DUEL IN THE SUN AND MALE FEAR OF FEMALE SEXUALITY

Fear of a woman’s sexuality or it could be argued jealousy of a woman’s sexuality or one could also say control or ownership of a woman’s sexuality is at the core of the most conservative regressive fundamentalist form of religious thinking.  The Taliban and right wing Christian groups share this fear.

To them, a woman is a voracious creature unable to control her sexual urges.  She requires a man to control her otherwise she’ll be easily led astray.

This type of thinking is a core plot point of DUEL IN THE SUN.  Pearl (played by Jennifer Jones who, at her peak around the time this film was made, was one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen) is the daughter of a Native American mother and a Hispanic father.  After her father killed her mother and her mother’s lover and is executed for the crime, Pearl is sent to live on a ranch with the family of her father’s second cousin and former love (Lillian Gish).  There Pearl encounters her sons; a “good” brother (Joseph Cotton) and a “bad” brother  (Gregory Peck).  Although she likes Cotton, she ends up getting involved with Peck.  Their big love scene is really a tightrope walk between rape and seduction.  For the rest of the film, she struggles with this attraction as she knows Peck is not a good person.

Despite this rather sexist notion at its heart (check out the scenes with Walter Huston as the sinkiller) and a woefully racist character in the African-American family maid who rolls her large eyeballs and speaks in shuck and jive slave language, I would still say this is a very good film.

King Vidor’s direction uses the sweeping Technicolor terrain to lay out a big story, a sort of anti-Wuthering Heights, where the two forces of nature do connect and havoc ensues.  The film’s other big plot point- the coming of the railroad which leads to a falling out between Cotton and his father (Lionel Barrymore) is every bit as progressive as the Jones plot point is regressive.  The movie argues that opening up lands from private ownership by cattle barons paved the way for people to move west.

I also like that Peck is allowed to be evil through and through.  In fact, he does more and more bad things as the movie progresses.  There is no redemption for him.  The final confrontation between him and Jones is as it should be – Kill the sin by killing the source.  If my own eye offend thee, pluck it out.