The Flick Chick

Ah Winona Ryder. I like her as an actress. She chooses interesting material which allows her to be both ethereal and solid at the same time—a rare thing. I did not see Girl, Interrupted when it was first released. There was a lot of buzz about it, especially the breakout performance of Angelina Jolie, but I just wasn’t interested at the time. Having just watched it, I can say it would not have been a good film for me to watch at that period in my life, but it is an interesting film with a truly powerhouse performance by Ms. Ryder.

Were things really so repressive for young, wealthy, white women in the 50s and 60s, or are films like Girl, Interrupted and Mona Lisa Smile exaggerating the situation? This was a time of great prosperity for North America, with new appliances and amenities out the yin yang. There were greater job opportunities for women, and while it was expected that the husband was the sole breadwinner, and all married couples would have children, it wasn’t such a bad time to be living. So why does every depiction of a 50s or 60s woman have her struggling with ennui, frustration, covert alcohol and prescription drug abuse? If this is really what was going on in suburbia, how in the hell did most women of the time have relatively happy homes, with pretty well-adjusted children? If this is the kind of life Susanna was trying to avoid, how is it she was placed in a mental institution?

Above all, why are these portrayals celebrated? Is it because we like to see suffering by people who would otherwise appear to have it all together (schadenfreude)? Or is it because, deep inside each of us is a misfit, and when we see other misfits struggling, and usually succeeding, our compassion and empathy makes us more human than ever before?