The Blot compared to The Wild Party

In The Blot the representation of transport depicts important elements in the main narrative, and at the same time reveals a patriarchal control over public space. In The Blot cars are used as a symbol to reinforce the main narratives of the film of poverty, wealth and class status. Throughout the film Weber compares the poor College professor’s family with the sufficiently wealthy “foreign-born” shoemaker and his family next door (Slide 35). At the beginning of the film there is a scene which depicts Mr Olsen (the shoemaker) coming home with a new car for his family. This scene is intercut with shots of Mrs Griggs (the professor’s wife) on her porch

When comparing a scene (in which the setting is transport) which is important to a main narrative line in The Wild Party similarities arise in the patriarchal control over public space. In a scene at the beginning of the film, Stella regales to her girlfriends what happened to her whilst travelling back to University on the train. She explains that in the middle of the night she got up to get a drink of water, cold and tired she returns but to the wrong compartment. She suggests to Helen (her good friend who she is sharing a bunk with) that they sleep spoon fashion, only to be shocked to hear a male voice ask, “Who invited you in?”(Mayne 132). Here Arzner is setting up the important narrative line of the heterosexual relationship between Professor Gil and Stella. At the same time Arzner depicts something else, the idea of the new women and her access to public space. Stella (the new women) is traveling on the train quite independently with her friend, but upsets this public space by getting into trouble, emphasizing a patriarchal control. Accidentally she climbs into the wrong space, Gils bed, his reaction is to hush the panicked Stella by explaining “Go quietly so as to not wreck your reputation, or myn” automatically Stella is turned into a sexual object, one that could ruin everything, by creating chaos in a public space. It is not Stella’s fault she accidentally returned to the wrong compartment but the audience will automatically criminalise her as the ‘wild girl’ up to mischief on the train, when it was really Gils sexual objectification of her that created any problem at all.

Some topics in this essay:
Wild Party, Blot Weber, Dorothy Arzner, Griggs Throughout, Professor Gil, Stella Arzner, George’s Stella’s, Phil West, Helen Stella, Amelia Weber, public space, wild party, patriarchal control, heterosexual relationships, access public space, male discourse, main narrative, female relationship, access public, female characters, control public space, control public, patriarchal control public, emphasizing patriarchal control, employment female relationship,