{"id":3194,"date":"2020-04-20T08:04:54","date_gmt":"2020-04-20T13:04:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/?p=3194"},"modified":"2022-04-11T15:13:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T20:13:07","slug":"the-most-dangerous-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/academics.winona.edu\/povwinona\/the-most-dangerous-game\/","title":{"rendered":"The Most Dangerous Game (1932): Ironic Misogyny"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span> \u201cOnly after the kill does man know the true ecstasy of love.\u201d These words from the villainous Count Zaroff (Leslie Banks) to protagonist Bob Reinsford (Joel McCrea) in the 1932 film <\/span>The Most Dangerous Game <\/span><\/i>imply that whichever man succeeds in killing the other will receive the pleasure of sexual relations with Eve (Fay Wray), regardless of her consent. Since the words come from the mouth of the antagonist, one who enjoys hunting men, their sentiment is presented as evil and archaic, but this does not stop the movie from reinforcing misogyny. Created in a period during which women were commonly seen in Hollywood films and in American culture more broadly as mere housewives and sexual objects, this jungle adventure movie is no exception. Despite its apparent criticism of the objectification of women, Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s 1932 film <\/span>The Most Dangerous Game <\/span><\/i>falls prey to the misogyny found so often in action and adventure films, as can be observed in its reduction of its only female character to a damsel-in-distress archetype as well as its implicit affirmation of Zaroff\u2019s ideology.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dangerous Game <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>King Kong <\/span><\/i>(1933)<\/span> were produced concurrently. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper worked on both pictures together, as director and producer in the former and as co-directors and co-producers in the latter. The films share the same jungle sets and even some of the same actors \u2014 Wray played the female lead in<\/span> both,<\/span> and Robert Armstrong played her character\u2019s goofy brother in the former<\/span> as well as the movie director Carl Denham in<\/span> the latter<\/span>.<\/span><\/i> The Most Dangerous Game <\/span><\/i>is the first film adaptation of Richard Connell\u2019s iconic short story of the same title. The story is so pervasive that there is a narrative trope named after it: a \u201chunting the most dangerous game\u201d story typically features an egomaniac hunter capturing and hunting innocents in an isolated area (Hunting). This trope has made its way into numerous films (including many direct adaptations of the original story), television shows, comic books, and more.<\/span><\/p>\n

The character Eve in <\/span>Dangerous Game <\/span><\/i>is absolutely a product of a patriarchal industry and the male-centric nature of the action\/adventure genre. <\/span>Kong<\/span><\/i>\u2019s Denham may be read as a caricature of Cooper and Schoedsack, a pair that often worked together (Kawin). The main reason for this is that, like Denham traveling to the mysterious Skull Island for his movie, these were filmmakers who would travel any distance and put themselves in danger in order to make a film. But that\u2019s not all: Denham insists that, no matter the danger involved, there has to be \u201ca girl in the picture\u201d. To him, Wray\u2019s character Ann is an object for his own gain. This objectification is questioned by the film, particularly since he ends up putting her in extreme danger more than a few times, and he is punished at the end of the plot when Kong, another creature which Denham has objectified, escapes his capture and wreaks havoc on New York, likely ending his career. Much like Denham, Cooper and Schoedsack objectify Wray\u2019s character in the very film they worked on at the same time as on <\/span>Kong. <\/span><\/i>In Connell\u2019s masculine tale, there was no female character (Kawin), but these two apparently thought that there needed to be a girl in the picture. In her book <\/span>The Hollywood Action and Adventure Film, <\/span><\/i>Tasker writes that feminists have long criticized Hollywood\u2019s \u201ctendency to relegate female characters to positions that lacked narrative agency and that foregrounded their function as sexual spectacle\u201d, especially in action and adventure movies. Eve does little throughout the movie but scream and otherwise express fear. An archetypal damsel in distress, she is reduced to a foil to Bob\u2019s bravery, present only to be saved by him. She is unwillingly sexualized not only by Zaroff, but also by the film itself \u2014 she wears a dress which becomes tattered, wet, and fairly revealing, especially in the context of the time period. This erotic reduction is quite present in the scene below, in which Ann stands idly by, horrified and scantily clad, as Bob fends off Zaroff\u2019s hounds.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n