implies that people are questioning our adult male leads' relationship with the 14-year-old lolita, and she does nothing to intervene.

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a movie following a group of soldiers in WW1 throughout a battle with the odds stacked against them and an unjust court-martial.

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Seen 84:05-86:18

This is the only female that shows in the film. She appears on stage tear stained and prompted to sing by a man promising that she will sing for the soldiers.  She begins hesitantly but eventually sings along the the men in the bar hum along.

In all fairness women where not often seen within the French army as of WW1, however mixed with Kubrick's history of using women as tools to progress his male protagonists plotline, I find it interesting in his choice to introduce the singer crying on stage. It can lead one to question if she was perhaps captured or worse.

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a film following all aspects, from political to the brave soldiers, battling with the possibility of nucellar antihalation of the whole world.  (taking place around the time of the Cold War)

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Seen 11:13-14:18

Miss. Scott is the secretary/ ambiguous partner to Buck, a warmongering General bent on nuking Russia. She is only seen sun tanning indoors, taking a call for Buck, and propositioning him for sex. She is referenced one other time calling Buck in the war room.

It has been suggested that this film is a study on the toxic masculine environment that is the politics within the war, however in that case there would be no need for Scott's inclusion in the film at all. Her inclusion either is making a statement on women within the context of war or it is using her as a device to progress Buck's storyline. This treatment of women as props in the film is nothing Uncommon within Kubrik movies.

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a science fiction movie exploring the progression of humanity, from the creation of tools to space exploration (and the dangers of giving A.I. total control over humans survival) and finally the unknown next steps of mankind.

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Seen 24:55-26:29

A main character's daughter who we see getting a facetime call and talking about her birthday plans.

I nearly categorized  her as a honorable mention, but this character was names and had more than a single line so she made it into getting her own slot.

Squirt again is here to humanize a male character giving depth to his backstory while having little id none of her own

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Seen 26:27-30:42

Elena is a woman who our main character sees on the space ship, she introduces him to her colleague and has a brief discussion with our main character.

While Elena was allowed more than a single line she was stuck talking mostly about domestic affairs such as her husband and the main characters family.

This character had potential to stray for Kubrick's trend of having female characters in prop roles but instead he chose to have her male colleague do the questioning about scientific affairs, relegating Elena to speaking about traditionally female topics.

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Dr. Kalinan & Dr. Stretyneva- Seen 26:27-30:42
These two characters appear in the same scene as Elena, yet they never speak a single word.

Stewerdeses & secretaries
There where various background characters that git there roles yet never spoke lines aside from taking orders or giving direction

Frank's Mom- Seen 61:22- 62:49
We see Franks mom briefly on a recorded message she briefly wishes Frank a happy birthday and mentions how her students love to talk about him.

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A film following Alex, a juvenile delinquent, through his violent crimes, imprisonment, torture and the aftermath of his release.

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Seen 20:11-21:24 & 88:51- 96:40

We see this character trying to get the male lead , Alex, up for school and sitting to eat breakfast in the first scene she appears in. She is shown in this scene to be naïve as she immediately seems to believe Alex when he overtly lies to her. She next quickly mentions her job at the factory.

In the second scene we see her say nearly nothing, instead she cries for nearly the entire scene over her sons poor behavior.

Again we see female characters, namely moms, portrayed as ignorant people with little character trait then the fact that they are some male character's mother.

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Seen 10:04-14:16

We simply see Mrs. Alexander open the door for out main character and his gang, then get sexually adulated. It is told to us later that she dies due to the assault.

Giving this move credit where credit is due, it is meant to portray the depraved nature of humanity, however, Kubrick's use of sexual assault is grotesquely over used and not given it proper dues as the HORRIFIC crime that it is.

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Seen 36:39-42:45

We see this character first doing yoga while our main characters gang plan to breaking and rob/ assault the woman. We see this woman defending her home and ending up getting murdered in a way that makes her the butt of the joke.

This character is the first we see in Kubrick films with some sort of agency of her own, in that she defends her home. Sadly this new trait is under cut by her being murdered in a comedic way, causing her defense to lead to her being the butt of yet another joke.

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Seen 70:04- 71:20

We see Dr. Bralam explain the tests our male lead is about to go through as well as administering a shot to begin the male leads to torture. This character; however, is never heard from again as the male doctor, shown to be in charge of the operation, takes the rest of the lines having to do with the medical procedure.

Again we see a female character introduced with the potential to take on some sort of self-driven plot that is immediately upstaged by a male counterpart, leaving the female character with nothing to do but to sit quietly next to him.

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Unnamed SA victims- Seen  4:55-6:45
While this sexual assault victim is given no name, I feel the need to include all the sexually objectified female characters to show how sexual assault was used as a background setting for this film.

Girls from the Market- Seen 27:21-29:07
This scene demonstrated the only semi-consentual sex seen throughout the entire film. The drawback is that these girls are supposed to be age 9 meaning that even if they  gave "consent" it is still rape and should have been framed as such

Torture video Victim - Seen 73:23-73:47
Again I include this only to show how many times sexual assault was used throughout this film.

performance naked lady- Seen 84:10-86:20
Again I include this only to show how many times sexual assault was used throughout this film. though in this case, it was in performance, but if not for the torture our male lead went through it is implied that this would have become an assault

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A film exploring the horrors of military life, from boot camp to battle. As well as the humanity behind the soldier.

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Seen 46:06-47:32

She is an unnamed hooker propositioning our male protagonist. She is seen bargaining for her "services" and flashing a camera.

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Seen on camera 105:36-110:18

She shoots at the male protagonist, once she is shot his team advances to see her lying on the ground dying. She is seen praying then begging for death, her main purpose in the film is to give the main character a moral conundrum. I assume her femininity was used to make the moral choice more dubious, and again we see a female character used solely to progress the male protagonists story line.

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A film following a small family and their encounter with a supernatural hotel and the battles then come from isolation within it.

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Seen throughout the film
Notable scene - 107:15- 114:17

This is the most self-sustaining character we see throughout Kubrick films. Se protects her son and is seen fighting back against her attacker.

Yet when one compares this to the source material we can see how Kubrick portrays her as fearful and meek, where as King (the original author) case her to be cautious and clever. This change in characterization shows how Kubrick tends to portray his female characters, as weak fearful creatures, there to progress the story of male leads instead of individuals with varying personality traits.

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A film following Bill Hartford and his encounter with a sex cult as well as his internal struggle with sexual relationships.

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seen throughout the film
characterizing scenes- 23:50-37:58 & 92:04-98:17

Alice is our male lead's wife and is shown to be the cause of the lead's spiral into sexual promiscuities when she reviels her sexual fantisies about other men. She is portrayed as the starting point of our main character's plot line and is used time and time again to mark points in the male lead's plot while being given none of her own. We do not get to see her character develop and she is left the same at the beginning of the film as she is in the end.

Once again we see Kubrik using a female character to progress a male character's plot.

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Seen 47:13-55:20

Domino  is a prostitute put in the film to tempt our male lead. She accosts him on the streets and takes him to her home, they kiss but end up not going further as the male lead gets a call from his wife.

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Seen 78:03-79:12 & 87:39-88:24

This character warns the male lead of the dangers he is in and when the lead does not heed those warnings she save his from whatever horrible fate he was about to endure.

This character is implied to be domino, but then one questions why would she protect a man she knew for all of 8 minutes. The male lead showed slight kindness to her but that would not be a rational reason to sacrifice yourself for a man who ignored your warnings.

So yet again we are left with a female character who existed solely to tempt the male leads and the act as plot armor for him when he got himself into a negative scenario.

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Seen - 67:05-68:41 & 106:28-107:40

She is a male side character's 16-year-old daughter seen once in a costume shop having sexual relations with two grown men and then trying to seduce our male lead. and once again be prostituted by her father to those same men

Once again an underage child being treated as a seductress and sexual object by grown men withing a Kubrik film

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Seen 39:52-44:04

She is a grieving daughter of one of the male lead's patients. She propositions the male lead offering to leave her long term partner for him. She is given no other purpose in the film than to grieve and proposition the male lead into adult relations furthering his plot wile receiving none of her own.

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Helena
The male lead's daughter is used as a beacon of innocence throughout the film while gaining no character the whole time.

the woman who ODed in the bathroom- 14:05-14:40
She is a naked woman who overdose at a party and is treated by the male lead. Used as a plot device to keep to other characters separated

Illona- 2:55-3:23
a male side character's wife who has one audible line

Modals at party- 10:15-11:01
these two ladies proposition the male lead and are only interrupted by the male lead being needed elsewhere.

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Though none of these films on their own would lead one to make assumptions about Kubrick's view on women, put together they paint a rather negative image. Women throughout Kubrick's films are used as plot devices ment to seduce a male character or futher his plot in some way, while often lacking any sort of character themselves when detatched from the male character.