Language in His Girl Friday (1940)

One of the dozens of things I keep track of in feature films is the language used in reference to female characters. Part of the reason for this is that language is very revealing about filmmakers. It tells us a lot about how well or poorly they think of women. His Girl Friday (1940), a screwball comedy about reporters based on a play called The Front Page by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, contains three named female characters that appear in more than one scene (Rosalind Russell, Helen Mack and Alma Kruger). It boasts screen legend Cary Grant and is considered one of the funniest American comedies of all time, which doesn't mean it has anything to offer female viewers. Indeed, often the most highly regarded movies have little or nothing to offer female viewers.

In His Girl Friday women are referred to as honey and sweetheart. One woman is called “the very homely dame.” Grant, the managing editor of a newspaper, calls Russell a “doll-faced hick” and a “drooling idiot.” He says to her, “You’ve got the brain of a pancake.” When she tells him he would not have hired her if she had not been doll-faced he says, “I thought it’d be a novelty—a face around here a man could look at without shuddering.” Grant calls Kruger “an old dame,” “a cock-eyed liar” and a “gray-haired old weasel.” When men describe the regular job they would like one says, “With a desk and a stenographer. I wouldn’t mind a nice big blonde” and another adds with a wink and a hand gesture that shows it isn't her eyes he is thinking about, “With big brown eyes.” Grant, who has gagged Kruger with a handkerchief, orders Abner Biberman to take her away, saying, “Lock her up. See she doesn’t talk to anyone.” He also says to a woman over the phone, “Now listen you 10-cent glamour girl. […] You say that again I’ll come over there and kick you in the teeth!”

The above-mentioned examples are telling. Regressive (i.e. sexist) language and behaviour permeate the film. His Girl Friday is not the first film in which women and girls were disparaged, disrespected and threatened through language and it was not the last. I look forward to sharing my findings about the language used in mainstream movies of the 20th and 21st centuries in my upcoming film guide for women.​

​© 2019 Alline Cormier