TRANSCRIPT

In news and social media, we’ve seen an increasing amount of attention paid to the topic of
gender equality and especially the role language plays in how we interpret gender roles. In
our studies, I’ve been really interested in the way femininity is portrayed in the works we
have discussed. So, for my IO I have decided to discuss the portrayal of female sexuality in
two works, Pulp Fiction and ‘Salome’. And, what I’ve noticed is the presence of two
archetypes, one in which the dependent female is cast as sexually desirable, and another in
which the independent female is seen as dangerous. The first work I will discuss is an
American film called Pulp Fiction which was written and directed by Quentin Tarantino in
1994. And I think this film is a really good example of a work that implicitly suggests that
submissive females are seen as sexually desirable, especially in the eyes of men. To begin
with, the title is an allusion to the cheap magazines that were popular in the United States
throughout the 19th century. And, they are considered a form of low-quality fiction. They
span a really wide variety of genres. But, when you look at the magazine covers, what you
often see are depictions of highly sexualized women in some sort of danger, and presumably
needing to be rescued by men. And, these tropes from the magazine are repeated in the
film, which follows multiple plots revolving around a gangster named Marcellus Wallace. The
movie is dominated by men. It’s full of action and impulsive acts of violence. Arguably, the
film as a whole can be described as androcentric and hyper-masculine. And, as a result of
this, the female characters are presented exclusively through their relationships to the men.
They’re submissive, undeveloped, and lacking in agency. For example, two women who get
a fair amount of screen time are Mia and Fabienne. Mia is Wallace’s wife, and she is
depicted as a possession who inspires murderous jealousy in her husband. This is arguably
the most important detail that shapes how she is and how she is treated. And, then there is
Fabienne who is presented as a sort of a toy, an infantilised little girl figure. And, both of
them are shown as kept women, and they need to be protected and rescued by men. And,
that’s the quality. It’s this quality that makes them attractive. Uh, moving on the specific
extract, this is a scene in which Fabienne and Butch have a violent conflict because she’s
forgotten to pack a watch that was really important to Butch. I think, here, her
submissiveness and dependence on him are clearly evident. Ah, first if we look at her
physical presentation, she’s scantily clad, in a white t-shirt and panties. She’s sitting here in
a prone position on the bed. Obviously, the audience will associate the bed with sexual
activity, especially given her manner of dress. And, you can also see that Butch, here he’s

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always positioned in a way that suggests dominance. Like in the third frame here, he’s facing
her aggressively, and the directions here in line 21 and 23 have him freaking out, punching,
throwing things. Moving here, in the fourth screen shot, we see him moving toward her while
she retreats to the corner in fear. So, when he is angry, all she can do is cower and scream
in horror, as here in line 24. Uh, and all of this reinforces her submissiveness to him. Next,
we can consider the language that’s used in the scene. It’s clear that Butch is the primary
speaker. Fabienne has only three lines, a total of seven words. Um, his speech is peppered
with vulgarities. He questions her aggressively, here in line twelve, thirteen, you believe so.
You either did or didn’t. Now, which one is it? And when he does this, she can barely
respond. You can see here in line ten, she just kind of trails off into ellipsis, or in line twenty
she gives a single word answer. Lastly, I think the fact that Butch finds her submissiveness
appealing is clear when you look at the shift in tone that occurs toward the end of the scene.
So, earlier he’s violent and aggressive, like here the directions in line twenty-five present him
as suddenly calm. And, this last bit of dialogue, we see him reassure you. He says, it’s not
your fault. And, you ain’t a mind reader. Our final direction here has him kiss her hand, and
this is really, it’s a sign of affection, not anger. And, at the end, the audience is left with the
impression that he can’t blame her too much for what she’s done because she’s really just
an innocent little girl who depends on him. Now, when we move onto the literary work, what
we see is a really different representation in Duffy’s, ah Carol Ann Duffy’s collection World’s
Wife (sic) which was written in 1999. Uh, here we see women who are independent. They’re
intelligent, complex characters in their own right. And, in many cases this independence
makes them dangerous, especially to men. The, all of the poems are written in the form of
dramatic monologues, and they’re narrated from the position of women behind men from
history and mythology. So, throughout the collection, Duffy uses intertextuality as a way to
disrupt traditional narratives by adding in these female voices. And, you have things like the
first-person perspectives of female figures like Mrs. Sisyphus and Mrs. Darwin. And they
cast their famous husbands as ridiculous. And, this kind of challenges their significance. Um,
in the collection most of the poems are written from the perspectives of wives, but there are
some others like ‘Delilah’, ‘Little Red Cap’, and ‘Salome’ that instead recast females from
well-known stories into, ah, modern context. And, in this case, these women are dangerous
because they possess the power to seduce men, which then leaves the men vulnerable to
attack. The poem that I’m going to look at more closely is ‘Salome’, which is a dramatic
monologue that presents this persona of Salome into a modern context. The whole narrative
is also an intertextual allusion to the biblical story of Salome who seduced King Herod and
then later demanded the head of Saint John on a platter. And, historically, she’s become a

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symbol of seduction throughout a lot of different works of art. And, in this poem, she’s
characterised as this woman who rejects the traditional feminine ideals of submissiveness
and sensitivity. Instead, she does things like binge drinking and having one-night stands, and
ultimately murder. Um, one significant feature of Duffy’s writing here that we can see is the
way that she uses violent imagery to indirectly foreshadow the shocking conclusion that
reveals the murder. In line seven we can see the reddish beard which is actually stained with
blood and the crimson mouth in line ten repeats that red colour. And, then further, um this
simile in line thirteen describes the mouth as colder than pewter, and later on in line thirty-
four the description of the sticky red sheets. Um, these tactile images create this really
disturbing scene where Salome has seduced and then murdered a man. Another feature
that shows Salome is dangerous is this sardonic tone that Duffy creates. So, contrary to this
ideal of the soft-spoken and demure female, Salome is really harsh and unfeeling. You can
see in the use of rhetorical questions in line fifteen that emphasise he flippant attitude toward
promiscuity, that she doesn’t even know the name of the man in her bed. And, the tone is
further emphasised by, ah, this use of plosive alliteration in lines twenty-nine, thirty, where
she intends to turf out the blighter, the beater, or biter. And, all of this shows how she plans
to, kind of, rudely expel her lover from her bed. I think finally it’s worth noting the way Duffy
juxtaposes biblical allusions with sexual innuendo in the poem. Ah, the idea that a woman’s
sexuality is dangerous is something that has a very long history, and Duffy uses the
allusions as a way to remind us how entrenched this notion really is. In lines 15, the names
Simon, Andrew, and John, these are, these are all references to disciples of Jesus, but here
it’s implied that they are all men that Salome might have had sexual contact with. Um, further
she explains that the man in her bed had come like a lamb to the slaughter in line 31 which
is an allusion to the crucifixion of Jesus. And, you know, these combinations could be
considered shocking and irreverent, but maybe the idea that independent women are as
dangerous as murderers is equally ridiculous. So, ultimately when I consider these two texts
in relation to the global issue, what I notice is that Duffy is overtly challenging this idea that
female sexuality, or female independence is dangerous, and that’s an active step towards
changing that attitude. But, on the other hand, Tarrantino’s work sort of implicitly reinforces
the idea that what is most attractive in a woman is dependence and submissiveness. But,
many contemporary viewers have criticised the movie for these problematic representations,
so I think in any case it is clear that we are making progress toward a world where women
are not pigeon-holed into these over-simplified representations. Thank you.

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