Holly Golightly: What? Do you think you own me?
Paul Varjak: That’s exactly what I think.
Holly Golightly: I know. It’s what everybody always thinks but everybody happens to be wrong.
This is the little twist I decided to include in my project — a non film noir, non black and white movie full of romance and untainted by murder and death. Sometimes a villain origin story needs moments that are relatable just to make them a bit more humanizing.
The influence that Breakfast at Tiffany’s has on popular culture simply can’t be contested. But for a contender in the strong female characters category? Holly Golightly wouldn’t be a first choice for a lot of people. But for me, Audrey Hepburn’s portrayal of this eclectic character is one that can’t be passed over. My only gripe is with the ending of the film, which makes for a grand, sweeping romantic moment of heterosexuality and crushing of a beautiful, free woman. But other than that, my first viewing of this was an important one for me.
Holly Golightly’s character is hard to pin down — she’s definitely part of the category of the “manic pixie dream girl trope” but a little less grounded in reality, and much harder to pin down as willing “girlfriend material.” So why do I like her character? In many ways, she’s similar to the femme fatales of the film noir genre (with a little less murder). She’s a very smart character; and I think that one thing that makes her stand out in the vast expanse of the romantic-comedy genre is her competence and the boundaries that she sets. She knows exactly what she wants and what she can and can’t do to get where she wants to be and no matter how hard the people around her constantly try and make her doubt what she wants, she isn’t swayed by any of it. It’s probably why I have such an issue with the ending sequence where she is convinced by the man she loves that he owns her because they are in love and they belong together. Despite her butterfly-esque personality, she is completely aware of what people think and what they want her to be and conform to, yet she doesn’t. Just like the femme fatale, she knows that she is attractive and knows how to handle men and get what she wants by those means.
This is all wonderful and yes, we’ve established that she has characteristics that people don’t often see. But how else does this all relate to my villainy? My evil journey into feminism? My fascination in this lies in the inherent power that women have. What other piece of pop culture is so readily defined as intrinsic to American culture as Breakfast at Tiffany’s? Despite all of the male centric stories that have been told and celebrated in cinema, this film remains the one that everyone knows across generations of people. In film noir, what do people remember? The shadows, male protagonist that wears the face of the everyday man, but what ignites the genre more than the femme fatale? Women hold so much power, not just in cinema, but cinema brings a visual display of the power women hold and continue to do. There is so much untapped power in the female it’s incomprehensible, but how do we know this unless we are exposed to it. If we dismiss female characters like Holly Golightly as a flighty, ditzy, romantic pushovers, how will we recognize women at all as being fully-realized human beings?
We continue to dismiss women in any and all forms, and to all these female characters, actresses, and women, I dedicate my journey as a villain to. I’ve arrived at a place in life where an origin story is now the past, and what I move forward with in my study of feminism and women relies on looking back and continuing to analyze important parts of my past to take steps in the right direction.
