Holly Golightly and American Women in the early 1960s

Question for Discussion: Discuss how Holly
Golightly's dilemma sheds light on the
changing roles of America women in
the early 1960s?

Reading: Reading: NOW's 1966 Statement of Purpose ;
NOW's Declaration of American Women (1977) ;
Syfer, "Why I Want a Wife"; Steinem, " Testimony for
the ERA" ; Douglas , “ She got the Devil in her Heart" ;
James Berardinelli's Review of Breakfast at Tiffany's ;
Crazy for Cinema , "Review of Breakfast at Tiffany's

Critical Reviews of Breakfast at Tiffany's

Breakfast at Tiffany's--Basic Information

Women in the 1950s and 1960s

Merton on the Problem of Individuality
Klatch, "Women against Feminism" -- quote
HBO's Sex and the City
The Look on Sex and the City
Semran, Madonna's Visual Representation
Kellner, Media Culture and Madonna
Steinem, Testimony for the ERA
Syfer, Why I Want a Wife
NOW's 1966 Statement of Purpose
1977 Declaration of American Women
Douglas, She Got the Devil in Her Heart
Holly on giving the Cat a Name
The Problem being a Hustler
Paul on Holly being in a Cage
Susan Douglas on Holly's Dilemma

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"The story is simple. Hustlers meet, despise each other at first, but then become friends because they can be honest with each other. But when friendship begins to blossom into something deeper, the fact that they are hustlers threatens to keep them apart. The tone of the story is deceptively light and romantic"

" It's not always easy being a hustler.
The work is not particularly demanding,
especially if you have any acting talent.
But something about it sets you apart
from everyone else and makes it
difficult to relate normally with anyone,
especially with another hustler. That is
the premise behind Breakfast at Tiffany's
- as well the film's strength, insofar as
the story is honest with itself."
Stephen Brophy

"If I do not know who I am, it is because
I think I am the sort of person everyone
around me wants [me] to be. Perhaps I
have never asked myself whether I really
wanted to become what everybody else
seems to want [me] to become. Perhaps
if I only realized that I do not admire
what everyone seems to admire, I would
really begin to live after all. I would be
liberated from the painful duty of saying
what I really do not think and of acting
in a way that betrays...the integrity of
my own soul." (126)
....Thomas Merton, from No Man is
an Island

Holly: He's alright! Aren't you, cat? Poor
cat! Poor slob! Poor slob without a
name! The way I see it I haven't got the
right to give him one. We don't belong
to each other. We just took up one day
by the river. I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things
go together. I'm not sure where that is
but I know what it is like. It's like
Tiffany's.

Paul: Tiffany's? You mean the jewelry
store.

Holly: That's right. I'm just CRAZY
about Tiffany's!

Paul: You know what's wrong with you,
Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick
out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a
fact, people do fall in love, people do
belong to each other, because that's
the only chance anybody's got for real
happiness." You call yourself a free
spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage.
Well baby, you're already in that cage.
You built it yourself. And it's not
bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas,
or in the east by Somali-land. It's
wherever you go. Because no matter
where you run, you just end up
running into yourself."

Susan Douglas on Holly's Dilemma

What does Susan Douglas mean when she
writes: "I wanted Holly to be able to stay Holly and keep
Peppard (Paul). The final scene, in which Holly
finds her cat...and kisses Paul in a teeming
downpour, is ambiguous. Do I cry every time
because she's found Cat and Paul, or because
she's lost Holly?"

NOW's 1966 Statement of Purpose

We, men and women who hereby constitute ourselves as the National Organization for Women, believe that the time has come for a new movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward a fully equal partnership of the sexes, as part of the world-wide revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our national borders.

The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership with men.

NOW is dedicated to the proposition that women, first and foremost, are human beings, who, like all other people in our society, must have the chance to develop their fullest human potential. We believe that women can achieve such equality only by accepting to the full the challenges and responsibilities they share with all other people in our society, as part of the decision-making mainstream of American political, economic and social life.

We organize to initiate or support action, nationally, or in any part of this nation, by individuals or organizations, to break through the silken curtain of prejudice and discrimination against women in government, industry, the professions, the churches, the political parties, the judiciary, the labor unions, in education, science, medicine, law, religion and every other field of importance in American society.

We realize that women's problems are linked to many broader questions of social justice; their solution will require concerted action by many groups. Therefore, convinced that human rights for all are indivisible, we expect to give active support to the common cause of equal rights for all those who suffer discrimination and deprivation, and we call upon other organizations committed to such goals to support our efforts toward equality for women.

Above all, we reject the assumption that these problems are the unique responsibility of each individual woman, rather than a basic social dilemma which society must solve. True equality of opportunity and freedom of choice for women requires such practical, and possible innovations as a nationwide network of child-care centers, which will make it unnecessary for women to retire completely from society until their children are grown, and national programs to provide retraining for women who have chosen to care for their children full-time.

WE REJECT the current assumptions that a man must carry the sole burden of supporting himself, his wife, and family, and that a woman is automatically entitled to lifelong support by a man upon her marriage, or that marriage, home and family are primarily woman's world and responsibility -- hers, to dominate -- his to support. We believe that a true partnership between the sexes demands a different concept of marriage, an equitable sharing of the responsibilities of home and children and of the economic burdens of their support. We believe that proper recognition should be given to the economic and social value of homemaking and child-care.

WE BELIEVE THAT women will do most to create a new image of women by acting now, and by speaking out in behalf of their own equality, freedom, and human dignity - - not in pleas for special privilege, nor in enmity toward men, who are also victims of the current, half-equality between the sexes - - but in an active, self-respecting partnership with men. By so doing, women will develop confidence in their own ability to determine actively, in partnership with men, the conditions of their life, their choices, their future and their society.

This Statement of Purpose was written by Betty Friedan, author of "The Feminine Mystique".

NOW's Declaration of American Women (1977)

"We recognize the positive changes that have occurred in the lives of women since the founding of our nation. In more than a century of struggle from Seneca Falls 1848 to Houston 1977, we have progressed from being non-persons and slaves whose work and achievements were unrecognized, whose needs were ignored, and whose rights were suppressed to being citizens with freedoms and aspirations of which our ancestors could only dream. "

"We can vote and own property. We work in the home, in our communities and in every occupation. We are 40 percent of the labor force. We are in the arts, sciences, professions and politics. We raise children, govern States, head businesses and institutions, climb mountains, explore the ocean depths and reach toward the moon. "

"Our lives no longer end with the childbearing years. Our lifespan has increased to more than 75 years. We have become a majority of the population, 51.3 percent, and by the 21st Century, we shall be an even larger majority."

"But despite some gains made in the past 200 years, our dream of equality is still withheld from us and millions of women still face a daily reality of discrimination, limited opportunities and economic hardship. "

"Man-made barriers, laws, social customs and prejudices continue to keep a majority of women in an inferior position without full control of our lives and bodies. "

"From infancy throughout life, in personal and public relationships, in the family, in the schools, in every occupation and profession, too often we find our individuality, our capabilities, our earning powers diminished by discriminatory practices and outmoded ideas of what a woman is, what a woman can do, and what a woman must be."

"We do not seek special privileges, but we demand as a human right a full voice and role for women in determining the destiny of our world, our national, our families and our individual lives.

"We seek these rights for all women, whether or not they choose as individuals to use them. "

"We are part of a worldwide movement of women who believe that only by bringing women into full partnership with men and respecting our rights as half the human race can we hope to achieve a world, our nation the whole human race - men, women and children - can live in peace and security. "

* From The President's Interagency Council on Women National Plan of Action , Texas, 1977 .

Steinem, " Testimony for the ERA"

"During twelve years of working for a living, I've experienced much of the legal and social discrimination reserved for women in this country. I have been refused service in public restaurants, ordered out of public gathering places, and turned away from apartment rentals; all for the clearlystated sole reason that I am a woman. And all without the legal remedies available to blacks and other minorities. I have been excluded from professional groups, writing assignments on so-called "unfeminine " subjects such as politics, full participation in the Democratic Party, jury duty, and even from such small male privileges as discounts on airline fares. Most important to me, I have been denied a society in which women are encouraged, or even allowed, to think of themselves as first-class citizens and
responsible human beings. "

"Women suffer this second-class treatment from the moment they are born. They are expected to be rather than achieve, to function biologically rather than learn. A brother, whatever his intellect, is more likely to get the family 's encouragement and education money, while girls are often presured to conceal ambition and intelligence, to " Uncle Tom."

That Children Must Have Full-Time Mothers

"American mothers spend more time with their homes and children than those of any other society we know about. In the past, joint families, servants, a prevalent system in which grandparents raised the children, or family field work in the agrarian systems— all these factors contributed more to child care than the labor-saving devices of which we are so proud."

"The truth is that most American children seem to be suffering from too much Mother, and too little Father. Part of the program of Women 's Liberation is a return of fathers to their children. If laws permit women equal work and pay opportunities, men will then be relieved of their role as sole breadwinner. Fewer ulcers, fewer hours of meaningless work, equal responsibility for his own children: these are a few of the reasons that Women's Liberation is Men's Liberation, too."

Syfer, "Why I Want a Wife"

"Not too long ago a male friend of mine appeared on the scene fresh from a recent divorce. He had one child, who is, of course, with his ex-wife. He is looking for another wife. As I thought about him while I was ironing one evening, it suddenly occurred to me that I, too, would like to have a wife. Why do I want a wife?"

"I want a wife to take care of my children. I want a wife to keep track of the children's doctor and dentist appointments. And to keep track of mine, too. I want a wife to make sure my children eat properly and are kept clean. I want a wife who will wash the children's clothes and keep them mended. I want a wife who is a good nurturant attendant to my children, who arranges for their schooling, makes sure that they have an adequate social life with their peers, takes them to the park, the zoo, etc. I want a wife who takes care of the children when they are sick, a wife who arranges to be around when the children need special care, because, of course I cannot miss classes at school. My wife must arrange to lose time at work and not lose the job."

"I want a wife who is sensitive to my sexual needs, a wife who makes love passionately and eagerly when I feel like it, a wife who makes sure that I am satisfied. And, of course, I want a wife who will not demand sexual attention when I am not in the mood for it. I want a wife who assumes the complete responsibility for birth control, because I do not want more children. I want a wife who will remain sexually faithful to me so that I do not have to clutter up my intellectual life with jealousies. And I want a wife who understands that my sexual needs may entail more than strict adherence to monogamy. I must, after all, be able to relate to people as fully as possible."

"If, by chance, I find another person more suitable as a wife than the wife I already have, I want the liberty to replace my present wife with another one. Naturally, I will expect a fresh, new life; my wife will take the children and be solely responsible for them so that I am left free. "

"My God, who wouldn't want a wife? "

Douglas , "She got the Devil in her Heart"

"As something resembling my teen identity began to coagulate, there was a cavalcade of female archetypes to consider, and each, in her own way,embodied a reaction against the identity with which our mothers had been saddled. They also represented a compromise between obeying gender norms and subverting them.Through these new archetypes, we could imagine and emulate a new kind of agency for ourselves and for our generation of girls. And the celebrity girls and boys we identified with were blurring one of the most important boundaries of all, the one demarcating what it meant to be a boy and what it meant to be a girl As longer hair and dandified clothes for boys became cool, many of us began doing what boys did, acting like them, and even looking like them. Mia Farrow andTwiggy had shorter hair than John Lennon. We wore pants, instead of skirts, whenever we could,man-sized watchbands, and, if we were preppy,the same Bass shoes the boys wore. We stopped wearing Heaven Sent and bought Canoe from the men's counter. Sure, these were just cosmetic gestures of style, but they mattered. No one called it gender bending at the time, but that's what was happening. "

"The first irresistible, androgynous, and non-conformist female character many of usremember is Holly Golightly from Breakfast atTiffany's (1961). She partied all night and slept all day, usually in the nude, watered the plants with scotch, kept her slippers in the refrigerator and her phone in a suitcase, refused to decorate her apartment, used a two-foot-long cigarette holder,and earned her living as a quasi-call girl, quasi-escort. She lived a glamorous life in New YorkCity, hosting wild cocktail parties, dining at the"21" Club, and getting drunk whenever she feltlike it. She could whistle for a cab as loudly andeffectively as any burly doorman. She was definitely not a virgin, and she was completely charming. She was totally cynical about marriage,setting her sights only on millionaires. She shop-lifted for fun, played the guitar on her fire escape,and called everyone darling. "

"Here was a young woman on her own, flouting all sorts of old biddy conventions about how single women should conduct themselves, having a ball.But it was the fact that Audrey Hepburn played this character that made so many of us fantasize about becoming Hollys ourselves when we grew up. It wasn't just that Audrey Hepburn was stunningly gorgeous, or that she was slimmer than most models, or that whatever she wore automatically looked so incredibly stylish. Wide-eyed and small-breasted, Hepburn was still girlish, and while it was quite clear that HollyGolightly was sexually active, Hepburn seemed,well, not quite pre-sexual or asexual but like a fairy or a storybook princess, above it all. She made sexual maturity for girls less scary, as if o nthe other side of puberty you could be child-like and androgynous and still be attractive to men. Beautiful women with boyish bodies and upper-crust accents, women like Hepburn and JackieKennedy, were critical icons during this period for they made being boyish "classy" and very"in."

"The narrative of Breakfast at Tiffany's was so compelling because it is about a young woman's struggle with her own identity and her passage to womanhood, a passage she and many of us in the audience regarded with dread. After meeting thi ssophisticated New York City glamour girl, we learn that in a previous life she was LulamaeBarnes, a tomboy, child-bride hillbilly from thesticks, Holly's complete opposite. When her former husband comes looking for her, she refuses to go back with him, explaining simply,"I'm not Lulamae anymore." Later in the film, when Paul Varjack (George Peppard) pressures her for a commitment, she announces that she is neither Lulamae nor Holly, she isn't sure who she is. "

"This never-ending invention of selves, of masks,of poses was too familiar to us, and when Paul asks her to give up certain aspects of being Holly to be his wife instead, we were as torn as Holly. Paul insists, "I love you you belong to me," but Holly snaps back,"No--people don't belong to people. I'm not going to let anyone put me in a cage." Loving someone, she asserts, is tantamount to imprisoning her."

"The final scene, in which Holly finds her cat (named Cat, of course) and kisses Paul in a teeming downpour, is ambiguous. Do I cry every time because she's found Cat and Paul, or because she's lost Holly? And it's not clear how important the film's resolution was anyway, since what we all remembered and found thrilling wasn't that Holly got George Peppard in the end but that she got away with all sorts of non-conformity without paying any price; on the contrary, she got one reward after next. She made female eccentricity and deliberately not fitting glamorous."

1. What does O. J. Berman mean when he tells Paul
that Holly is a phony, but she's a "real phony"?

2. How do Holly and Paul make a living and support
themselves? Does this affect the audiences' sympathy
for them?

3. Do you agree with James Berardinelli that
Breakfast at Tiffany's "is still first and foremost a
fantasy....This is not the real world; it's another sort
of place"?

4. What does Holly mean when she calls people
"Rats"and "Super Rats"?

5. How does this Holly Golightly quote help us
understand the larger theme of the movie:

Holly: He's alright! Aren't you, cat? Poor cat! Poor
slob! Poor slob without a name! The way I see it I
haven't got the right to give him one. We don't
belong to each other. We just took up one day by
the river. I don't want to own anything until I find a
place where me and things go together. I'm not sure
where that is but I know what it is like. It's like Tiffany's.

Paul: Tiffany's? You mean the jewelry store.

Holly: That's right. I'm just CRAZY about Tiffany's!

6. What does Holly Golightly mean when she tells
Doc Barnes, "I'm not Lulamae Barnes anymore"?

7. What does Holly mean when she tells Doc
Barnes that she is a wild thing that can't be tamed?

8. How does the song Moon River ( Music and Lyrics) help
us better understand the larger underlying theme
in Breakfast at Tiffany's?

9. What does Paul mean when he says to Holly: "I love
you...you belong to me"? Is Holly right when she
responds, "No--people don't belong to people. I'm not
going to let anyone put me in a cage"?

10. Do you agree with Paul that Holly--despite
her efforts to prevent it--is stuck in a cage of her own making:

Paul Varjak: "You know what's wrong with you,
Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got
no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and
say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people
do belong to each other, because that's the only
chance anybody's got for real happiness." You
call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're
terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well
baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself.
And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or
in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go.
Because no matter where you run, you just end up
running into yourself."

12. Why does Holly decide to re-unite with Paul
rather than escape to Brazil?

13. What does Susan Douglas mean when she
writes: "I wanted Holly to be able to stay Holly and keep
Peppard (Paul). The final scene, in which Holly
finds her cat...and kisses Paul in a teeming
downpour, is ambiguous. Do I cry every time
because she's found Cat and Paul, or because
she's lost Holly?"

14. Do you think Holly and Paul can escape the
traps of marriage that tend to put people in cages?