Damsel in Distress - Critical and Theoretical Responses

Critical and Theoretical Responses

Damsels in distress have been cited as an example of differential treatment of genders in literature, film, and works of art. Feminist criticism of art, film, and literature has often examined gender-oriented characterization and plot, including the common "damsel in distress" trope. Many modern writers, such as Angela Carter and Jane Yolen, have revisited classic fairy tales and "damsel in distress" stories or collected and anthologized stories and folk tales that break the "damsel in distress" pattern. Often, such stories reverse the gender disparity by "empowering" the "damsel", or by placing boys or men in distress to be rescued thereby.

Whilst late twentieth century feminist criticism may have highlighted alternatives to the damsel stereotype, the origins of some alternatives are to be found elsewhere. Joseph Campbell's work on comparative mythology has provided a theoretical model for heroes throughout the history of literature, drama, and film, which has been further developed by dramaturgical writers such as Christopher Vogler. These theories suggest that within the underlying story arc of every hero is found an episode known as the ordeal, where the character is almost destroyed. By surviving fear, danger, or torture the hero proves he or she has special qualities and ultimately emerges re-invented to progress to ultimate victory. Within this theory the empowered "damsel" can be a female hero rendered powerless and imperiled during her heroic ordeal but who ultimately emerges as a strong figure who claims victory; yet the male and female versions of such ordeal and empowerment still differ at a fundamental level, in that when there is a character doing the rescuing (sometimes referred to as "help unlooked for"), he is almost invariably male.

Examples can be found in films that date back to the early days of movie making. One of the films most often associated with the stereotype of the damsel in distress, The Perils of Pauline (1914), in fact provides at least a partial counterexample, in that Pauline, as played by Pearl White, is a strong character who decides against early marriage in favour of seeking adventure and becoming an author. Despite common belief, the film does not feature scenes with Pauline tied to a railroad track and threatened by a buzzsaw, although such scenes were incorporated into later re-creations and were also featured in other films made in the period around 1914. Academic Ben Singer has contested the idea that these "serial-queen melodramas" were male fantasies and has observed that they were marketed heavily at women. The first motion picture serial made in the United States, What Happened to Mary? (1912), was released to coincide with a serial story of the same name published in McClure's Ladies' World magazine.

Empowered damsels were a feature of the serials made in the 1930s and 1940s by studios such as Republic Pictures. The "cliffhanger" scenes at the end of episodes provide many examples of female heroines bound and helpless and facing fiendish death traps. But those heroines, as played by actresses such as Linda Stirling and Kay Aldridge, were often strong, assertive women who ultimately played an active part in vanquishing the villains.

C.L. Moore's 1934 story "Shambleau" - generally acknowledged as epoch-making in the history of Science Fiction - begins in what seems a classical Damsel in Distress situation: The protagonist, space adventurer Northwest Smith, sees a "sweetly-made girl" pursued by a lynch mob intent on killing her and intervenes to save her, but finds her not a girl nor a human being at all, but a disguised alien creature, predatory and highly dangerous. Soon, Smith himself needs rescuing and barely escapes with his life.

These themes have received successive updates in modern-era characters, ranging from 'spy girls' of the 1960s to current movie and television heroines. In her book The Devil With James Bond (1967) Ann Boyd compared James Bond with an updating of the legend of St George and the "princess and dragon" genre, particularly with Dr. No's dragon tank. The damsel in distress theme is also very prominent in "The Spy Who Loved Me ", where the story is told in the first person by the young woman Vivienne Michel, who is threatened with imminent rape by thugs when Bond kills them and claims her as his reward.

The female spy Emma Peel in the 1960s British television series The Avengers was often seen in "damsel in distress" situations. The character and her reactions, as portrayed by actress Diana Rigg, differentiated these scenes from other movie and television scenarios where women were similarly imperiled as pure victims or pawns in the plot. A scene with Emma Peel bound and threatened with a death ray in the episode From Venus with Love is a direct parallel to James Bond's confrontation with a laser in the film Goldfinger. Both are examples of the classic hero's ordeal as described by Campbell and Vogler. The serial heroines and Emma Peel are cited as providing inspiration for the creators of strong heroines in more recent times. Ranging from Joan Wilder in Romancing the Stone and Princess Leia Organa in Star Wars to "post feminist" icons such as Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Sydney Bristow from Alias, Kim Possible from the series of the same name and Veronica Mars also from the series of the same name.

Reflecting these changes, Daphne Blake of the Scooby-Doo cartoon series (who throughout the series is captured dozens of times, falls through trap doors, etc.) is portrayed in the Scooby-Doo film as a wisecracking feminist heroine (quote: "I've had it with this damsel in distress thing!"). The 2009 film Sherlock Holmes includes a classical damsel in distress episode, where Irene Adler (played by Rachel McAdams) is helplessly bound to a conveyor belt in an industrial slaughterhouse, and is saved from being sawn in half by a chainsaw; yet in other episodes of the same film Adler is strong and assertive - for example, overcoming with contemptuous ease two thugs who sought to rob her (and robbing them instead). In the film's climax it is Adler who saves the British Empire, dismantling at the last moment a device set to poison the entire membership of Parliament.

In the final scene of the 2007 Walt Disney Pictures film "Enchanted" the traditional roles are reversed when male protagonist Robert (Patrick Dempsey) is captured by Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) in her dragon form. In a King Kong fashion, she carries him to the top a New York skyscraper, until Robert's beloved Giselle climbs, sword in hand, to save him.

A similar role reversal is evident in Stieg Larsson's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", in whose climatic scene the male protagonist is captured by a mass murderer, locked in an underground torture room, chained, stripped naked, and humiliated when his female partner enters to save him and destroy the villain.