Palafox1

Isabella Palafox

Jennifer Rodrick

English 115

15 November 2019

Play It as It Lays analysis

Living in the city of Los Angeles is a dream to a lot of people, I mean what couldn’t you like

about it? You have Hollywood, Celebrities, award shows and everything in between. In the novel, Play It

as It Lays By Joan Didion, we were able to see a much darker side of what actually happens behind the

scenes to women in the film industry and how they are dehumanized. It is disappointing how in the

1970’s, it was normal for men to treat actresses this way as in order to get some sort of credibility in the

industry.

Many actresses in the novel, including the main character Maria, have been affected by these

sexist men, treating them less than what they are. A lot of these situations end up with men raping these

women because of how weak women were shown to be at that time. For example, in the book it states “

Maria closed her eyes at the instant BZ’s hand hit Helene’s fac. ‘Stop it,’ she screamed. BZ looked at

Maria and laughed. ‘You weren’t talking that ways last night,’ he said” (164). Although BZ was not an

actor or director, he was known to be a kind of a friend to Maria and took advantage of her when she had

a little too much to drink. In the novel Maria is portrayed as the women that would do anything in order to

get anything, so in that case BZ saw this as an opportunity to do what he pleased since he thought Maria

probably would not have even remembered what happened. The shocking part of it all was that BZ made

Helene be a part of this as well which led up to him smacking Helene in the face at the end of chapter 63

because she felt guilty for not telling Maria the truth of what really happened. The perverted comment
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that BZ made to Maria after telling him to stop smacking Helene was when Maria started thinking what in

the world did she let him do to her. This displays how in humaine all men were towards women.

Men during the 1970’s, especially those who were older actors or film directors, they would think

about women as people that automatically wanted to have sex with them and not think about what the

woman wanted instead of what they think they wanted. In the novel there were many cases where men

would watch a tremendous amount of porn just for their pleasure which I think is the reason that

pervertedly ruined these mens minds because these were the films that made them think that all women

wanted to have sex with a man. For instance, the novel states “…BZ sat on a pillow and began watching

Maria. He rolled a cigarette and passed it to her , and when she passed it onto Carter he took it without

looking away from the screen… ‘Look at the film BZ’ Carter had said. ‘Incredible, they’ve got

opticals.’’I've seen the film , Carter’, BZ had said, and never took his eyes off Maria”(111-112). In this

scene Maria was put into a position where she did not feel in control. In these times, it was normal for

men to take control of these women and do whatever action they pleased to do, sometimes it happened

between more than one guy. You can see how even though Maria was being treated very disrespectfully

by Carter and his friends, she still tried to please them as much as she could so that all eyes would be on

her, and would have a better chance at being the “main” actress by showing them how she was interested

in having sexual relations in order to get what she wanted in return. As disappointing as it sounds, women

during this decade would do these actions to make them feel wanted by everyone around them which isn’t

how these situations should have been handled. Since the novel takes place in a different decade, these

kinds of situations of women being not in control and degraded is still a huge issue in the film industry

today. Many actresses face this everyday and feel like they don’t have a voice to speak up to these men,

but now it is finally starting to change and get more attention to the public. For instance in the article

“#MeToo Goes Global” by Sarah Williams, she talks about the #MeToo movement that took place last

year. In the article it states “…when the activist Tarana Burke began using the term in her work with
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vulnerable girls and women who had experienced sexual assault. The hashtag #MeToo went viral

in 2017 thanks to a tweet from the actress Alyssa Milano, who was responding to exposés by the

New York Times writers Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor and the New Yorker writer Ronan

Farrow about the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein’s alleged history of rape, sexual assault,

and harassment. In the 15 months that followed, the campaign spread and broadened, taking on

systemic predation against women, often by wealthy and powerful men. #MeToo has also

jumped to countries across Asia, Europe, and

Latin America, as more and more women

This movement was made because of the massive

amount of women that faced sexual harassment and

or sexual assult”. In the article, Williams focused

on the Bollywood actress named Tanushree Dutta

who experienced sexual harassment on set, which

led to her leaving the film industry. For many years, countries all over the world have been able to let

these types of crimes pass without spreading awareness but now it is incredible that, that is no longer the

case.

Behind the dark side of the film industry, many women faced depression and thoughts of suicide

because of the amount of sexual harassment they would be facing on a daily basis. In the 1970’s going to

any sort of therapy was looked at as nonsense in a way because women did not want to be looked at as

“crazy” by men they were working with. They were brainwashed by men which led them getting used to

the fact that they were not in control of their bodies or themselves in general. For example In the novel it

states “She did not much like him but she liked his not knowing her. ‘Let’s Fuck’ the actor said from the

doorway…Maria shook her head… When they finally did it they did it they were on the bed and at the
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moment before he came he reached under the pillow and pulled an amyl nitrate popper and broke it under

his nose, and closed his eyes. ‘Don’t move’, he said. ‘I said don’t move.’ Maria did not move. ‘Terrific

then’ he said… Maria said nothing ‘ Wake me up in three hours’, he said. ‘With your tongue’(153). In

this scene you can clearly see how Maria was not having sex with this man out of her own enjoyment, she

did it as if she did not have a choice. This displayed how Maria was facing a lot of disrespect from these

men who saw her as a toy to play with. But that did not stop her from doing things with men, some people

will argue that “why didn’t she just say no” but little do people know that the word “No” was not going to

cut it for these aggressive men. Situations like these led up to the reason why she was not able to keep her

baby as well due to what Carter wanted her to do, not what she wanted to do. As readers, it is difficult to

understand why Maria would let herself be treated like this even though she knows that Carter, at one

point, love her and that did not last long. Now a days no women would tolerate these types of actions but

it displayed what different situations actresses could be facing quite often. From the outside it may not

look like that, especially in todays time period but by discovering the many issues throughout the novel,

it gets us thinking about how many women still struggle with this today. With that being said, in the

article “NOBODY IS GOING TO BELIEVE YOU” by Alex Finch and Maxmillian Potter, they discussed

the allegations that were made against a film director who raped many young men while filming his

movie at the time. For instance, in the article the author states “ On December 7, 2017, three days after

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of Singer's firing, a Seattle man named Cesar Sanchez-

Guzman filed a lawsuit against the director, alleging that Singer had raped him in 2003, when

Sanchez-Guzman was 17. The day after that, Deadline Hollywood published an interview with a

former boyfriend of Singer's, Bret Tyler Skopek, in which Skopek described a lifestyle of drugs

and orgies”. Still, Sanchez-Guzman's claims shouldn't have been much of a surprise. It's very

important to understand that anyone in the film industry can face traumatic situations like these. The

importance of these articles is to spread light on the “behind the scenes” of this industry and to for how
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long this has been going on, and how many men have been getting away with this. These crimes have

escalated very much since the 1900’s because now men are taking advantage of young men now not just

women, which leads to our society being more dangerous and dysfunctional. In the novel, these kinds of

interactions that men have with women are not seen as a big deal due to the decade these crimes were

taken, and many women did not have as much of a voice and rights as they do now.

In the novel, Play It as It Lays the major social crisis that women were facing in the 1970’s film

industry was a very degrading moment in time for women due to all the power men had over them. The

type of attention that women wanted was not the type of attention that men were giving them which led

them to raping, and sexually harassing these women without thinking twice if women were okay with it.

Finally, now that times have changed our society has grown to think of women strong and fearless.
 Works Cited

Didion, Joan. Play It As It Lays. New York: Farrar, Status & Giroux, 1970.

FRENCH, ALEX, and MAXIMILLIAN POTTER. “‘Nobody Is Going to Believe

You.’” Atlantic, vol. 323, no. 2, Mar. 2019, pp. 50–65. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=134418711&site=ehost-live.

doi: none. Permanent link:

http://libproxy.csun.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&d

b=aph&AN=134418711&site=ehost-live Accessed: 19, November 2019

Washington DC, “Sexual Harassment at wok makes women prone to anxiety, depression:

Study”, Business- Standard.com. Permalink: https://www.business-

standard.com/article/current-affairs/sexual-harassment-at-work-makes-women-prone-to-

anxiety-depression-study-117111800152_1.html Accessed: 19, November 2019

Wildman, Sarah. “#MeToo Goes Global.” Foreign Policy, no. 231, Winter 2019, p.

24. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=134085407&site=ehost-live.

doi: none, Permanent Link:

http://libproxy.csun.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&d

b=aph&AN=134085407&site=ehost-live Accessed: 19, November 2019