Adam's Rib

This week I was a speaker in a Gender Colloquium at Rider University and I decided to include a shortened version of my speech here about Adam’s Rib, Legally Blonde, and the patriarchal unconscious connection in law and film. Enjoy.

The law is seen as an ideal system that mediates all and shouldn’t be altered; but there is the presence of the patriarchal unconscious which creates flaws in this system. The patriarchal unconscious is that unknowingly, just as males are the fathers and head of the households, males are in control of the law system and how it functions. George Cukor’s 1949 film, Adam’s Rib, is a screwball comedy about a married couple, who are also both lawyers that take on the same case defending opposite sides. Adam Bonner tries to prosecute Doris Attinger who is accused of attempting to murder her uncaring husband; while Amanda Bonner defends this woman on the basis of “equal rights under the law,” which Amanda insists if the person on trial were a man he would be vindicated for trying to kill the lover of his unfaithful wife in order to protect his home. Adam’s Rib seems to be a film fighting for women’s rights and against the biased patriarchal unconscious, but on closer analysis one can see that the message seems to lose its hold in the end when Adam wins over his wife, Amanda, and the argument is dropped