Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Hitchcock’s Brunettes: Visualizing Queerness in the 1940s and 1950s

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Reassessing the Hitchcock Touch

  • 416 Accesses

Abstract

The sheer number of Hitchcock’s blonde leading ladies has given rise to the “Hitchcock blonde” as one of the perhaps most striking and well-known features of his work. While most scholars have rather uncritically adopted the director’s supposedly one-sided interest in the ‘Nordic woman’, famous Hitchcock brunettes such as Judith Anderson and Alida Valli appear to have fallen into oblivion. In this chapter, Wegner explores their villainous roles and the rather conventional ways in which Hitchcock staged brunette actresses in his early Hollywood films. Her analysis of Rebecca (1940), The Paradine Case (1947), and Strangers on a Train (1951) explores how “Hitchcock brunettes” are used to intensify the narrative rivalry between “the feminine” and “the queer”.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Works cited

  • Amador, Victoria. “Dracula’s Postfeminist Daughters in the Twenty-First Century.” Dracula’s Daughters: The Female Vampire on Film. Eds. Douglas Brode and Leah Deyneka. Lanham; Plymouth: Scarecrow P, 2014. 285–298.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baker, Russell. “Afterword.” YouTube n.d., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1MVdjnttow. Accessed 15 Nov. 2016.

  • Berenstein, Rhona J. “Adaptation, Censorship, and Audiences of Questionable Type: Lesbian Sightings in Rebecca (1940) and The Uninvited (1944).” Cinema Journal 37.3 (1998): 16–37.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doty, Alexander. “Queer Hitchcock.” A Companion to Alfred Hitchcock. Eds. Thomas Leitch and Leland Poague. Oxford: Blackwell, 2011. 473–489.

    Google Scholar 

  • Driscoll, Paige A. “‘The Hitchcock Touch’: Visual Techniques in the Work of Alfred Hitchcock.” International ResearchScape Journal 1 (2013): 1–26.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evans, Everett. “Hitchcock had Obsession with Blondes, on and off Screen.” Houston Chronicle 18 Feb. 2007, http://www.chron.com/entertainment/movies/article/Hitchcock-had-obsession-with-blondes-on-and-off-1647095.php. Accessed 14 March 2017.

  • Friddle, Megan. “Hitchcock’s Women: Reconsidering Blondes and Brunettes.” Interdisciplinary Humanities 32.1 (2015): 103–116.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, Jonathan. ‘Strangers on a Train’: A Queer Film Classic. New York: Arsenal Pulp, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Greven, David. Psycho-Sexual: Male Desire in Hitchcock, De Palma, Scorsese, and Friedkin. Austin: U of Texas P, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Halperin, David M. Saint Foucault: Towards a Gay Hagiography. Oxford; New York: OUP, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hanson, Ellis. “Lesbians Who Bite.” Outtakes: Essays in Queer Theory and Film. Ed. Ellis Hanson. Durham: Duke UP, 1999. 183–222.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haskell, Molly. From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hichens, Robert. The Paradine Case. London: Ernest Benn, 1958.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kregloe, Karman. “BBC2’s Daphne Explores Du Maurier’s Bisexuality.” After Ellen 21 May 2007, http://www.afterellen.com/tv/13391-bbc2s-daphne-explores-du-mauriers-bisexuality. Accessed 14 March 2017.

  • Lugowski, David M. “Queering the (New) Deal: Lesbian and Gay Representation and the Depression-Era Cultural Politics of Hollywood’s Production Code.” Cinema Journal 38.2 (1999): 3–35.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGilligan, Patrick. Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. New York: Regan Books, 2003.

    Google Scholar 

  • Modleski, Tania. The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory. New York; Abingdon: Routledge, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mulvey, Laura. Visual and Other Pleasures. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pastor, Brígida M. “Queering Gender: The New Femme Fatale in Almodóvar’s La mala educación (2004).” Culture & History Digital Journal 2.1 (2013), http://cultureandhistory.revistas.csic.es/index.php/cultureandhistory/article/view/20/90. Accessed 5 Feb. 2016.

  • Rosewarne, Lauren. Part-Time Perverts: Sex, Pop Culture, and Kink Management. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: Praeger, 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  • Russo, Vito. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies. New York: Harper & Row, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  • Salotto, Eleanor. Gothic Returns in Collins, Dickens, Zola, and Hitchcock. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.

    Google Scholar 

  • San Juan, Eric, and Jim McDevitt. Hitchcock’s Villains: Murderers, Maniacs, and Mother Issues. Lanham; Plymouth: Scarecrow P, 2013.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York: Columbia UP, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  • Singh, Anita. “Alfred Hitchcock Drama The Girl Sparks Angry Backlash.” Telegraph 22 Oct. 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/film-news/9621552/Alfred-Hitchcock-drama-The-Girl-sparks-angry-backlash.html. Accessed 14 March 2017.

  • Sloan, Jane E. Alfred Hitchcock: A Filmography and Bibliography. Oakland: U of California P, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  • Smelik, Anneke. “Feminist Film Theory.” The Cinema Book. Eds. Pam Cook and Mieke Bernink. London: BFI, 1985. 491–504.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snarker, Dorothy. “Counting down the Seven Evilest Lesbian and Bisexual Exes.” After Ellen 19 Aug. 2010, http://www.afterellen.com/movies/78363-counting-down-the-seven-evilest-lesbian-and-bisexual-exes/3. Accessed 14 March 2017.

  • Spoto, Donald. Spellbound by Beauty: Alfred Hitchcock and His Leading Ladies. London: Hutchinson, 2008.

    Google Scholar 

  • Teachout, Terry. “The Trouble with Alfred Hitchcock.” Commentary 127.2 (2009): 43–46.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tudor, Andrew. Monsters and Mad Scientists: A Cultural History of the Horror Movie. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1989.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walker, Michael. Hitchcock’s Motifs. Amsterdam: Amsterdam UP, 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wegner, Gesine. “Self-Destructive Love: Homosexual Desires of a Mad Woman in Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940).” Re-Imagining Gender and Love. Eds. Morgan Ereku and Dikmen Yakalı Çamoğlu. Oxford: Inter-Disciplinary P, 2016. 153–167.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weiss, Andrea. Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in Film. New York; London: Penguin, 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wheatley, Kim. “Gender Politics and the Gothic in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca.” Gothic Studies 4.2 (2002): 133–144.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, Patricia. Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1999.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. TU Dresden, Dresden, Germany

    Gesine Wegner

Authors
  1. Gesine Wegner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Linguistics, Literature and Cultural Studies, TU Dresden, Dresden, Saxony, Germany

    Wieland Schwanebeck

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Wegner, G. (2017). Hitchcock’s Brunettes: Visualizing Queerness in the 1940s and 1950s. In: Schwanebeck, W. (eds) Reassessing the Hitchcock Touch. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60008-6_5

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation