Film Analysis of "The Secretary" (2002)

               

                The film The Secretary casts both a dark and a light shadow on women in the workplace. For one, it enhances the notion of female subordination, gender typing in jobs and the helplessness of women to propel themselves. However, the other side of the coin is that the film actually has a sense of fulfillment for the main character – the secretary – in that she found her perfect match, her opposite while working for him and thus accessing her full erotic power at work literally and metaphorically.

                This film adheres to the gender stereotypes of women in the work force; Maggie Gyllenhaal plays a paralegal which has been gendered into a female occupation. It’s a subordinate position in the office and not only is it subordinate because the tasks are menial, but it’s subordinate because she is the masochist to his sadist and is continuously bent over the desk and spanked repeatedly when she makes a clerical error. Although most secretaries in the United States are not subject to this kind of humiliation, the social stigmas of being secretaries, nurses, maids or strippers, is perpetually humiliating in the way that these occupations are not as respected as predominantly male professions because they are considered weak and trivial, and relatively low brow. The social constructions of these occupations are less than appealing and the film facilitates this notion of women’s work having the sole purpose of serving the dominant male. Furthermore, women’s work is seen as less than productive when the female does not conform to the beauty ideal relevant to that job; most jobs that women fill may require the women “being on display and meeting dominant beauty standards” (Kirk &Okazawa-Rey, 305). A secretary in particular is on display for all of the clients and is the first thing one sees when walking through the door, so women are then constructed as a cookie-cutter for what the office’s standards are, as opposed to an employee. This places a lot of responsibility on looks and demeanor rather than individual professional performance. In the case of the film, Maggie Gyllenhaal is a mess when she first applies; she spills everything, she is scatter-brained, she is essentially pathetic and in need of saving. However, after her male boss starts to dominate her, ask her to perform obscure and outrageous tasks for the sole purpose of pleasing his whims she starts to take more of an interest in her looks and her demeanor because she is aroused and as the domination progresses, she becomes more beautiful. The implicit message of this correlation is rather blatant – the more a male boss dominates his female subordinate, the more effort she puts into her looks to compensate and thus the less access she has to progression in the work force. It is rather difficult to ignore this phenomenon, as we see it everywhere in our society and now once again perpetuated in popular culture.

                One the one hand, this film highlights the perceived, male-centered advantages of female subordination at work, but on the other hand the film simultaneously gives the main character a sense of agency over her own erotic existence. Audre Lorde discusses the power of the erotic in all aspects of life; not only in family and relationships but also at work. Lorde says “Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes  a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing us to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives” (Kirk & Okazawa-Rey, 163). This statement places the responsibility on the individual to no longer settle for what was natural before the discovery of the erotic, and to now try and access their erotic power in all aspects of their life; the power by which they will no longer accept powerlessness. In the film, the main character who is initially fractured, finds this sense of the erotic when she begins being dominated in a predominantly sexual manner at work. Although the sadism-masochism attraction is based on sexual desires and arousal, the main character uses this power when she feels rejected by the man who once dominated her. She then no longer accepts powerlessness and proves to him that she loves him, not just his domination. When her boss told her to not move from his desk until he returns, she uses her own personal drive to do just that. Although this is yet another act of submission on her part, it is no longer submission due to helplessness or the need for sexual arousal, but submission facilitated by her own agency and individual drive. This progression from helpless to powerful is subtle in the movie, but creates a needed contrast to the constant male domination over a seemingly powerless female.

References:

Gyllenhaal, Maggie, and James Spader, perf. The Secretary. Dir. Steven Shainberg. 2002. DVD.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. "Uses of the Erotic." Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. N.p.: n.p., 1984. 161-64. Print.

Kirk, Gwyn, and Margo Okazawa-Rey. Women's Lives: Multicultural Perspectives. New York, NY: McGraw Hill, 2010. N. pag. Print.