An analysis of the Alfred Hitchcock interview

Summary - what is the focus of this interview? What is this interview about?

The interview focuses on Alfred Hitchcock, a noted film director and celebrated auteur. Hitchcock. Examples of Hitchcock's famous films include Psycho, Vertigo, The Birds, Rear Window and so on.  The article, however, focuses on his process of casting hegemonically attractive leading women. Instead of hearing about Hitchcock's film making techniques, we instead hear about an old man playing dolls with sexually attractive women, a clear example of objectification 
The interview takes the form of a longform monologue by the noted film director and auteur Alfred Hitchcock. Examples of Hitchcock’s cinema include Vertigo, Frenzy, To Catch A Thief, Rear Window, Psycho, The Birds. However, rather than discuss films, the article is mainly about how British women sexually appeal to the director. It also discusses his casting process, which seems to involve actively objectifying his actors.

Context - What historical allegations have been made against Hitchcock?

Hitchcock sexually assaulted Tippi Hedren, star of The Birds and Marnie. Tippi also asserted that Hitchcock abused her on set, forcing her to endure shoots with live birds for days on end, in revenge for not sleeping with him. He also ensured Hedren was blacklisted in Hollywood, something only a powerful man could achieve. He signed her up for a contract, then refused to give her work. He used his power and influence to force young actors to have sex with him. All this was committed under the shelter of an apparently happy marriage. 

Other examples of high profile sexual manipulators in positions of significant power include Jimmy Saville, Jeffrey Epstein, Donald Trump, Roman Polanski, P Diddy, [REDACTED], Dan Snyder, John Laester, Joss Whedon, Stephen Hawking, Andrew Windsor, Harvey Weinstein, Ghislaine Maxwell… These men (and woman) used their immense power, money, influence in order to silence victims. This is clearly an extreme form of patriarchal hegemony. The patriarchy creates a system where men are able to abuse their power with relative impunity.

An analysis of the shower scene in Psycho - how does this technically audacious sequence inculcate certain attitudes toward women? How does media language construct this?

• Women are constructed as inferior, and vulnerable towards men. A binary opposition is therefore being constructed with men as superior, and women as inferior. Here superiority is constructed through the act of murder.
• The woman, Janet Leigh, is presented as a shock value for the audience. The main character, the big star, the beautiful woman, is presented purely as a spectacle for the audience, and their death is made more shocking as a result. 
• Leigh is naked throughout the entire scene. Here her body constructs a site of spectacle for the assumed male gaze. Additionally her nudity encodes exploitation and vulnerability, reinforcing a reality where women are submissive and vulnerable 
• The shower scene in PSYCHO is regarded as one of the most iconic in cinema history, and through it’s structure..
• Marion Crane is constructed as weak, defenceless and vulnerable.
• The nudity of the protagonist constructs her vulnerability. Yet it also constructs her as a sexual object. Here sexualisation and the violent death of a woman are presented as a thrilling spectacle, reinforcing Van Zoonen’s observation of women as spectacle.
• Stereotypically, women are presented as vulnerable. Throughout the film, Marion is built up as a character, before this is stripped away, literally and symbolically. 
• The sequence constructs violence against hegemonically destructive women as being a thrilling spectacle
• This violence and technical audacity is not considered in the article at all

Quotes and analysis - what quotes strike you as being problematic (hooks)? How do these problematic quotes construct women?

• “They’re like snow capped volcanoes” - The lexis - they both objectified others and women. Here women are compared to volcanoes. He suggests British women are modest and gentle on the outside, but are lustful and sexually promiscuous on the inside. He infers that the women he desires are sexually avoidable to him. 
• “My kind of star has a special magic” - a kind of magic that can only be discovered and shaped by Hitchcock. Without his casting and his keen eye, these women would amount to nothing. Yet this also reinforces the ideology that to be powerful is to be hegemonically attractive. This magic includes being blonde, being submissive, and being willing to work with his demands. 
• "Perhaps it's because I'm such a happily married man I can look at women objectively"  - deciding for himself he is able to differentiate between these women using his patriarchal hegemonic values. Hitchcock’s wife here functions as a tool, a shield to provide him respectability
• "Naturally I chose an English girl for a wife..." - Here the word girl has an infantilising function. It presents his adult, older wife as being a naïve child. Additionally, the lexis chose is dehumanising and reduces his wife’s autonomy to a mere choice he made
• "Personally, I find this far more intriguing than the Latin brand of sex appeal that puts everything in the shop window" - Hitchcock spends time differentiating European in to very specific and stereotypical categories. The shop window analogy constructs an explicit sense of entitlement and extreme sexualisation
• "The time I've spent grooming actresses has never been wasted" - Grooming has especially negative connotations. Here, women are at best compared to horses, which must be brushed to be made beautiful. This is a prime example of dehumanisation, objectification, and is extremely problematic. Here Hitchcock constructs a narrative where he controls, shapes and makes them do what he wants. This constructs Hitchcock as being superior to his female stars, reinforcing patriarchal hegemonic values. 
• “What British women need is a little less respect and a little more … admiration” - Hitchcock here excuses sexualisation and problematic sexual behaviour, suggesting that we should be sexualising women more!
• "naturally I chose an English girl for a wife..." “I quickly snapped her up” - suggests a level of surprising objectification, almost like selecting a pair of shoes. The lexis ‘girl’ is infantilising… 
• "The time I've spent grooming actresses has never been wasted" - The lexis grooming has clear implications of manipulation. Now the term has clear implications of sexual assault and manipulation, especially of children and the vulnerable. Here the term grooming is used on the context of physical grooming, which still has negative, physical connotations, denying these women agency. It suggests that Hitchcock is the sole source of success for these women, a clear example of patriarchal hegemony. 
• “They’re like snow capped volcanoes” - listed as the pull quote, this suggests that the ideology of this quotation is particularly important for the producer. Ideology refers to ideas and beliefs, and they always a site of manipulation. It anchors the idea that this ideology should be accepted. Here ‘they’ refers to British women, and instantly others British women as being different from Hitchcock. By othering British women to the British female target audience, it explicitly informs the audience that they are different, isolating the target audience. The simile suggests that British women are calm and beautiful on the outside, yet inside are hot, eruptive, lustful and sexually available. This suggests that the combination of modesty and sexual availability was particularly appealing to men in the 1960s "Personally, I find this far more intriguing than the Latin brand of sex appeal that puts everything in the shop window".
• "Britain, of course, is a male dominated society" - presented as an absolute hegemonic norm

Reconstructing reality - how do the messages and values presented in this article construct dominant patriarchal hegemonic worldviews for the target audience… AND WHY?

• The article consistently reinforces a hegemonic patriarchal worldview, where women exist solely to be looked at, and even the selection of beauty is left up to an expert, privileged man (Hitchcock). More confusing from a modern perspective is why contemporary audiences may wish to read this article, which is the main cover story and the key attraction of this issue. 
• Contemporary audiences may wish to read the writings of an intelligent, sophisticated and powerful man. The selection of photos, presented in a film strip presents Hitchcock as a stereotypically sophisticated middle aged white man. His lexis is broadly formal, authoritative, which partly comes through his age , and his writing is confident and casual, and sophisticated. It reinforces the worldview that men are in a position of intellectual superiority over women. In fact, the interview carefully sexualised women using sophisticated lexis in a manner that the contemporary target audience may not understand, further othering and also sexualising them.
• Additionally, the normalisation of sexual subjugation was common at the time, meaning contemporary audiences would accept this sexualisation as a hegemonic norm. 
• Some women would find this offensive and misogynistic. However, these views were less commonplace and less normalised, and there would be less of these women. These women may keep their unpopular views to themselves. Forcing people to be silent for fear of embarrassing or ostracising themselves is a clear mechanism of hegemony
• By presenting a sexist, hegemonic worldview, the magazine actively isolates and upsets the audience, constructing a toxic relationship between the magazine and the audience, ensuring that they must buy it week after week. This is reinforced through the constant depressing and upsetting messages though out the magazine (“are you an A-level beauty - makeup to work miracle”)
• The article demonstrates a clear patriarchal hegemonic worldview, which is normalised through the repetition of this value. This ideology has been cultivated over many years, and it ultimately excuses the sexist behaviour demonstrated by Hitchcock. 
• The magazine simply displays the hegemonic norms of the. Som,e women would find this article sexist and problematic. However, most women would simply accept the hegemonic, normal representation of women and men. 
• It ensures financial security. While the article may seem sexist by a modern standard, it simply reflects hegemonic values nof the time. By presenting a simple and straightforward ideology, the magazine minimises risk and maximises profit by target by targeting a mainstream, mass audience.
• Some feminists, who oppose the values of the magazine may still read the magazine, to discover what patriarchal oppression is being enforced on them. However, this still means that people outraged by the magazine are still reading it.