Marcia Lieberman's Essay On His Girl Friday
The 1940 film His Girl Friday is hailed as one of the greatest movies in American history, namely under the “screwball” comedy genre. It is the story of a rowdy and powerful editor named Walter Burns and his pursuit of winning back his-ex wife and former star reporter, Hildy Johnson. Intertwined with trying to win back his star reporter, the biggest story of his career arises with the persecution of convicted murderer Earl Williams. As much as Hildy yearns to leave her professional career for a domestic lifestyle, when Walter convinces her that she is the perfect reporter to get the story on Earl, she promises this will be her final job at the Morning Post. In the film, Hildy Johnson, played by actress Rosalind Russell, displays two versions
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Her idea of wanting to settle down and have family is the natural desire of all women at one point in their life. In Marcia Lieberman’s essay, “Some Day My Prince Will Come: Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale”, she explains that females are taught from their story books that getting married and having children is the way it is supposed to be. She says that marriage, or courtship, is seen to be the most exciting part of a girl’s life (Lieberman 334). So just because Hildy Johnson may seem so wrapped up in her job as a reporter, it was almost predictable that she would eventually want to stop working for awhile and want to settle down. Early on in the film she says “I'm gonna be a woman, not a news getting machine. I'm gonna have babies and take care of them and give 'em cod liver oil and watch their teeth grow”. She wants the “happily ever after” just as any other woman would. It is interesting to see that her story was sort of a fairy tale but not exactly the way she intended. Walter turned out to be the prince who saved her from Bruce and the dull life of domesticity. She once thought domestic life was what would make her happy but Bruce shows her where her heart is: being in being a
Her idea of wanting to settle down and have family is the natural desire of all women at one point in their life. In Marcia Lieberman’s essay, “Some Day My Prince Will Come: Female Acculturation Through the Fairy Tale”, she explains that females are taught from their story books that getting married and having children is the way it is supposed to be. She says that marriage, or courtship, is seen to be the most exciting part of a girl’s life (Lieberman 334). So just because Hildy Johnson may seem so wrapped up in her job as a reporter, it was almost predictable that she would eventually want to stop working for awhile and want to settle down. Early on in the film she says “I'm gonna be a woman, not a news getting machine. I'm gonna have babies and take care of them and give 'em cod liver oil and watch their teeth grow”. She wants the “happily ever after” just as any other woman would. It is interesting to see that her story was sort of a fairy tale but not exactly the way she intended. Walter turned out to be the prince who saved her from Bruce and the dull life of domesticity. She once thought domestic life was what would make her happy but Bruce shows her where her heart is: being in being a