Double Indemnity shows a woman
named Mrs. Dietrichson and at first she is shown as a housewife. She’s not
allowed to make any decisions regarding money, which is one of the factors to
her and her husband’s marital problems. We find out that she would rather
consider killing someone rather than fix her marriage with her husband. She
claims she never loved her husband in the first place, so then why would she
want to try and fix things with him?
We
learn that Mrs. Dietrichson did get rid of the first Mrs. Dietrichson, she
guilts Neff into helping her. It seems that she loves Neff and wants him to get
ride of her husband as quickly as possible, so that she can be with him. We end
up later finding out that she never really loved Neff, she was just using him.
After the murder has been done, Mrs. Dietrichson becomes even colder. The
insurance soon becomes a problem because she would rather risk exposing them
and get the money instead of letting it go so that she can be with Neff, but
then in the end she shows how truly mean she is when she shoots him.
Lola
Dietrichson is seen as a typical teenaged girl who is in a slight rebellious
stage. Her dad doesn’t get her and her step-mom doesn’t like her. Little did we
know that Lola has a good reason to think that her step-mom doesn’t like
her. Lola has a boyfriend named Nino,
she likes being able to have a man there that she can go to when she’s having
hard times. Later on, when Nino and Lola are having problems, Lola runs to Neff. Just like Mrs. Dietrichson, She is very cold
when it comes to Neff. When Neff asked
her what was going on between her and Nino, she got very unpleasant.
In
this film, women are shown as lesser than their significant other. It also
shows that women need and want a man that can be there to take care of them no
matter what. They need someone there in times of need, and even if there isn’t anything.
I completely agree with you. I think this is seen in most movies, not only of that time period, but today as well. Every once in a while a film features a strong female lead, but that lead is still usually shown as weak without their male counterpart. For some reason this is the norm, and will probably remain the norm, and that, to me, is pretty sad.
ReplyDelete"It also shows that women need and want a man that can be there to take care of them no matter what."
ReplyDeleteDoes it?
Wasn't Phyllis acting a part to get what she wanted?
I rather think the man was equally dependent here, going to absurd lengths to be with a woman he loves (but also the money, ha). Phyllis was a mad lady who would have done away with her husband with or without someone to help her.