His Girl Friday charts the marriage and divorce and remarriage of Walter and Hildy and the engagement -- and near marriage -- of Hildy and Bruce. Hildy says she wants domestic bliss in suburban Albany but she chucks it to remarry Walter and relaunch her career. Can someone balance career and marriage? Who is the best kind of spouse? Is happiness possible in marriage? What is this film saying about that state of marriage -- or love -- in the modern world?
Chloe Katz
ReplyDeleteIn the movie His Girl Friday, it shows that love is more about the chase then the ending- shown through Hilly and Walter’s rocky road leading back together, and the failure of Hilly and Bruce’s relationship. Hilly plans to marry Bruce because he is the safe choice- he is a small town man with a non-exciting job; he represents suburban bliss. However, Hilly is hesitant to fall into this life, and instead has a competitive back and forth with Walter throughout the movie that depicts the sparks of chemistry in between them. Whenever Hilly is with Bruce, she is calm and peaceful, but as shown by her picking Walter, this is not what she wants. She wants the chase and the back and forth- not the calm, peaceful life. This also leads the viewer to believe that this is why Hilly and Walter got divorced in the first place: the marriage took all of the excitement out of the relationship. Their feisty fights and chemical romance was forfeited to the humdrum mechanics of married life. This is inevitably what Hilly is headed into with her planned marriage to Bruce- which is why she is so resistant to it. It depicts that love is not about marriage, it is about chemistry, and that marriage can ruin that chemistry, and therefore the happiness and joys of love. It also shows that in order for a love story to take place, it does not need to be a perfect love at first sight type relationship. Instead, a successful relationship needs to cater to each person in it. By Hilly choosing Walter, she was also choosing her job as a journalist; she was choosing youth and passion, as opposed to boredom and safety. As both of Hilly’s relationships are played out, the risky choice of Walter defeats Bruce’s safe path, and shows that chemistry- not simplicity- is the most important aspect of a relationship.
*it is Hildy not Hilly!
DeleteI think the film displays the natural ups and downs of love and marriage while showing how it can be balanced with and affected by career. Originally, we see Hildy fighting with Walter and we get the backstory on their marriage, explaining that they got divorced. If it weren't for their jobs, they might have not seen each other as often, or really at all, because the fact that they are in the same field provides them lots of opportunities to be together, even if they don't want to be. Because of them having to see each other so much, Walter finds out about Hildy's plans to marry and leave with Bruce, so we have to credit both of their careers for contributing to bringing them back together. I think that this also shows, in a way, that career and marriage can be balanced, but there are situations, at the same time, where it is not possible. For Hildy, it can go both ways. First, she demonstrates how it might not be balanced because her marriage with Bruce fails due to the demands of her job, running around and stressing out trying to get a story, and also keeping her from leaving with Bruce. On the other hand, her career and the story she works on is what convinces her to stay in the first place and ends up bringing her closer to Walter again. So in the end you could say that yes, career and marriage can be balanced, but it is helpful in succeeding to know what you want and set your priorities straight. Another controversial question that is raised in this movie is: is happiness possible in marriage? Yes, of course it is. That is why you marry someone. But of course, as we can see in the divorce of Hildy and Walter, people can have problems that overpower love and make a marriage not possible. But that does not mean that happiness is not possible, because it is with the right person, you just have to find them. This also connects to the question of what is the best kind of spouse. It is different for everyone depending on what they need in a relationship, but the best kind of spouse is someone that makes you happy and makes you feel like you can live harmoniously with them. This, of course, is something that you might mistake at first, like Walter and Hildy and their divorce, but nevertheless, their strong love brought them back together, showing that they were right for each other despite their hardships.
ReplyDeleteHis Girl Fridays shows that love, marriages, and what people do while they are in love are helplessly uncontrollable. Underneath the screwball humour and witty remarks, the solemn tragedies of love keep the viewer invested into the characters and story. An example of one of the tragedies of love is when Earl Williams’s lover couldn’t handle the fact that her husband was going to be hanged at the gallows. She was being interrogated for information on the whereabouts of her husband when she decided she could not take it anymore, so the only option she felt she had was to commit suicide by jumping out the upper floor window. There was nothing she could do to deal with her grief, so she chose to end the sorrow by killing herself. The unhappy ending to the love story between Earl Williams and his lover is symbolic for the message that love doesn’t have happy endings. In addition, the fact that Hildy Johnson and Walter Burns end up returning to each other at the end of the film shows how uncontrollable love is. The fact that Hildy and Walter had already gotten a divorce showed that their relationship was riddled with conflicts and complications. However, Hildy still ends up deciding to go back to her old man, thus placing herself in the painful situation once more where she has to deal with all of these issues. Hildy going back to Walter shows that there is no such thing as peaceful, happy love, and that true love is hard, painful and takes lots of patience and understanding. Hildy leaves Bruce, a gentle, kind, albeit milquetoast man for a scandalous, immoral man that can only bring conflict. This shows that love prefers chaos over peace.
ReplyDeleteThrough Hildy's gradual return to work and abandonment of Bruce, His Girl Friday supports the assertion that work is more influential to one's life than marriage. This assertion is present from the opening scene of the film, when Hildy enters the busy office with her fiancé, Bruce. She brushes of Bruce's attempts to hold the gate for her, and immediately assumes her working persona, even though she says she is done working to go get married and live a happy life in Albany. As Bruce relaxes during Hildy's 10 minutes in the office, Hildy is busy first arguing, then rekindling her relationship with Walter. Hildy's attempts to make Bruce the center of her life are quickly forgotten as soon as she hears Earl's wife crying to the men in the newsroom as she types. As soon as the alarm in the office sounds and Hildy takes off her coat to answer the phone, she takes Earl's story as a priority over her own wedding with Bruce. As the story progresses, Walter's desperate attempts to disconnect Hildy and Bruce succeed since Hildy sees Bruce as an impediment to her work each time she has to relieve him from jail, tell him what she is working on, why she can't make the next train, and even explain to his very angry mother why she is "playing cat and mouse with [her] poor boy and keeping him locked up". Her work even comes before reconciliation with Bruce's mom, since she explains that she "will be with [her] in five minutes." From that point on, Hildy grows her relationship with Walter based on the news story, and Walter's plea that "[she] can't dessert [him] now." Lastly, it is clear that Hildy has abandoned all hope with Bruce when he finally gets into the office, and she does not even look up from the typewriter. After Hildy's superficial effort to calm Bruce down, Bruce storms out and Hildy has to ask Walter what Bruce said before he left. In closing, Hildy's apparent disinterest with the idea of marrying Bruce after suddenly returning to work supports the idea that work is more influential than marriage. Hildy gave up what she thought was her dream at the expense of one news story.
ReplyDeleteThe main character “His Girl Friday”, directed by Howard Hawks, Hildy tries to balance having a career and marriage while going for happiness all at the same time in this modern world, but at struggles at doing so. At the beginning of the film, Hidly is engaged to a man named Bruce and their wedding is planned to happen the following day, but stops by her old newspaper job to inform her boss, and ex-husband, that she is retiring from her reporter job. As the film progresses Hildy sees what she is going to be missing out on if she becomes a housewife, but this realization of Hildy is partially influenced by Walter doings to keep her apart of their staff and to not letting his past with Hildy go. Walter does this by luring Hildy to write a major story about a murderer being hung the next morning before she leaves, and having Bruce do meaningless side tasks or having his goons keep him busy. Walter’s trap worked and Hildy was on the story, but soon realized Walter was tricking her. Hildy was almost out, but the murderer escaped further continuing the news story and she was roped backed in, but she started to become distant with Bruce. The murderer made it into news room Hildy was in, and she lets Walter in on the secret and they were able to trap the murderer in the desk. Walter and Hildy start to come close again while they are hiding a murderer and writing the story, but since Hildy was distracted by her work she missed that Bruce was leaving her and going on the train to Albany. The murder was discovered but set free, while Hildy lost her finance Bruce and now planned to marry Walter again. The film suggests that people must choose between their job and getting married because as shown through Hildy she was so focused on her job that she missed her chance to start a life with Bruce in the suburbs. In addition, it is suggested that having a spouse at home is better than not having any because they will both be busy trying to do their jobs than raising their kids or even starting a family at all. It can be seen happiness can be in marriage but it that is not always the case because if the two married are always fighting and arguing, that does not seem to be a happy marriage. The state of marriage or even love in the modern age, is complicated because as a society is evolving, mostly, for the better by having out of the home and in the work place, so both genders are busy with their own jobs and lives that they have to try and find a love interest. Overall, “My Girl Friday” says a lot about how balancing a career and marriage at the same, and even social roles of men and women with in those marriages are changing in this modern age of ours.
ReplyDeleteHis Girl Friday does a decent job portraying the different lifestyles between married life and life at work. With the film being released in 1940, it is easy to see how the perceived notion was that women could not be both a good wife and a good employee simultaneously. However, that is not the case in today’s society. The film portrays Hildy as a strong, successful journalist, who refuses to let her male counterparts push her around. It is unreasonable to assume she would want to drastically change her whole life for a man she has known for less than a year. In addition to the unrealistic proposition, I believe the ending was completely forced. It would not make sense for a woman, as strong as Hildy, to leave her fiancé for her ex-husband, who just set up her fiancé’s imprisonment. Another interesting idea described in the film is the role of a domestic suburban housewife. Hildy believes her living a suburban life with Bruce would make her a better wife than being a hardworking wife with Walter. In reality, no one type of spouse is better than the other, “success” in a marriage is based only on the happiness and togetherness of the family. Although many marriages end in pain and divorce, I believe happiness is achievable in marriage if both parties share a love for each other, are willing to sacrifice, and are mature and ready to commit to marriage. However, His Girl Friday paints marriage as impulsive, wild, and completely damaging to the people involved. This is clear by Walter being vindictive towards Bruce, Bruce going to jail multiple times, and Hildy randomly leaving Bruce for Walter for no real reason.
ReplyDeleteStone Zashin
ReplyDeleteThe film displays the tumultuous relationships that Hildy gets herself in. We don't know much about her first relationship stint with Walter. The only context we get is a scene of dialogue between the two in which Walter reminisces of the marriage. We see a version of Hildy, who seems to be contempt in living a quiet life, but something keeps her around. Once the story or Earl breaks out, we see a fire under her eyes, she keeps her leverage, but she has an instinct. She often tries to keep her fiancee and career away from each other, but to many failures, she isn't able to. Bruce wants to settle down with his mother and live a quiet life, and for that, Hildy needs to end her career. We see her decide to do so, but once she decides to give it one last ride, she won't be able to do so. At the end of the film, Walter and Hildy seemingly resume the marriage's happiness as they want to get remarried. When we look at the best spouse for Hildy, perhaps the most likable person doesn't do the trick. That's where we would place Bruce, who seems to be a very nice guy but is lacking one essential quality for the Hildy. The man with that quality is Walter, and the quality is being adventurous. Walter keeps Hildy on her toes the same way that you are kept if you are a reporter. One of the other reporters said to Hildy, 'you can't just leave the industry' and he was right. There is no way that Hildy can go from such a crazy fast and exciting job to settling down in Albany. That is why her perfect spouse could indeed only be one that shared the same passion as she did, meaning reporting. That is why Bruce has no chance; even if Hildy went to Albany, she wouldn't last more than a year without missing the chaotic lifestyle she came to love.
The film “His Girl Friday” suggests the idea that balancing a career and marriage can be very difficult. In the case of the main character Hildy and other people in real-life situations, work/careers can be the most influential part of life, which can affect one’s love life. This idea is expressed early on in the film when Hildy enters her workplace with her fiancé, Bruce. When Hildy enters her boss’s office, she tells him that she is quitting. Her boss, Walter, who is also her ex-husband, becomes upset at the fact she wants to leave, and they begin to argue. Walter is pleading with Hildy to stay because of the great work she does for the paper (career argument) while Hildy argues that a woman reaches a point in their life where they should be a housewife and a great mother (marriage argument). In this moment, Hildy chooses to push her career to the side, as she wants to become the spouse who works for her family by doing all the things around the house that are vital to living a happy life (the best kind of spouse in her opinion). She believes happiness is only possible in marriage when the wife lives for the husband and kids, and this belief can be supported by her failed marriage with Walter. However, throughout the film, Hildy realizes the importance of her work and how much it means to her. Towards the end of the film, Walter and Hildy trap themselves inside of a room, where Walter convinces Hildy to write a story on a convict who escaped but was caught. When coming up with different ideas and letting them run free on the paper in the typewriter, Hildy comes to the realization that she does not want to leave her job and has to continue on without Bruce. She chooses to run off with Walter to start things over. This choice is not necessarily based on the fact that she fell in love with Walter, but it is more because she fell in love with her job again. With Hildy finishing the last scene off by trying to balance her career and marriage, the film as a whole proposes that marriage in the modern world can be in any form as long as you do what makes you happy.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie His Girl Friday, Hildy’s return to the workplace and slow abandonment of her fiancé, Bruce, highlight the movie’s theme that work is more important than love. At the beginning of the movie, Hildy believes that what she wants from life is to settle down and have a family with Bruce. However, once she returns to work and Walter, her ex-husband, convinces her to write an interview for the Earl Williams case, she gradually begins to drift away from Bruce and home life. The inevitability of Hildy’s return to work occurs when she allows Walter to take her and Bruce to lunch. While it would have been disrespectful to decline Walter’s invitation, Hildy could have left Chicago and made a life with Bruce instead of concerning herself with the Earl Williams case and reigniting her love for writing. However, at lunch, Walter charms Bruce into staying in Chicago until the six o’clock train so that Hildy can write the interview. Hildy could have persuaded Bruce to leave on the earlier train if she was not also inclined to stay due to Walter’s generous decision to sign a large insurance policy through Bruce’s company. Everything seems to be going well until Hildy sees Earl Williams’ girlfriend crying to the other writers. In that moment, Hildy abandons all thoughts of Bruce and starts to focus all her energy on the Earl Williams case. Walter enchants Hildy with statements such as “this isn’t just a story you’re covering, it’s a revolution.” Hildy is unwilling to sacrifice such a big work opportunity for future happiness with Bruce. Hildy becomes so engrossed in her work that she spends all of Bruce’s money just for information on the case. Furthermore, Hildy unknowingly replaces the money with counterfeit money she receives from Louie – a man who works for Walter. If she had paid more attention, Hildy would have noticed the fake money as she was familiar with Walter’s deceptive ways. Hildy’s complete desertion of a life with Bruce comes when her oversight of the fake money lands Bruce in jail. Hildy is so invested in her work that she does not bail out her fiancé. Moreover, when Bruce is released and goes to the newsroom to speak with Hildy, she does not bother to look up from her typewriter. After Bruce leaves, Hildy remains fixated on her work. She even asks Walter what Bruce had said, indicating that she has officially placed work above Bruce. Hildy leaves behind her original dream of starting a family with Bruce so she can write one news article. Hildy’s obvious disinterest in a home life with Bruce after spontaneously returning to work highlights the idea that in the end, work triumphs over love.
ReplyDeleteIn His Girl Friday the quick actions of Walter, and the passive responses from Bruce suggest that marriage is merely just an idea in the 1940s. Walter is a sneaky mastermind; it takes Hildy telling him that she is getting married to another man for Walter to finally take action and win her back. Bruce is just there, and he is never doing anything progressive. Hildy wants a nice tranquil and relaxing life by choosing to part from the newspaper industry and marry Bruce, but Walter quickly changes her mind. Walter is able to convince Hildy of her love for the news reporting industry. This is what Hildy truly loves. She likes the idea of moving to the suburbs and living a calm life with Bruce, but the adrenaline and pursuit in journalism really drive her. Walter realizes this and exploits her interests in order to win her over. This relates a career to marriage. The shared interest in journalism furthers their relationship and in part leads to them wanting to get remarried. Bruce is a kind reserved gentleman, and this ends up hurting him in the long run. He constantly gets taken advantage of, and he willingly goes along with it. Hildy loves the idea of Bruce, but they just don’t match like Walter and Hildy do. She realizes this in the end, and she falls for Walter. This film suggests that marriage can and should be with whoever one desires, as long as it is of shared interest that makes both sides happy.
ReplyDeleteThe film, His Girl Friday, asserts that women in the modern world must choose between career and marriage to their own detriment and thusly critiques marriage as an institution itself for failing to provide an ideal life for the contemporary, masculine woman. From the very beginning of the film, it becomes clear that marriage is a rocky at best conception of life. In the first scene, the audience learns that Walter and Hildy already had an awful marriage and that they broke it off only for Bruce to desire it once again. It portrays the institution as if it were simply a light switch that the participants can flicker on or off if they so please and not as it was traditionally viewed: as binding and sacred. The central tension of the film thusly follows along Hildy’s struggle between being either a masculine woman or a womanly man because that is what the dichotomy of marriage and career forces her into. Hildy can pursue either the career of a “newsman” as she is literally called or the quiet milieu of domesticity and family life. Ultimately though, neither of these choices are right for her because she falls somewhere between. When Hildy spends her time in the newsroom, she obviously contrasts with the throngs of men who shuffle in and out in a brutish fashion. She refers to them as, “monkeys,” and is often lauded for her woman’s touch that enables her to succeed in a world dominated by men. In fact, it is because she shows the murderer kindness that she gets the scoop on the story of the execution. On the other hand, she sticks out like a sore thumb in her marriage. Rather than her soon to be husband being attached to work or being dominant over her, Hildy has to bail him out of jail while he whines over the phone and she pours over her work. Furthermore, Bruce states that the whole reason why he fell in love with Hildy was that she had a sort of charm or unpredictability that no other women have. Additionally, as the movie progresses Hildy is the one who sees past Walter’s tricks but Bruce is wooed by him because he represents the more purely feminine. This is the ultimate irony of the movie, Hildy succeeds in finding a traditional man and dominating a traditionally male field because she is between the platonic conception of masculinity and femininity, but this is at the same time the cause of her pain. Furthermore, toward the end of the film, Hildy ultimately decides to go back to her old husband but this very choice indicates the failure of the institution of marriage. In the very beginning, Hildy had explained that Walter was a bad husband for eloping in a mine to do a news story rather than going on their honeymoon and that he was a brute for never carrying her things. However, immediately after their remarriage, Walter forces Hildy to carry her oversized luggage and wants to stop to do a story in Albany before their second honeymoon. Hildy is stuck in the same place she was in the beginning to emphasize that the modern woman does not have any good options due to the binary that exists. The institution of marriage is, in the eyes of the film, defunct for tying women to either the life of Bruce or that of Walter, when in reality many women fall in between.
ReplyDeleteIt is possible to be able to balance marriage and work in life, but Hildy has trouble doing so. Based on the relationships she’s been in, her work and took a stronger toll on her life. In the relationship with Bruce where he wants to go and start a family and life outside of the city, Hildy is unable to leave the profession she’s passionate about and has been working on for a long time. For her, the best kind of spouse is one who shares the passion for journalism. Personally I believe her second relationship with Walter will work out. Throughout the movie, there were scenes of them sharing their passion for the paper, they both share the goal of selling as many copies as possible. Having a newspaper related goal is important for Hildy because leaving the paper was ultimately what ended the relationship with Bruce. In general, happiness is possible in marriage. There are many different factors for all types of people for what makes them truly happy in a marriage. For Hildy, Walter has multiple qualities that I think will lead to a successful marriage. 1st off, in the scenes where they are talking together, the two talk extremely similar with their wit and quick jokes. They share the same sense of humor and think similarly in general. Throughout the movie they are constantly agreeing with the ideas of their counterpart. 2nd, they both share the same drive of making as incredible of a newspaper as possible. This drive gives them a hobby to enjoy together, keeping their relationship fresh.
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