Masculinity In When Landa

Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette demonstrates a sort of hyper-femininity that contrasts perfectly with Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds and Tarantino’s reputation for hyper-masculinity. Coppola’s use of treating the character of Marie-Antoinette like a doll proves feminine and specifically non-erotic. Tarantino’s use of phallic symbols prove masculine, and visually erotic, by many viewers.

In Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds¸ Lieutenant Aldo Raine and his band of Jewish-American guerilla soldiers fight the German Nazis during the Third Reich. Before watching the film, the common viewer knows a few things about The Holocaust and the effect of German-occupied areas; such as: The Nazis hated and killed Jews and Hitler shot himself.

Therefore, the common viewer may notice a few discrepancies.

More particularly, neither Hitler, nor any of the higher-ranking officers have a fiery death in a cinema. Historical variances aside, Inglorious Basterds is the epitome of masculinity. In the beginning of the film, when Landa is speaking with the milk farmer about harboring Jews under the floorboards, the milk farmer begins to smoke his average corncob pipe. Right before Landa begins to convince the milk farmer to give up the Jews he is harboring; he takes out this massive hornpipe and begins to smoke it with the farmer. This is a symbol for a phallic contest, a sort of “mines bigger than yours” instance, which is a symbol for the male sexuality. The basement scene provides another phallic example when the first “Mexican standoff” occurs. When Lieutenant. Hicox and Major Hellstrom had their guns pointed at each other’s testicles, both the guns and the direction each were pointing were archetypes for masculinity, or more specific, the male sexuality. In the baseball scene, Donny Donowitz strikes the baseball bat, being a phallic symbol, at the Nazi’s head so many times that is much of an overkill. However, it provides such beautiful satisfaction to the

viewer, that the scene could be seen as erotic. In the fiery cinema scene, right before the explosions, Donny Donowitz, again, is seen destroying a Nazi’s (Hitler’s) head. This time he uses a machine gun, another phallic symbol, to destroy Hitler’s head so much, it is parallel to the floorboards of the milk farmer’s house at the beginning of the film. Therefore, Inglorious Basterds is an erotically masculine film.
Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette tells the story of a young girl and her struggles with taking on the role of the Queen of France.

Before watching this film, the common viewer has some basic knowledge of the time-period and Marie-Antoinette. Such as: there were no such thing as Converse sneakers, rock music, or pastels at that time. However, Coppola’s Marie Antoinette nontraditionally exemplifies femininity. During the transferal scene in Vienna, Marie-Antoinette arrives with her natural hair, a simple dress, and no make-up on; she exemplified innocence. When she leaves, she has this tight dress on that shows her cleavage, her hair is up and in powder curls, and she is wearing several different forms of rouge. This is a symbol of loss of innocence, which generally only occurs with women. To explain, the most common symbol of innocence is virginity, which is a concept created by men to control the sexualities of women. For a man can has sex with as many women as many times as he wants, and nothing will change about him (other than his reputation being great among his friends). Therefore, this symbol for loss of innocence is also a feminine symbol. In the morning dressing scene, Marie-Antoinette is treated like a doll for her court to dress and undress as they please. The Comtesse de Noailles tells her how to get dressed, address everyone whom enters the room, and to not reach for things, as it is the privilege of another person. When her night-dress is removed and

the under-dress is about to be put back on, the role of putting the under-dress on goes to three different people. During this time, Marie-Antoinette’s naked body is put on exposé for all of her court to see. This serves as an example of the sexualization of women that occurs every day. This is a feminine symbol as men are not sexualized as often as women. The Comtesse serves as the role as her controller. The Comtesse, in result, symbolizes the media and how they control the lives of women everywhere. This makes Marie-Antoinette, in turn, a Christ-figure. During a letter scene, Marie-Antoinette is shown standing on the balcony of Versailles, alone, as the camera zooms out creating the image of solitude as her mother’s words of detriment are heard. The viewer understands: she is alone, everything is on her shoulders, and no one can help her. This scene serves as a heroic feminist symbol. For the post nephew-birthing scene, when Marie-Antoinette is shown crying in the corner of her room, with no dialog, Coppola is able to demonstrate the struggle of being a woman and not being able to have children. This non-erotic, feminist symbol claims the film.
Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette exemplifies Femininity while Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds exemplifies masculinity; however, Tarantino’s masculinity features erotic satisfaction whilst Coppola’s femininity does not.