Written on the Wind

Written on the Wind, the 1957 film directed by Douglass Sirk is incredibly melodramatic; written and performed like a soap opera. The characters are built on extremes-- if a person has a flaw, the flaw is exaggerated to the point where it becomes a real problem. One character that becomes a real problem in the film is Marylee Hadley, the daughter of the very rich and successful oil tycoon Jasper Hadley. Marylee is not the average lady of the 1950s. In fact, in that time, a woman like her would not be considered a “lady.” The way her character is portrayed left a very negative impression on me in a film I strongly disliked. Marylee is an independent and liberated woman, but these good and strong qualities are demonstrated as flaws and are greatly exaggerated. The film develops these traits in a very negative form, making her rude, vulgar, overly sexual, and threatening, the definite antithesis to a “lady” of the 1950s. During a time when women were confined to a life in the h...