A Streetcar Named Desire and Feminist Socialism
I just watched A Streetcar Named Desire, which I had heard of, but never seen before for some reason.
The movie starts with Blanche DuBois arriving in New Orleans, supposedly on a leave of absence from her teaching job, and taking a streetcar named Desire (that’s the name of the movie!) to meet her sister, Stella.
Stella hooked up with and married Stanley, an “alpha male” blue collar worker who gets into violent, stupid drunken brawls with other men at the bowling alley, which she finds irresistably sexy. But at home he’s a violent and stupid drunken husband (who would have thought?). Stanley, played by Marlon Brando, is just as tragic a character. He’s depicted as a smart though uneducated person who does genuinely love his wife; when he’s not driven out of his senses by anger and lust, Stanley is actually a very good and gentle human being. In a different environment that provided Stanley better education and social graces he might have been a good man.
