Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 Vertigo is known as Hitchcock's “masterpiece” because of the use of different memorable techniques. The film is about Scottie, a retired detective due to his development of acrophobia, who was hired by Gavin Elster to spy on his wife, Madeline, due to her strange behaviors. Madeleine is apparently haunted by her dead family member, Carlotta Valdes, and as the movie progresses she becomes Scottie’s love interest and his dream girl. Looking at Vertigo through the feminist lens, it is evident that through Hitchcock’s representations of women’s appearance and their interactions with men portrays women in a negative image compared to men. This film suggests that women are inferior to men in all aspects of life, such as women’s reliance on men.
Analyzing Vertigo through the feminist lens, Hitchcock is degrading women by creating their existence solely in their relations to men. For instance, Madeline is …show more content…
He creates a focus on men and an objectification of women. He also shows how he believes men are more deserving and should be treated more highly than women. For example, Scottie ignores Midge at various points in the film mainly because she doesn't fit his image of what a women should be. Scottie talks to Judy only because she looks like Madeline and attempts to make her the girl he imagines, “We are led to see not just Scottie’s satisfaction in this process but also the pain it causes Judy as she tries desperately to relinquish her real personality and deny her own desire in order to adapt to Scottie’s desire,” (Hollinger, 27). The whole movie is based on a man’s perspective and we as audiences experience it by being more attracted to Madeline, less attracted to Midge and experiencing Scottie’s loss of his lover. By basing the movie through a man’s point of view Hitchcock is creating a misogynistic society where women are looked down