What You See Is What You Get?
The Lady Eve is a romantic fable. After spending a year "up the Amazon," Charles Pike is swept off his feet and falls head over heels in love with Jean, the sophisticated daughter of wealthy oilman Colonel Harrington. Later in the film he also falls in love with the Lady Eve, the charming niece of English aristocrat Sir Alfred McGlennan Keith. Yet, in both cases the woman of his dreams is really a grifter and con artist trying to fool and fleece the young brewing heir. Does the film tells us about male romantic desire and ideals of the feminine? Do we fall in love with a person or an illusion? Can the divisions of class, education and values be crossed for love? What is the film telling us about infatuation, lust and love? What is the connection between love and illusion?
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ReplyDeleteThe Lady Eve is shows us that all love is truly an illusion, as we see only what we want to see in our romantic partners. In The Lady Eve, Charles falls in love with Jean right on the first night they meet. He completely overlooks the glaringly obvious flaws in their relationship, such as Jean's over fascination with him and her desperation for his attention. At one point in the night, Jean's companion slips up his story, claiming to be someone he had already admitted he was not. Charles, in his attempt to justify his and Jean's relationship, simply accepts the excuse given and moves on with the night. Even when the captain of the ship offers information to expose Jean, his immediate reaction is that of outrage, saying that she could never be so horrible. Again, later in the movie, when Charles is told that Eve and Jean are the same person, he overlooks so many details that I almost groaned. He refuses to accept that she is the same person despite them looking exactly alike, walking exactly the same, and wearing the same perfume. All of these details are horrifically obvious, but Charles chooses not to see them. Why does he do so? Because he wants them to be real. As humans, we are hardwired with the desire for human companionship. In this pursuit, we overlook the obvious, ignore reason, simply in an effort to convince ourselves we have found what we most desire. In this sense, love itself is an illusion. For love, we will ignore logic, reason, and the perfume that our partners wear.
ReplyDeleteCharles infatuation with Jean and Eve shows us how we do not fall in love with a person, but merely an illusion of them. As he overlooks grossly obvious details proving that Jean and Eve are one and the same (same face, same perfume, etc.), he demonstrates that falling in love with a person is to fall in love with what that person decides to show to the world. Jean separates her appearance from her true self as a grifter for one thing and one thing only: Charles’ money (and later his love). She puts on an overdramatic flair to get his attention, combing her fingers through his hair and acting innocent and helpless to make him feel big and strong in the hotel room. And even though all of this is just a dirty act, Charles falls for it. Twice. He falls for the fake, theatrical, ego-inflating persona of Jean and then the horrifically “disguised” Eve. All the while completely ignoring outside tips as to who this lady is, blinded by his perception of her. As humans, we tend to only see what we want to see. We have a special knack for blocking out anything that threatens to burst out little bubbles, totally content with creating our own worlds, purposefully oblivious to any evidence that discredits them. The Lady Eve tells us that if we happen to perceive something as perfect, such as Charles perceives Jean and Eve, we are willing to abandon reason and the obvious, instead opting to follow ignorance and our hearts to get what we want.
ReplyDeleteAs a screwball comedy, Lady Eve tackles a lot of different topics surrounding love. Its plotline shows how infatuation is simply falling in love with an idea of a person rather than the person themselves. For example, when Jean disguises herself as Lady Eve and introduces herself to Charles as Eve, Charles takes her presence at face value and does not question her familiarity. Muggsy dropping clues about who Eve’s past, even bringing up her perfume, Charles still takes Eve and her personality at face value. Quickly, Charles falls in love with Eve, even proposing to her two weeks after they start dating. However, the movie shows how the illusion of love can be easily broken during the train scene when Eve begins to self-sabotage the relationship by name-dropping a list of ex-boyfriends she as had, causing Charles to hop off the train and file for divorce. This scene not only provides commentary on how love is an illusion, but shows that love is a façade simply because placement of ideals in the relationship. Eve portrays herself as pure, submissive female to Charles in order to trick him into falling in love with her. As she brings up her romantic past, she gets Charles to fall out of love with her because of how Eve broke his ideals of a pure woman. Not only is the movie commentating on love being an illusion, but it ironically also demonstrates how love can reveal someone’s true colors. Originally, Jean begins to court Charles for his money, but her plans go awry when she catches true feelings for him, and he breaks up with her learning about her job. However, after disguising herself as Eve and self-sabotaging the relationship, the audience sees how falling in love has caused Jean to begin breaking her illusion as a con artist when she decides not to pursue Charles for his money during his divorce with “Eve”. All she wants from Charles is to say that the relationship is over because she doesn’t want to con him, nor does she want to carry on playing someone that she is not. Therefore, the movie commentates on the irony of love revealing someone’s true colors, even if love is an illusion itself.
ReplyDelete"The Lady Eve" teaches viewers that love is merely an illusion and that people do not fall in love with others, but they instead fall in love with the image they want to see in others. Charles first falls in love with Jean and does not want anything to ruin the perfect image he has of her. Charles adores Jean and he does not want to jeopardize any feelings he may have for her even though the article about Jean being a con artist is a completely valid reason for him to lose feelings for her. However, Charles tries so hard to hold onto the feelings he once had for Jean that it makes him incredibly vulnerable when Eve comes along. Eve looks exactly like Jean and the only legitimate difference between the two characters is a British accent. Charles probably knows deep down that Jean and Eve are the same person and is even warned about this several times. Some viewers may have thought of his rejection of Jean and Eve being the same person as an act of stubbornness or stupidity, but really, Charles does not want to lose the incredible feeling of love he had for Jean. It was all just an illusion; he likely knew Jean and Eve were the same person, but the image he had of Jean soon after they met and as they were going to get married was just so perfect that he never wanted to lose it. Therefore, Charles was willing to do anything to regain that image and feeling he had for Jean, even if it meant he was “subconsciously” proposing to Jean 2.0.
ReplyDeleteThe Lady Eve, through Charles and Jean, shows that the average person only falls in love with the ideas and traits of what we want to see in a person, making love a mere illusion. In Charles’s first night on the ship, we can see many women falling head over heels for Charlie for his looks, perhaps as shallow as love at first sight. What is interesting is that Charlie, ignoring all the “irrelevant” flirty females, becomes infatuated with Jean instantaneously, and Jean can be seen doing the same. Charlie’s idea of Jean was as a quick witted but devoted lover, since he knows she likes to gamble, but will stick by his side despite screaming at Charlie’s pet snake. However, once he finds out that Jean was a scammer, his idea of Jean’s traits as a devoted lover falls apart, and he decides to leave her. His love for her was dependent solely on what he imagined she was like, which was as shallow as “love at first sight”. Once again, Charlie had fallen in love with Eve, someone who was very reminiscent of Jean. Having the same expectations with Eve as he had with Jean, he marries her. However, Charlie learns about a farm boy, and then another boyfriend, and then another, and eventually his perfect image of Eve completely shatters, and he jumps off the train in disgust. He only wanted to be married to the perfect devoted Eve/Jean, only to learn there was more depth to them than the eye could see, and he refused to accept them for who they were. He was in love with an illusion, and he refused to accept them for who they were and love them regardless. Charlie’s love was shallow to the point he didn’t even know Jean’s personality. When Jean had become Eve, Muggsy tries to convince Charlie that she “was the same dame”. However, Charlie reasoned that Jean would never do something like letting herself into his house, despite knowing how cunning she was. Lastly, at the very end of the movie, Jean and Charlie meet up, and instead of talking things out, they head into her cabin, they instantly mutually affirm their love once again. Love at first sight.
ReplyDeleteIn the Lady Eve, Charles’ love and fascination in both Eve and Jean shows us how we do not fall in love with a person but we fall in love with an image of an ideal person. In both cases, Jean and Eve are both considered to be rich, but they are not. Barbara Stanwyck, who plays Eve and Jean, is portrayed as a con artist in the film. They both try to get Charles to love them, just for his wealth. As Charlie is aboard the cruise ship, he meets a good looking woman named, Jean. After days of Jean being flirtatious with him, Charles starts to develop strong feelings for Jean. But right as everything is going well, Charles finds out her secret. He is upset and leaves the ship immediately. Jean still wanted to be with Charles, so she pretended to be someone named Eve. The only difference between Eve and Jean is that Jean has a British accent. As Eve arrives at Charles’ house, Charles is extremely vulnerable because he is still clinging on to losing Jean. Charles most likely knows that deep down inside, Jean and Eve are the same person but he does not want to lose his love for Jean, so he pretends that they aren’t. The Lady Eve lets the audience know that love isn’t just with a person but it is with the perfect image of something. Charles didn’t fall in love with Eve, but he fell in love with her because she was just like Jean. Charles was in an illusion that Jean and Eve weren’t the same people, but in reality, they were. Jean and Eve were not wealthy but they exhibited behaviors as if they were. In the 1940s, this was likely the only way that love could cross divisions of class. Someone would have to be on the lying end, in order to get the wealthy persons affection. In the end, Charles didn’t want to lose the idea of being infatuated with Jean, so he settled with Eve. Making love an illusion.
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