Eye Magazine
The Magazine of The International Academic Forum | Issue 6 | Winter/Spring 2015

Seeking
Justice &Freedoms

Emma:
Did she wrongfully spend
years on death row?

Rape Culture in Music:

Plus
Hollywood legend Olivia deHavilland as the bad girl

Lyrics that Provide a Step-byStep Guide to Sexual Assault
The popularity of the
Serial podcast

EYE MAGAZINE ISSUE 6

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CONTENTS
4.
From the Editor
An introduction to the latest
edition of Eye Magazine
6.
Being Charlie
Power, Text & Context
by Joseph Haldane
12.
Emma
Did a woman spend years
on death row for a murder
she did not commit?
by Ruth Johnson Carter
20.
SerialHow did a story about apossible wrongful conviction
make for the most popular
podcast of all time?
by Lindsay Lafreniere
2 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

23.
In the Pursuit of Justice
Alec Klein and the Medill
Justice Projectby Richard Roth and Lindsay
Lafreniere
24.
“What a cool liar you are,
Melly”
Hollywood legend Olivia deHavilland as the bad girlby Victoria Amador
32.
Victory at Sea
A Paradox of Objectivity
Immersed in Hard-Hitting
Actionby Wajiha Raza Rizvi

EYE MAGAZINE ISSUE 6

32

40
52

35
35.
-DSDQ·V,OO)DWHG'HFLVLRQ
for Warby David McCormack
40.
Flying a bigger kite
The C-2 Boondoggle
by Michael Liam Kedzlie
44.
Rape Culture in Music
Lyrics that Provide a Stepby-Step Guide to Sexual
Assault
by Antonella Regueiro
Fernandez
52.
7KH3RUWUDLWRI'U*DFKHW
A Study in Sorrows
by Jared Baxter

44
56.
Where did you get them
Rights?
The legislative and public
policy journey of the New
Zealand Bill of Rights Act
1990
by Michael Liam Kedzlie
Front Cover:“Maitland Gaol” by
OZinOH, Flickr.
Back Cover:“Jailed” by Patrick, Flickr.

56
Eye Magazine
Issue 6 | Winter/Spring 2015

EditorMichael Liam Kedzlie$VVLVWDQW(GLWRU&RS\Editing & Layout
Lindsay Lafreniere
2ULJLQDO'HVLJQ
Thaddeus Pope
Subscriptions
magazine@iafor.org
Copyright © 2015, Eye Magazine

If you would like to subscribe to Eye Magazine,
or would like to contribute to the magazine,
please contact us via magazine@iafor.org
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 3)5207+((',725

W

elcome to the Winter/Spring 2015
edition of IAFOR’s Eye Magazine, theInternational Academic Forum’s own inhouse e-magazine publication. In this month’s Eye weonce again have a great line-up of articles and opinion
pieces.
In this edition I have handed over the writing of
the feature editorial to Dr. Joe Haldane, the IAFOR
President, who came to me with an article Being
Charlie: Power, Text and Context he wrote in the days
following the tragic events in Paris. It is an article
from both the heart and intellect, which is somethingthat comes shining through in all of the articles in
this, the first edition of 2015.
Human rights and freedoms are essentially importantin the heavily contested times in which we live. It
is those who have lost their rights and freedom andfought and won them back are the people whose
voices resonate more forcefully. Emma Cunningham
is one such person and is the subject of the first article
in this edition. Emma was sentenced to death 35
years ago for a murder she did not commit. Emma’s
story and her long struggle for justice and indeed,
for her life, is brilliantly told by Ruth Johnson Carter
from Georgia College, USA. Ruth originally told
Emma’s story as part of her spotlight presentation
at our European Conference Series. I am thrilled tobe publishing in this edition Victoria Amador, fromthe American University of Sharjah, who has written
a marvelous article on the Hollywood acting legend
Olivia de Havilland. Victoria had the opportunity tointerview Olivia numerous times and her article offersa fantastic insight into the roles, career, motivations,and artistry of a living legend in the wider global film
and media consciousness. I am grateful to all theseabove women for allowing their works and stories to
be told. To Ruth, Emma, Victoria and Olivia I thankyou.
The story of getting justice for the innocent is also
the background in our profile of Dr. Alec Klein, from
the Medill School of Journalism at North-Western
University (US), as he leads the ground-breaking
Medill Justice Project that uses investigative journalism
skills taught to undergraduate students to assist
them to seek the truth that lies behind contentious
criminal justice cases. Frequently their work has seen
incarcerated people innocent of the crimes for which

4 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

they were charged achieve freedom. Also, Assistant
Editor of Eye Magazine Lindsay Lafreniere provides
an excellent article on the popularity of the Serial
podcast, which tells the story of a possible wrongfulconviction.
The objectification, sexualization, and violence against
women in modern rap music is an important topic thattranslates across all cultures and is the concern raisedin Antonella Regueiro Fernandez’s article on rape
culture. It reveals how frequently the lyrics provide a
step-by-step guide to sexual assault on woman.
In this edition we have another great article follow up
from the Jared Baxter series titled The Portrait of Dr.
Gachet: A Study in Sorrows that further explores the
symbolism found in the works of painter Vincent Van
Gogh. Jared Baxter will be a featured speaker at thisyear’s Asian Conference on Arts and Humanities tobe held in Osaka this April. British historian David
McCormack contributes a fascinating article revealing
the political maneuvering and rationale behind Japan’s
ill-fated decision for war against the United States in1941. Through Wajiha Raza Rizvi we also learn how
the breakthrough 1950’s US television documentary
series Victory at Sea shaped the genre and became
influential in how filmic narrative both influencesand distorts historical events. Finally, in this edition
I take a historical look at the public policy evolutionof the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, which iscelebrating its 25th year since its enactment, as well as
the troubled JASDF Air Transport replacement.
As Editor, I must give special thanks to my assistant
editor Lindsay Lafreniere for her hard work andadvice in getting this magazine together and looking
so good. Lastly, I must again thank the voluntary
contributions of our featured contributors. They are thepeople who really make Eye the insightful, intelligent
and interdisciplinary magazine that it is. Though
this edition is at times challenging, it is neverthelessinformative and thought provoking -- attributes thatinspire our role as academics in this complex and attimes unbalanced world. We hope you enjoy reading
it and feel inspired to contribute yourself.
Michael Liam Kedzlie
Editormkedzlie@iafor.org““

A word from the editor

Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 5

(',725,$/
6 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

Being

CharliePower,
Text &
Context

Photograph by JR work/ Flickr

by Joseph Haldane

Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 7

For students of politics, it doesn’tcome much better than France.
French politics are boisterous
andargumentative,
pluralistic,
hypocritical and contradictory. It
boasts very active parties on all sidesof the political spectrum in a constantstate of disarray and a wonderful,or woeful, depending on one’s
perspective, cast of characters. There
are relatively few dull moments: forexample the last presidential election
in 2012 was contested between theincumbent, a charismatic but divisive
right-winger on his third marriage
to a former supermodel (Sarkozy);and the challenger (Hollande), a
seemingly dull pair of hands, who
was the former partner of Sarkozy’s
previouspresidential
contender(Royal), but who left her for a gossip
columnist (Trierweiler), before leaving
8 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

her for an actress once in power. As
an aside, Hollande was not meant tohave been Sarkozy’s challenger, thatwas to have been Strauss-Kahn, thehead of the IMF who was alleged tohave raped a chambermaid in a New
York hotel, or to have been the victim
of some conspiracy depending on
one’s political leaning. Incidentally,
Sarkozy replaced a president with apredilection for creating imaginary
jobs and fiddling expenses (Chirac),
and who was found guilty ofdiversion of funds after leaving office.
The French press, one would think,would be never short of things to write
about, but it is in fact surprisingly dull.
Serious publications are Serious witha capital S, notably deferential and areoften (and often justifiably) accusedof being in cahoots with the politicalclass: there is no way that France’s
leading intellectual newspaper, Le
Monde, would prominently feature
the Prime Minister as a condom,
as does the UK’s Guardian. This
may also account for the national
daily newspapers’ relatively low
circulation in comparison withFrance’s biggest regional newspapers.
(Non)Sense and Satire
Biting satire in the form of prose, andcartoons however, has a long history in
the land of Voltaire and it is precisely
because the mainstream publications
consider this the realm of the vulgar,
that the French newsstands havemade room for two satirical weekly
publications: Le Canard Enchaine
and Charlie Hebdo. The former was
established 100 years ago and has

Photograph by Je_suis_Charlie-15/ Flickr and kelly-kline_paris-9211/ Flickr

become known for its investigative
journalism, and has a comparatively
large circulation in excess of 400,000,
and the latter in its current incarnation
was the product of left wing cartoonists
who took aim at the establishment,
organized religion, and pretty muchanything else that took their fancy.
The cartoons featured on the coversof Charlie Hebdo were usuallyunapolagetically vulgar, and often
trenchantly militant in what they
were saying. There was little space fornuance with their drawings. They were
not innocent, but barbed and wantonly
offensive towards their target, and yetthat is what satire is for: to ridicule
where conventions of respect inpolite company do not allow, so as
to expose hypocrisy or shortcomings.
Was Charlie Hebdo disrespectfulin its treatment of the prophet
Mohammed? Without a doubt, but it
was an equal opportunities’ offender!

The depictions of Muhammad caused
widespread offence among many
Muslims in France, not least because
most schools of Islam consider it
blasphemous to depict the prophet inany form, let alone in the irreverent
manner of the Charlie Hebdo
cartoons. In the context of bitter
disagreements within France overmulticulturalism in reaction to social
unrest, and in light of the continuing
global clash of religions and values,
the covers were seen as inflammatory,
and seen by many on the political
far left as tantamount to racism andIslamophobia: of particular concern tomany was the continued conceptual
amalgamation of Muslims andterrorists, which was seen by many asplaying into the hands of the resurgent
right wing National Front party.

This disapproval by many, including
senior politicians of all colors,
claimed that many of the cartoons
were inflammatory, and yet these
criticisms belie the telos of satire.
The deontological arguments for selfcensorship are also hypocritical in thatthese assume both that the cartoonists
did not in any way edit their work (orself-censor), which they did, as well in
its suggestion that those who might feel
offended should not be targeted. They
also conveniently forget that satire is
only possible because of historical andcontemporary context, and reflects
rather than creates this context.
France is officially secular, but has a
Catholic establishment, the highest
Muslim population of any Western
European country, the third largest
Jewish population in the world (after
the US and Israel), and enlightenment

I taught at two Journalism schools
in Paris, and in weekly press reviewsof the French press, Charlie Hebdo
would always have cartoons or
sketches that drew reactions ofdisbelief, stifled laughter, gasps ofoutrage, or rolled eyes of resignation.
Satirists are militants at heart, andare looking for reactions to stimulate
discussion, and further their political
viewpoint, which in the case of Charlie
was not party political, but rather acoalition of left-wing, antireligious,and liberal causes. Other targets
included the Catholic church: during
the last conclave a cover depicted the
cardinals of the “gay lobby” in a circle,
one behind the other, and linked bysomething other than their resolute
faith. Another recent cover featured
the Pope administering the eucharist,
with a condom in both hands as hedelivers the words, “This is my body”.
Yet another showed a fundamentalist
Jew machine gunning an Arab in
the back, while shouting “Take that,
Goliath!”, and Islam was also held
up to ridicule with one controversial
cover depicting the crying prophet
with his head in his hands as hewails “It’s hard being loved by idiots”.
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 9

Satirists are militants at heart, and are looking for reactions
to stimulate discussion, and further their political viewpoint,
which in the case of Charlie was not party political, but rather
a coalition of left-wing, antireligious, and liberal causes.

Killing and Being Charlie
The disapproval of many Muslims
became common, but it was thereaction of Islamic fundamentalists
that was predictably stronger, and in2011 their offices were firebombedin the early hours of November 2,
following the publication of an issue
which was supposedly guest edited by
the Prophet, and which was renamed“Charia Hebdo” [Sharia weekly].
In the 2011 attack, there were nocasualties, but on January 7, 2015,
two gunmen raided the magazine’s
offices and executed the editor, andmost of the senior staff members.
The reaction was an immediate andspontaneous outpouring of support
for the magazine. Even those who had
been critical of its content identified
with the show of solidarity for freespeech around the rallying cry ofidentification with a small groupof cartoonists, “Je suis Charlie”. Of
course it did not take long before
those on the far left, the fractious
multitude of groupings to which thesatirists belonged, started debating
whether or not they “were Charlie”,
or even whether they liked Charlie.
The show of national solidarity, as
well as the government’s financial
backing of the magazine, was not
something which they could actively
support as they felt a deep discomfort
with the idea of identifying with therainbow coalition. It is worth notingthat the cartoonists involved would
certainly have appreciated the ironyof their weekly rag being the flavorof the month with the President,
yet ‘being’ Charlie in this context is
not about agreeing or sympathizing,
10 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

but rather recognizing their right‘to be’ Charlie, as at a fundamental
and existential level, Charlie Hebdo
no longer ‘is’, and France and theFrench press is poorer because of it.
Stéphane Charbonnier, the editor of
the magazine until his assassination,
would certainly have been surprised tohave seen the reaction, and doubtless
uncomfortable at being used as a poster
boy for the various causes from the
National Front which he deplored, to
President Hollande, for whom he had
little time, to Benjamin Netanyahu,
whom he detested: Palestinianstatehood being one of the issues
the magazine regularly featured: one
cover depicted a shackled Palestinianwith a national flag embedded in his
posterior being asked by an Israeli
soldier wielding a machinegun“how is statehood is going?”
Religion,Rights and Responsibilities
Islamophobia is not a newphenomenon, and has existed since
the time of Muhammad, and Charlie
Hebdo was indeed anti-Muslim, andanti-religious in general, whether
it was taking aim at Muslims or
amalgamating Muslims and terrorists,
because its position on the God
debate was fairly clear. Whether
Catholic, Jewish or Muslim, Charlie
Hebdo saw organized religion as
something the world would bebetter off without. The magazine did
not see Islam as being somethingwhich should be off limits because
depictions of Mohammad were
blasphemous, but rather all the morein necessary of lampooning because
their chosen media was the cartoon.
There have been strains of responsethat assert the cartoonists must bearsome responsibility for their acts,
but while there can be little doubtof causation in the face of death
threats, any equivocation of cause andresponsibility is fundamentally wrong
both morally and legally, and is a lineof reasoning that comes dangerously
close to suggesting just desert.
Charlie Hebdo made and continues
to make the cultural left in France
uncomfortable, as a tradition formed
in protest and emancipation of rights
for workers, women and oppressedminority groups has made great
political progress in the last century,
but a contradiction that lies at theheart of the messages of respect andtolerance is the extent to which thisshould be extended toward groups
which are themselves intolerant, or
hold views which are incompatible
with the ideals (not necessarily therealities) of the French state, and withwhich Charlie fervently disagreed.This
irresolvable difficulty is something thatmany students of politics and cultural
studies will recognize, and with which
modern liberal democracies struggle.
The past century has seen an increasein the struggles within different
strains of the main organized religions
as to how to reconcile modern life
with the diktats of religious works,interpretations and teachings, as wellas to confrontations with the secularor multicultural states in which they
exist. This has been particularly
problematic with regard to Islam
which is a religion governed by laws
which are often contrary to the laws
in non-Islamic states. A notable
example of this was the decision by
the French state to ban the wearingof all conspicuous religious symbols inpublic schools in 2004, including the
hijab (female headscarf ), mandatedby Islamic law. This law was hugely
controversial in France, and was
widely seen as being directed against
Islam. The more recent 2010 law

Photograph by João Dias/ Flickr

traditions of atheism, republicanism,
regionalism, socialism, communism,
and as many other isms as one canlist, all in uncomfortable coexistence.

banning the “concealment of the facein public spaces” was aimed squarelyat Muslims, as it made the wearing of
the niquab and burqa illegal: freedomof religious expression was trumped
by a national law in the name of thecommon good, but not without heateddebate as to just what that meant.
Free speech
Throughout human history, people
have been persecuted for theirbeliefs, and their writings, and thevery concept of free speech is an
ambiguous heuristic to which many
subscribe, but which usually comes
laden with caveats undermining thevery concept. However, that does notmean that it is an empty concept,
or that the absence of an absolute
makes it any less valuable. It is thiscontested ideological, deontological,
and legal space in which the concept
is negotiated that gives freedom ofspeech its power. While it may bedifficult to define, its absence or severe

constriction, as in many countries atpresent is the surest sign of tyranny.
Exercising free speech is what ended
up costing these satirists their lives,and it is for this reason that we areappalled by these assassinations.
Fervently disagreeing with a pointof view or perspective, or with themanner in which that point ofview is expressed is part of humancommunication
andpolitical
discussion. There are often blurredlines between what is acceptablesocially and legally, and Charlie
Hebdo pushed the boundaries, andundoubtedly crossed the line several
times, but a fatwa for political sketches,
however offensive, is unacceptable.
As an academic, I take freedom of
expression as a given, and the key
tenet on which the academy and thisorganization is founded. While we
encourage respectful dialogue in ourconferences and publications, we mustacknowledge our debt to those whohave had to be a little more vulgar, orless nuanced in getting their points
across, so that we might now enjoy
the freedom to be more respectable.
While I may chose prose and Hegelian
dialectic, and Stéphane Charbonnierdrawings and unsubtle polemic, weare in fact distant cousins, and it isfor that reason that I am also Charlie.
Dr Joseph Haldane is the President of
the International Academic Forum,and the publisher of the IAFOR Eye
Magazine. He studied and worked
in Paris between 1997-2000, and2002-2005. Between 2003 and 2004,
Dr Haldane taught courses on the
Anglo-American Press at the French
Press Institute in the University ofParis (II), before taking a full time
faculty position at Sciences Po from2004-2005, where he devised andtaught the British Politics and Media
Course in the School of Journalism.

Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 11

Emma

Did a woman spend years on death row for amurder she did not commit?
By Ruth Johnson Carter

12 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

The Murder of Bill Crawford
On the evening of January 1, 1979,
the horribly battered body of William
Beal “Bill” Crawford was discoveredby his long-time housekeeper,
Mary Alice Tutt, who had became
concerned when her boss did not
answer his phone. Walking from her
own house, situated nearby, she letherself in with the key she had been
given. She located Mr. Crawford in
the storeroom at the back of his houselying dead in drying pools of blood.
His head had been beaten almost
beyond recognition and his arms werebent at odd angles from his body, eachbroken in several places. Stifling her
screams, Mrs. Tutt ran to the phoneand called the Lincolnton Police.

Unless noted, photograph provided by Ruth Johnson Carter

Chief Lawrence Peeler arrived withina few minutes with several officers
from his headquarters located only afew streets away at 148 Ward Street.
Peeler was unaccustomed to dealing
with homicides. He immediately
called for assistance from the Thomson
Seventh District Office of the Georgia
Bureau of Investigation. Two GBI
officers, Special Agents Mike Siegler
and Jim Carver, took control of thecrime scene.
The agents reported that Mr.
Crawford was known to keep large
sums of money in his house. The
officials presumed that this cash was
the likely “motivation for the murder.”
Although an autopsy was immediately
scheduled, the preliminary analysis
indicated that Mr. Crawford “had put
up a terrific struggle,” which led tohis being killed by the killer striking
him many times with a blunt object allover his head and body.
The front page of the January 2, 1979
Lincoln Journal newspaper described
the scene at Mr. Crawford’s house:
Blood was reported by lawmen tobe “scattered all over the place.” Theintruder “tracked blood over portionsof the house.” Crawford’s body waspresumably turned over after it fell to
the floor since there were two pools ofblood on the storeroom floor.
Crawford owned a profitable FritoLay snack franchise and lived in thehouse he inherited from his parents.
The house, a one-story Victorian
with gingerbread trimming and awrap-around porch, was locatedon Humphrey Street, ironically,
directly across the street from the
Lincoln County Courthouse. In a
town with a population of less than2000 the discovery of the murder ofBill Crawford in his own house washorrifying to the white population,
most of whom knew Mr. Crawford atleast casually, and many were his life
long friends.
Emma Cunningham
For Emma Cunningham, January
1, 1979, was a Monday like anyother. Had she known, she would
not have cared that this was the daythat diplomatic relations were reestablished between the United States

wanted to be sure that her two smallchildren had clean clothes for a trip
planned to New Jersey for a family
funeral.
Since they had no way to get home
after the clothes were washed andfolded, Emma relates, “I had to leave
my baskets of clothes and walk withJames over to my Daddy’s houseto get him to give us a ride home.”
When asked after her arrest, “Whichway did you walk?” Emma responded,“We came right by the Shell station,
past the Milky Way Freeze Bar
to my daddy’s house, off the 378/
McCormick Highway.”“We don’t go way ‘round by Mr.
Crawford’s house,” Emma said. “My
daddy live about a mile away from thelaundromat off N. Washington Street.”
Despite Emma’s statement, it wascertainly possible to go to her father’shouse by way of Mr. Crawford’s home
and then walk the internal streets andpick up the highway from Goshen
Street. Either way was about a mile.

The death penalty is like a lottery, inwhich fairness always loses.
and China after 30 years of disruption
and the Secretary General of the U.N.
announced the International Year of
the Child.
Emma had never been as much as
100 miles from where she was born in
Hartwell, Georgia. Her concerns werelocal and specific. She needed to go to
the laundromat.
Washing machines and dryers forhome use were too expensive forpeople on a limited income, so most of
the African American community had
no choice except to use the only facility
open to them. She and her husband
James“Snowball” Cunningham
caught a ride with a friend to what
they called the washhouse. Emma

“After Daddy drives us home,”
Emma recounts, “James leaves
again. Somebody pick him up in
a car. I never saw who it was. I stayup watching Wheel of Fortune andother game shows. Then I go to bed.”
Emma remembers, “I get waked up
around 1:00 a.m. New Years nightwith James shakin’ me like a dice cup
and sayin’, ‘Get up! Get up! We goin’
to leave now.’ I say, ‘You crazy!’ I get up
anyhow. Tha’s always how Snowballwas. We always leavin’ anyway, which
way and whenever. I say, ‘I thought we
was leavin’ tomorrow.’ He say, ‘Wrap
up the children real good, it cold out.
I got Junior Williams outside. He
gonna drive us to Augusta right now’”.
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 13

She felt like a drop of water suspended from the rimof a dripping faucet. The fall was inevitable and hadno outcome but chaos and destruction.
There is no proof of this scenario
except if James had beaten Mr.
Crawford to death his clothes would
have been covered with blood when heleft the scene. It is hard to believe that
Emma or any sane person could havehelped murder a man she knew andthen walk in the rain with her blood
soaked husband to her father’s house.
It is equally unlikely that anyone
covered in blood could have walked
more than a mile along a highway
without being noticed. It is just as
unbelievable that after picking up
her baskets of clothes, Emma would
have returned home, to watch games
shows on TV, and peacefully fallasleep without any unusual emotional
reaction. Only a psychopathic
personality would be able to functionthat way. Emma has never shown any
violent characteristics. Psychologicalexams before and after Emma’s trial
indicated no signs of mental illness
barring understandable situational
depression and anxiety.

Courthouse sits on a large tree-filled
lot on a pleasant street in Lincolnton,
Georgia. Made of weathered red brick“that were made on site” from locally
The remaining issues were the penalty dug clay, the building is decorated
to be handed down for James and the with four white Doric columns. The
degree of complicity, if any, of his wife, grey roof is crowned by a clock towerEmma, to be determined during her with a small white painted cupola.
own trial. District Attorney, Kenneth Large black letters inscribed acrossGoolsby who prosecuted both cases the pediment label the building’s
said “I don’t think I have ever seen a function. The structure is typical ofmore senseless killing than this one.” many courthouses all across the rural
In his confession, James Cunningham south.
said, “I did not intend to kill” Mr.
Crawford.
The two glass paned front doors lead
into a cream painted hallway lined with
Mr. Goolsby maintained, “It is not pictures of current and past officials
necessary that murder should be a part and a colored sketch of the buildingof the original design, but it is enough itself. The heart of the building, thethat it be one of the incidental and courtroom is on the second floor, up
probable consequences…”
a broad flight of polished hardwood
steps.
“The law says that you are guilty ofmurder if this wrench, (indicating the The courtroom is immaculate. White
tool admitted into evidence as the painted wooden rails separate themurder weapon) caused the death of observers from the tables and chairs
Bill Crawford.”arranged for the prosecution andEmma has never deviated from her
defense lawyers. A similar railingversion of her behavior on the day of “Is there any doubt in your mind divides the witness box and thethe murder or that after their return about the facts in this case? Murder space for the court reporter from thehome James almost immediately left is the killing of a human being, and attorneys.
again in a car she never saw. It was certainly, Bill Crawford was a humanJames who was agitated and frantic being, a good one.
When court is in session, the judge
when he returned late that nightsits behind an imposing desk several
wearing different clothes and it was ‘Snowball” could have robbed him and feel higher than the witness box in ahe, who when arrested, confessed to left him alive, but he wouldn’t do that, large black leather swivel chair. The
the murder, without incriminating her there would have been a witness. The American and Georgia flags hanguntil after his return to Georgia.
mostly white jury found James guilty from stands on either side. The jury is
and he was sentenced to death on seated to the left behind another white
James’ Trial
October 25, 1979 after a trial, which rail in black leather armchairs. Despite
lasted less than two days.
a costly restoration, except for the
The lock step movements of the law
addition of computers, microphones,
followed a well-worn path. James’ Emma’s Trial
and the new Georgia flag which no
culpability in the assault and death of
longer features a Confederate ensign,
William Crawford, given the attitude Built in 1915, in the Georgian style the room has not changed very muchof the white community, seems to have of architecture, the Lincoln County in nearly 30 years.
14 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

been virtually decided even before histrial, which began on October 23,
1979.

On May 16, 2008, the sky is a cloudfilled blue and spring flowers are inbloom on the courthouse grounds, but
the courtroom is shadowy and still.
Emma sits in the witness box. She
has not been back in this room since
her trial for murder in 1979. She leansforward and rests her arms on the rail.
Emma sits quietly for a few minutes,
and then the memories about her
murder trial and her death sentence
verdict bring slow tears to her eyes.
Emma says, “The day of my trial thepeople sittin’ in the courtroom whisper
among them while the lawyers andthe judge talk to each other. The
judge raps his little hammer and calls
everyone to be quiet. They all hush up

like kids in school when the principal
come down the hall.

who by this indictment number 6757
is charged with the offense of burglary,armed robbery, and murder.’ That
When I was a chile’, I hate bein’ number made me want to hide. Six
in school because I was teased for Seven Five Seven… Six Seven Five
stutterin’. “Seven…. It be like grades on a spellin’
test. You make 67. You make 57. Six“It hurt my feelings when the teacher seven Five Seven. Tha’s all I hear. The
call out, ‘Emma Ruth make 67 on a rest he read out don’t make no sense to
test.’ I would put my head down on me anyhow. The man go on readin’ andmy desk because I usually know the readin’ and readin’. I look up when heanswers, but I get so scared when say … ‘killed William B. Crawford by
they hand out the test that I kain’t beatin’ the said William B. Crawford
remember nothin’. After I leave school, with a certain wrench.’ which had
I never done think a number could been introduced earlier as the murder
ever make me feel so bad. But when weapon in James’ trial. “
the assistant district attorney read out
in a loud voice, ‘The State of Georgia Emma says emphatically. “Til my trial,
versus Emma Ruth Cunningham, I ain’t never seen a wrench that big.
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 15

They say I take it in my pocketbook,and when Mr. Crawford won’t give
us no money, James and I kill him.
Tha’s another lie. That wrench morethan a foot long. How it gonna fit in
no regular pocketbook? Them clothes
they put into evidence in my trial were
the things I give James for Christmas.
Even the D.A., Mr. Goolsby, admit
he don’t have no evidence but me
walking in the direction of Mr. Bill’shouse. They never can put me in thathouse when Mr. Bill murdered. Tha’s‘cause I weren’t there. I did not killor help to kill that old man,” Emmasays scornfully. “They say I confessto killing Mr. Crawford, but I only
sign what they give me to protect mychildren and my parents.”
Decision for Bench Trial
Emma’s court appointed lawyers,

Roger Dunaway and Robert Cofer,
made the decision for her to have a
Bench Trial because the death penalty
had been introduced as a part ofJames’ trial. Her lawyers had reason tobelieve that death would be a part of a
guilty verdict in Emma’s case as well.
A Bench Trial is unusual for a murder
trial because the judge makes all thedecisions about the law and also acts
as a one-man jury in evaluating thefacts. The judge has control over theprocess of the trial as he normally
would, but he is not supposed to makeup his mind until he hears all of theevidence. It is one thing to believe thejudge will be fair, and something elseto have that always be true
The District Attorney Kenneth
Goolsby was concerned about thepossible legal issues, which might arise
with a murder trial without a jury.

Because of the DA’s apprehensions,
Judge Stevens looked sternly at Emmaand demanded, “Do you understandthat without a jury this judge, myself,
will be the only living person who
will say whether you are guilty or not
guilty?” Emma, who had been asked
to stand, looked down at the floor andsaid in a barely audible voice, “Yes sir, I
understands.” Stevens asked, “Do you
understand all of your rights underboth the Constitution of the UnitedStates and the laws of the UnitedStates and of the State of Georgia?”
Since many college students could not
answer this question with certainty,
Emma’s affirmative answer once again
was based on her instructions rather
than any real comprehension of what
had been said to her. Then the signed
and witnessed document of Emma’s
request for a non-jury trial was entered

The Lincoln County Courthouse

16 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

Photograph by J. Stephen Conn / Flickr

into evidence as proof that she was
not influenced in her decision.

“They were going for the death
penalty [in James’ case], and most of
the community felt Emma was the“Mr. Dunaway and Mr. Cofer told me one behind the murder. Everybody
to say ‘yes’ to all of those questions,” felt that she was the smarter of theEmma relates. “I don’t have no clue two. They believed she had planned
about what a Bench Trial was or what the whole thing, and that she waspeaceful solutions when arbitration
was possible. His devotion to legal
orthodoxy and the exact wordingof the law was a part of his legacyof succeeding his father into thepractice of law. He followed someinternal and often, unpredictable“No one who ain’t been there can imagine the agony ofhopelessness and helplessness and loneliness ... Now we’rein a new century, but 1979 for me is still a reminder of theholocaust of what many blacks still face today–injustice,discrimination, and violent death.”
I say yes about or why the lawyers
make that decision. Mr. Dunaway and
Mr. Cofer have me write a letter that
I sign. Them lawyers and my mamaand daddy witnessed it on October
24, 1979, askin’ for this kind of trial,
They filed that letter at 12:15 p.m. on
October 25, right before they start mytrial.”
When asked about Emma’s Bench
Trial, the Honorable Roger Dunaway,
now the Chief Judge of the Tombs
Circuit, leans back in his swivel chairat his office in the McDuffie County
Courthouse and reminisces about theattitude in Lincolnton toward Emmawhen he and the late Robert Cofer
were appointed as her lawyers. Judge
Dunaway, a distinguished jurist, who
before his appointment to the bench,
served as the county attorney, is a tall,
slim man who, without any notionof a cliché, epitomizes the phrase“southern gentleman.”“We decided on the Bench Trial,” thejudge says, “because there was a lot ofanger in the Lincolnton community.
Mr. William Crawford was realprominent. He lived right across thestreet from the courthouse. Everybody
was familiar with him.”

more responsible. Snowball’s case wastried first. We were struck by the factthat when his attorneys asked the jury
if any of them had heard anything
about the case, not the first hand went
up. This murder case was obviously
the most talked about thing that
had happened in years, and people
behaved as if they had never heard of
the crime.”“It was almost impossible to get achange of venue. Much harder than it
is today,” Judge Dunaway continues.
“Then, of course, Snowball wasconvicted. We felt like our best chance
to avoid the death penalty was a
Bench Trial. The issue, in this case, waswhether or not a person who neither
planned nor participated in a murder
could be given the death penalty.”“We decided our best chance wasfor the judge to look at the caseunemotionally. Maybe we would comeout with a better chance than before ajury. We had just seen what happened
to Snowball and we knew everybody
blamed her more than they did him.”
Judge Robert L. Stevens, a WWII
Army veteran who had served in the
Pacific theater in Burma, India, andChina, was often an advocate forlogic in his decisions and would“show compassion in some cases, but[would] hammer you in other cases.”
To the consternation of her attorneys,
Judge Stevens after a brief period ofreflection, returned to the courtroom
and read his personally handwritten
note into the record sentencing Emmato the death penalty.
Judge Stevens read the formal
statement into the record: “It Is
Considered, Ordered and Adjudged
By The Court, that you Emma Ruth
Cunningham, be taken from the barof this Court, where you now standto such place of confinement as thelaw provides, where you shall besafely kept and confined until you
shall be removed and in the manner
provided by law to such an institution
where you shall be submitted to thepenalty of death by electrocution, as
provided by law, between the hours of
ten o’clock in the forenoon and two
o’clock in the afternoon on the 14th
day of December, 1979, and may the
Lord have mercy on your soul. Thiscase is closed,” the judge said and got
up and disappeared through a door
into his chambers.
A deputy handcuffed Emma for the
first time since her arrest and escorted
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 17

Elm Street in Lincolntown
her back to the jail. The bright sky
had faded to a washed out grey andthe air was cold on her bare arms. She
stumbled and the deputy caught her.
She could feel tears on her face, butthey seemed to belong to someone
else. She was locked into her cell, andthe jailer turned out the lights. Emmasat on her cot. There was a faint lightin the outer office.
She stared at the glow as if somewhere
there would be an answer. She was notquite 28 years old and had spent her
entire life just trying to survive. Even
the GBI agents had said that she wasvery smart. She had worked as hard as
she could. She took good care of her
two children and loved them better
than her own life. Her existence did
not seem to matter at all. She had been
given a death sentence for a murder
she knew that she had not committed.
A judge had said she was guilty of
Mr. Crawford’s homicide and hadpronounced that she was to die on the
14th day of December 1979. She felt
18 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

like a drop of water suspended fromthe rim of a dripping faucet. The fall
was inevitable and had no outcome
but chaos and destruction.
Sitting in her immaculate livingroom thirty years later, Emma says,“Livin’ on death row is pure hell!” Hervoice shaking as she remembers, sheadds, “No one else can know yourcircumstances. You don’t really know
when they are comin’ to get you.
You never know when they will. It’s sohard on a person. It’s hard not to think
about your death and bein’ killed forno reason. Every time I heard the keys
rattlin’ in the locks, I would think thatthey were comin’ to tell me, ‘Emma
Cunningham get yourself up. They are
ready for you. Your appeal was turndown.’” Emma sighs, “No one who
ain’t been there can imagine the agonyof hopelessness and helplessness andloneliness.” Emma adds, “In prison
you are still treated the same way as
you are on the outside because you

black. Now we’re in a new century, but
1979 for me is still a reminder of theholocaust of what many blacks still
face today–injustice, discrimination,and violent death.”“I was stunned at Judge Steven’s
verdict,” Judge Dunaway says. “I neverbelieved what James Cunningham said
about Emma,” he adds emphatically.
“I don’t think he planned to murderBill Crawford, either. When Crawfordfought back, Snowball just panickedbecause he just kept beating and kept
beating. The murder was horrible,
bloody, and gruesome. I think the
Lord was looking after Emma Ruth,
when we finally got her death penalty
sentence reversed on appeal. Her trial
had a lot of bearing on how I lookedat criminal cases. I think Emma’s casereally gave me a lot of sensitivity.”
Emma, reflects on her life, “Ain’t
many people in this world ever had
the experiences I had. Not many put
on death row, and not many have thePhotograph by J. Stephen Conn / Flickr

gate swing open. I done for real beenin the ‘valley of the shadow.’ Don’t
make me no better nor no worse thanyou. But what happen to me do makeme see. I see with my eyes the crack
in the sidewalk and the red flower on
the bush. I see the rust on the gate andthe tear in the eye. When you facedwith death–when you know you ain’t
done the killin’ and God save you fromyour doom, then everything become
important.” Emma pauses, “…andthen at the same time not importantat all. You sees everything, because you
might not never get to see with youreyes again–not by God ‘s choice but of
the law. So I go out and speak against
what I know is wrong. There ain’t no
way to argue with the fact like I say
over and over that there more black
people executed than white.”
Conclusion“Who gets the death penalty islargely determined, not [solely] by theseverity of the crime, but by: the race,
sex and economic class of the criminal
and victim,” says Judge Dunaway.

to be given the death penalty thanthose who can afford the high costs ofprivate investigators, psychiatrists, andexpert criminal lawyers. Geography
also plays a role. Since 1976, with thereinstatement of the death penalty
after the Supreme Court Decision in
the case of Gregg v. Georgia, 82% of
all executions have taken place in theSouth.
As Senator Russ Feingold said ina speech on civil rights as a priority,“We simply cannot say we live in acountry that offers equal justice toall Americans when racial disparities
plague the system by which our society
imposes the ultimate punishment.”
Emma’s trial and death penalty
conviction is an almost perfect
example of each of these issues. The
examination of her trial transcript
clearly illustrates racial prejudice,jailhouse“snitch”
testimony,
introduction of misinterpretation ofevidence, and community pressure forher conviction. Within the frameworkof her story, perhaps understanding
may be gained about the plight ofindividuals who through cultural andsocial circumstances are deprived of
the benefits of education and the fullweight of equality under the law. Yet it
is not Emma’s “troubles” that make hermemorable, it is her remarkable andcontinued evolution that makes her
an embodiment of Maya Angelou’s
wonderful lines: “You have tried todestroy me and though I perish daily,
I shall not be moved.”
Ruth Johnson Carter is a Professor in
the Department of Government andSociology at GCSU Milledgeville,
Georgia. She has known the subjectof her paper, Emma Cunningham,
for more than 20 years and immersed
herself in Emma’s world throughintensive
personal
interaction
and interviews with most of thoseconnected with her life and the issues
associated with the death penalty.

Who ends up on death row is subject
to vagaries in the legal process. The
death penalty is like a lottery, in which
fairness always loses.
In the late twentieth century, statistics
indicate that the overwhelming
majority of those on death row who
were African American were, as Emma
Ruth Cunningham was, convicted forkilling white victims. This is despite
the fact that African Americans
make up about half of all homicide
victims. When African Americans
commit crimes against white people,
race becomes a more relevant issue,
creating less objective sentencing
decisions. Judges can be influenced
by racial characteristics that “areinfluential in courtroom assessmentsof blameworthiness, dangerousness,and practical constraints.”
Poor people are also far more likely
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 19

How did a story about a possible wrongful conviction
make for the most popular podcast of all time?
BY LINDSAY LAFRENIERE

Photographs courtesy of Serial and This American Life“One story, told week by week.”
This is how host Sarah Koenig describes Serial, now the most successful podcast of all time, in its intro.
Serial, a spin-off of the much loved
American National Public Radio(NPR) program This American Life,
tells the story of the investigation into
the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, a
student at a high school in Baltimore,
and the possible wrongful convictionof her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed. Lee
and Syed were smart, popular teenagers, both the kids of overbearing,
immigrant parents. They dated andbroke up, but still remained friends.
She was strangled and her body was
found in a park. Syed was convicted,
based on his friend Jay’s testimony
and little other evidence, and has beenin prison since.

dissecting Serial exploded; currently
it has 43,391 subscribers and nearlyreached 15 million page views in themonth of December, when the series
ended. Podcasts about the podcast,very meta indeed, blossomed, including one by Slate magazine and another with crime writers discussing
the series. There are numerous satiresof the show, in both video and audio.
Saturday Night Live recently did a skit
about the show – possibly the meterfor pop culture mainstream relevance.
And outside the realm of pop culture,
the Toronto police homicide squadhas been tweeting out weekly clues
DERXWDQXQVROYHGPXUGHULQÁXHQFHG
by Serial’s approach.

But how did the podcast become so
popular? True crime stories have been
SRSXODU DFURVV WHOHYLVLRQ ÀOP DQGradio since their beginnings. And thisThe podcast broke records, becom- is not a particularly unusual story.
LQJ WKH IDVWHVW WR UHDFK ÀYH PLOOLRQ Compare it to say, True Detective,
downloads from Apple’s iTunes the crime television series that wasstore, not to mention streaming off broadcast in 2014, brilliantly told but
their website, -- not included in that unfortunately misogynistic and often
count. But it was not just passively compared to Serial, which was about
listened to, listeners became actively a serial killer, belonging to a cult, who
involved in the story. A Reddit forum enjoyed raping and murdering women
20 | Eye Magazine Sixth Editionin strange ritualistic ways. This murder story seems vanilla in comparison.
“[T]his is not an original idea,” Koenig told The Guardian. “Maybe in
podcast form it is, and trying to do it
as a documentary story is really, really
hard. But trying to do it as a serial, thisis as old as Dickens.”
Serial is masterful storytelling withrich characters, hallmarks of the bestof This American Life. The story is
told over twelve episodes, with muchtape devoted to phone conversations
with Syed who has been in prison forthe past 15 years. The most jarring
thing about the Syed interviews, toboth Koenig and listeners, is that heseems completely unlike our collective image of “murderer.”“[N]ot just a good kid, but an especially good kid-- smart, kind, goofy,
KDQGVRPHµDUHWKHÀUVWUHIHUHQFHVWR
Syed. “He was like the community’s
golden child.”
The main story of the whole series, themain question, is: did he really do it?
It’s a continuous up and down between

innocence and guilt, from the charming voice we hear on the phone, theinconsistent stories that never seem tomatch up and the sparse evidence thatconvicted him, with no DNA links,
to the overwhelming question, if nothim, then who?

WR VFUDWFK 7KLV EHLQJ D UHDOOLIH ÀIteen-year-old cold case, the ending,unsurprisingly, disappointed many
people. But this format also invited
listeners to tease out the details of thecrime along with the producers, in thehopes that solving it was possible.

Koenig herself continuously questions Syed’s innocence and then her
own evaluations and assumptions.

Koenig is excellent at conveying emotion, sucking listeners into the dramaof the investigation, and how we mightfeel in the situation. One of the tensest scenes see her and producer Julie
Synder go to meet Jay, the friend whostates he helped Syed bury Lee after
killing her. These women are not only
extensively investigating a possibly
very traumatic event in this man’s lifeÀIWHHQ \HDUV DJR EXW DOVR SURGXFLQJ
a podcast saying that he probably liedto get out of going to jail for murder.
Showing up to his door unannounced
would make a very uncomfortablesituation. Not only that, but eight episodes in, listeners are dying to hear
Jay’s perspective.

“That’s my fear, I’m going to getthrough all this and then be like… I
don’t know,” she says.
Serial was aired as it was made, Koenig said in interviews that she wasdiscovering this evidence at nearly
the same time we were. And unlike
most true crime, there was no endingin place at the beginning. Koenig had
no idea if she’d come to a conclusion
RUÀQGWKHHVVHQWLDOLQIRUPDWLRQQHHGed to solve the mystery. As listeners,
we’ve come to assume that the person
telling us the riddle knows the answer.
Even if the mystery seems impossible
to solve, Sherlock will reveal all to us
right in the last ten minutes throughabsurd reasoning we wouldn’t be able

“I am so hyped up, listening back to
the tape, I wanted to give myself aXanax,” says Koenig, looking backon that meeting. Where some jour-nalists may want to play it cool andseem polished and professional approaching an interview subject, Serial
gives us a very human experience of
this encounter. Koenig and Synder
record their conversation in the car
beforehand – the atmosphere is tenseand Koenig is speaking incredibly
quickly.
“I feel super excited to talk to him,
like so excited to talk to him, I can’ttell you,” says Koenig in a frantic ramble. “Like, if this works, heknows, he knows everything we wantto know, every question we’ve had forthe past eight months. Seven months,
he knows it. Whether or not he tells
us is a different thing but he’s a treasure chest of answers that we’ve been
looking for this whole time and hehas it, he’s it. But, whether or not heopens the door, or if he’s even home,
we don’t even know if he’s home!”
The show is also compelling becauseof its excellent writing, Koenig places
signposts throughout, such as: “If you
ZDQWWRÀJXUHRXWWKLVFDVHZLWKPH
now is the time to start paying close
attention, because we have arrived,

Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 21

along with the detectives at the heartof the thing.”

don’t want to ruin him, you know? So
how much do you want to push, howmuch do you want to create ‘bad evidence?’” says Trainum.

She commands her listeners to sit
up and pay attention, which can be
LPSRUWDQW LQ D VWRU\ ÀOOHG ZLWK ZKDW “But, see-- I don’t get that,” says Koecan be tedious small details, like cell- nig. “I mean that’s like what my father
phone records and court proceedings. always used to always say, ‘all facts
are friendly.’ Shouldn’t that be more
.RHQLJ EHFRPHV EDIÁHG ZLWK WKH true for a cop than for anyone else?
processes of the legal system, echo- You can’t pick and choose.”
ing the reactions of many listeners tosome of the statements by the law- The show raises more questions thanyers and detectives. It’s revealed that it really answers. Koenig says to Deirthe detectives that interrogated Jay dre Enright, a lawyer in a similar casedidn’t start recording his testimony and head of the University of Virginia
until three hours into the interview, School of Law Innocence Project, thatnor did they search his house or give “Adnan himself is not supplying anyhim a polygraph. Koenig’s team hired thing super useful to say ‘here’s why
Jim Trainum, who used to be a homi- I can prove I didn’t do this.’ He has
cide detective in Washington D.C, to said out front ‘I can’t give you somego through the evidence. Much to the clinching piece of information or eviaudience’s surprise, he says this in- dence that’s going to solve this, I wish
vestigation is better than average and I could but I can’t. I just don’t have it.
that the detectives were “cautious and I don’t know how to prove this.’”methodical.”
To which Enright responds, “I love
“The fact that we have an excellent hearing that because somewhere
witness-- we’ve got somebody who along the line I’ve started realizing
is giving us the whole case right here, that when you have an innocent clihe’s broke it wide open for us, we ent, they are the least helpful people
22 | Eye Magazine Sixth Editionin the whole world, because they don’t
know. They don’t-- they have no idea,
like as soon as I realize I have an innocent client and that’s the situation, I
think like, ‘okay well I’ll talk to you
again when I’ve solved it, because
I’m not gonna need you here.’”And this is the assumption that listeners work from. We assume Syed can
explain it all to us if Koenig can cunningly tease it out of him. There is thenagging feeling that someone must be
lying about something. But beyond
reasonable doubt is the legal standard
for criminal convictions in the caseof homicide. That may be the greater
nagging feeling one has at the end of
Serial.
“As a juror I vote to acquit Adnan
Syed,” concludes Koenig. “I have toacquit. Even if in my heart of hearts
I think Adnan killed Hae, I still haveto acquit. That’s what the law requiresof jurors.”
Lindsay Lafreniere is IAFOR’s
Communications and Publications
Coordinator.

In the Pursuit of Justice

Alec Klein and the Medill Justice ProjectInterview by Richard Roth. Words by Lindsay Lafreniere.
A group of researchers, in the May
2014 Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, publishedstatistical research stating that 4.1
percent of American criminal defendants sentenced to death have been
falsely convicted. A group of students
at Northwestern University’s Medill
School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications is
working to rectify this.
“Over the course of 15 years, students at Medill have done incrediblelife-changing work,” says Alec Klein,director of The Medill Justice Projectand professor at Northwestern University. “They have investigated murder cases where people say that they
have been wrongfully convicted. The
work of our students over the last 15
years has played a role in the exoneration of many prisoners including
some who were on death row. The
student’s work helped inform the Illinois Governor’s decision to abolishthe death penalty.”
Klein brought two decades of experience as a newspaper reporter, including experience at the Washington Post
as an investigative reporter, to Medillwhen he joined in 2008.

“The term goes by at warp speed. The
VWXGHQWVKLWWKHÁRRUUXQQLQJDQGDUH
at it sometimes 24/7,” says Klein.
“Sometimes I have to remind themto take their other classes seriously
because they get so consumed bythese investigations. They are so passionate, they are so swept up in it, so
determined to discover the truth andmake a difference. These are students
who have other lives but they are still
capable of doing life-changing journalism.”
The Medill Justice project has created a database on shaken-baby syndrome cases in the USA, which has
become the largest of its kind in theworld. This past February, the Project
launched the Journalism Justice Network, to further their work to a larger
network of journalists and organizations.
“I decided to create the Journalism
Justice Network for a simple reason:
There is a need for it,” says Klein.
“Wrongful convictions remain an issue not only in the United States but
throughout the world. And it is mybelief The Medill Justice Project

shouldn’t have a monopoly on thisimportant work. We can help others—
XQLYHUVLWLHV QRQSURÀWV PHGLD RUJDnizations, individuals and others—tocreate their own projects to investigate potentially wrongful convictions
or examine criminal justice issues intheir own communities and nations. I
believe what we do is a public service
and we are happy to share our knowledge with others.”
The Journalism Justice Network
members currently include justiceprojects across the United States andalso in the United Kingdom.
“One of the biggest success stories
for the Journalism Justice Network
is we have grown from a network of
one—The Medill Justice Project—to
DQ LQWHUQDWLRQDO FRPPXQLW\ RI ÀYH
projects in little more than a year,”says Klein. “And in that brief span,
our members have already produced
breakthroughs in their investigations,
including at the UWT Justice Projectin Tacoma, Washington, and at Oklahoma Journalists for Justice in Tulsa,
Oklahoma.”“Being an investigative reporter ishumbling because it is hard work andslow going,” says Klein. “You work
hard but you fail often, but when I wasat the Washington Post I was fortunate
enough that they gave me the time toreally dig into stories, sometimes ayear on just one story. The impactof the stories was sometimes evenhard to fathom. The ability to uncoverevidence that will lead to hearings on
Capitol Hill or GAO reports, federallaw, things like that have a lasting impact. It is something that I hope to impart to our students.”
Klein’s class is supported by the Medill Justice Project and consists of ten
students, in their third or fourth yearof study. The term lasts just ten weeks.
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 23

“What acool liar
you are,Melly”
Hollywoodlegend Olivia
de Havillandas the bad girl
By Victoria Amador
24 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

In August 1943, Olivia de Havilland
took Jack Warner to court.
The head of Warner Brothers
had refused to release the actressfrom her seven-year contract on its
designated ending date, and instead
had extended the contract twentyfive weeks. This add-on was due tode Havilland’s choosing suspension—quite frequently--over ingénue roles
in predictable programmers. It wasstandard procedure by the studios
to tack on the time missed to a
performer’s contract, making actors
a highly paid species of indentured
servant.
Other Warner Brothers performers
and indentured servants had also
taken on Jack Warner. James Cagneycontinually went on suspension,
and when his contract ran out, hebecame one of the first Hollywood
stars to negotiate roles as a free agent,negotiating from film to film rather
than signing on to a major studio.
Unwilling to wait out her sevenyears, Bette Davis went to court overthis issue in 1936. Davis had sharedde Havilland’s frustration at being
molded as a type rather than an
artist, also going on suspension rather
than appearing in weak films; she
too wanted to direct her career more
independently and successfully. Davis,
despite trying her case in the London
courts in the hope of a fairer hearing,
had failed. However, fortunately for
Davis, Jack Warner recognized hervalue to the studio in terms of box
office as well as her artistry (she had
won her first best actress Oscar in1935 for Dangerous); after her attempt
at rebellion, she was given better roles
and began her ten-year run as thequeen of the studio.
Enter Olivia de Havilland. The sweet
heroine of the Errol Flynn epics.
Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in Gone
with the Wind, for which she received
her first Oscar nomination (as best
supporting actress), “as simple as earth,
as good as bread” (Mitchell, 1936
[1947]). She of the heart-shaped face,liquid diction, warm brandy voice,and doe eyes. An actress described by
Molly Haskell as one of a group who
were “the sunny side of a decade”. A
performer James Agee called “one ofthe prettiest women in movies”. A
star “whose delicacy and daintinesswere enormously winning”. A lady.

This delicate actress, creating apersona as a spirited lady in her screen
performances, charming and gracious
and a recipient by 1943 of two Oscar
nominations (the second for 1941’s
Hold Back the Dawn at Paramount)earned for work done away from herhome studio, hauled Jack Warner
into court to challenge his and otherstudio moguls’ contract policies. Herdecision cost de Havilland $13,000 ofher own money and kept her off thescreen until 1946. Not only couldn’t
she work during the litigation, but
Warner sent a letter to 77 studios
and production companies, effectively
blacklisting her from appearing inother vehicles at other studios.
However, with a resourcefulness
befitting
Melanie(or,
moreappropriately, Scarlett O’Hara), de
Havilland worked in radio and toured
with the USO, and in May 1944 theSuperior Court of California foundWarner Brothers in violation of thatstate’s anti-peonage laws. Now known
as “the de Havilland decision,” thisruling contributed to the end of thecontract system and the rise of theactor/agent relationship. It is evenrecalled today by such actors as Oscar
winner Jared Leto, who with hismusic group Thirty Seconds to Mars
is involving the decision in a musiccompany battle and has actually
spoken to de Havilland about it (O. de
Havilland, personal communication, 5
May 2014). The ladylike Olivia had
conquered the only mountain thattough Bette Davis, nicknamed thefifth Warner Brother, couldn’t climb.
Davis saw the titanium strength
behind the genteel exterior. She spokeof de Havilland in her autobiography,
The Lonely Life, as an “artist who had
integrity, [and] the will for holy battle”
against “the medium which stupidly
resisted its own enrichment”. Davisalso contributed a foreword to TonyThomas’s entertaining career overview,
The Films of Olivia de Havilland. She
noted that “Olivia should be thanked
by every actor today” for breaking the“potential contract for life” system, andalso commented that de Havilland“after her Warner contract was over...
overcame her beauty to triumph as anactress”.
De Havilland’s triumph is, well, almost
like a movie. After leaving Warner

Brothers, she signed a three-picture
deal with Paramount and scored an
Oscar in 1946 for To Each His Own
as an innocent illegitimate motherturned hard-headed business woman,the soft exterior belying a steel spine.
In 1948 she made 20th Century Fox’s
The Snake Pit, a landmark film about
the horrors of mental institutions, andwon another Oscar nomination as
well as the New York Critics Circle
Award. Her run of retributive goodroles culminated in her performanceas Catherine Sloper in Paramount’s
The Heiress (an adaptation of Henry
James’ Washington Square) for which
she won her second Best ActressOscar and another New York Critics
Circle Award in 1949. Oh, to havebeen a fly on Jack Warner’s wall thatyear.
This period was without question
the pinnacle of de Havilland’s career.
However, the actress worked steadilyin film, on stage, and on television
until 1988, receiving her last majorindustry award in 1986, when she won
a supporting actress Golden Globe
and an Emmy nomination for herrole in the television film Anastasia:
The Mystery of Anna at age 70. She
raised two children, wrote a memoirof her second marriage entitled Every
Frenchman Has One (referring not tothe obvious but rather to “the French
liver”), suffered through a lengthy,
ultimately unsatisfying love affair withJohn Huston, and reportedly endureda long feud with actress/sister, thelate Joan Fontaine, which only ended
with Fontaine’s death in December
2013. Such strength demonstrates
the “enterprising” woman within.
One always thinks of Gone with
the Wind’s iconic heroine, Scarlett
O’Hara, as the tough survivor whose
moral compass goes awry in lieu ofher need to survive the harsh yearsof the American Civil War. Yet
Melanie Hamilton, the sweet sisterin-law whose fragility and marriage
to Scarlett’s desired Ashley Wilkes
provokes Scarlett more than thedamn Yankees, gives birth as Sherman
approaches, provides succor tovirtually all of the novel’s characters,
and dies a martyr’s death. Her
toughness matches Scarlett’s, and in
the characterization supplied by Olivia
de Havilland in her most enduringrole, Melanie’s unconditional love andEye Magazine Sixth Edition | 25

ineffable strength center the film.
To moviegoers worldwide, deHavilland remains frozen in time asMiss Melly, the soft-spoken woman
who put love and loyalty above all
else, in a role the actress has describedas her favorite. Olivia de Havilland’s
screen/star identity replicated thatcareer-defining role, with the actresspresenting over the years a palatably
sincere Coventry Patmore-esque“Angel in the House” in many of her
ingénue pairings with Errol Flynn,
and in later film roles. Equally, ininterviews, de Havilland always
presents herself with elegance, theultimate uber-lady. An announcementin The New York Post in October 2013that she would make an appearance
at TCM’s 75th anniversary screeningof GWTW (sadly reconsidered as ataped interview with Robert Osborne
due to her ill health) further reiterated

the legacy of Melanie, which she hascreated and encouraged.
There is an irony in this, for Olivia deHavilland has proved at every turn in
her life to have just as much gumption
and steel in her character as her
Melanie and the feisty, fiery Scarlett
O’Hara. She may have looked theprototype of the sweetly appealing film
heroine, but at heart she has always
been a maverick with a flinty streak
and the courage and determination tofight for her independent viewpoint.
It is de Havilland’s uncharacteristicroles, which provide viewers with an
insight into the actress who won two
Oscars and five nominations, whose
lawsuit against Warner Brothers
changed forever the studio contractsystem, and whose remarkable internal
strength has brought her to her 98th
birthday with her wit and memory

Ida Lupino and Olivia de Havilland in Devotion.
26 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

intact. This paper will explore several
films, which afforded de Havilland
challenges to her proper persona,demonstrating an intriguing ability
to explore dark, dangerous characters.
Specifically, her performances in The
Dark Mirror as twins, one good andone homicidal; as a decidedly prickly
Charlotte Bronte in Deception; in
My Cousin Rachel as the eponymous
femme fatale; and in Hush…Hush,
Sweet Charlotte as a sugary foil to
Bette Davis offer another perspective
upon de Havilland’s career. These are
not the heroines for which the actressis remembered, yet they demonstrate
her artistry as vividly as her betterknown, gentler incarnations.
Devotion—“They called them freesouls!”
This film was the last de Havilland
made under her Warner Brotherscontract before she took the studioto court, but it was not released until
1946, not only because the film was
not particularly strong, but also as
a way of keeping de Havilland off
screen during the trial. This highly
romanticized story of the Brontes
had been planned for years, and “thestudio believed [it] would be in thesame league with their successful
biographies about Emile Zola, [and]Louis Pasteur” (Thomas, 1983). But
by the time production began inNovember 1943, rather than starring
Bette Davis and Miriam Hopkins as
originally planned, the film gave Ida
Lupino the lead, as a sensitive anddreamy Emily, over de Havilland’s
pushy, unsympathetic Charlotte.
Arthur Kennedy played the doomed,
drunken Branwell; contract player
Nancy Coleman was a pallid Anne;and Paul Henreid appeared as Arthur
Nicholls, the curate who eventuallymarried Charlotte. In this version,
Emily and Charlotte are fighting for
Arthur’s affections, a radical departurefrom the truth. De Havilland was given
what should have been the plumb roleof Jane Eyre’s author, but she disliked
the screenplay by Theodore Reeves,
Keith Winter, and Edward Chodorov,and the supporting nature of the role.
While the trailer of the film declared,“They called them free souls!” that
irony could not have been lost on
the unhappy actress. That her sister,
Joan Fontaine, was portraying the
eponymous heroine of Jane Eyre ina prestigious production with Orson
Welles could not have made matterseasy.

Olivia de Havilland has proved atevery turn in her life to have justas much gumption and steel in her
character as her Melanie and thefeisty, fiery Scarlett O’Hara.
women I worked with, Ida Lupino
seemed the most vulnerable. She wasa soft person with a great sense ofsweetness about her, but anything thatmight have developed between us wasdestroyed by Olivia’s machinations.”
The director, Curtis Bernhardt, wasalso frustrated by de Havilland’s
attitude on set. Jeremy Arnold notes,“Bernhardt found Olivia de Havilland(Charlotte Bronte) much moredifficult to work with,” describing
how she fought him on the simplest
staging instructions. “‘Lupino,’ he said,‘was more accessible artistically thande Havilland during the making of
the film. De Havilland became reallyobnoxious.’”

In defense of the actress, she had
two Oscar nominations at thispoint. Ida Lupino was considered,however, the greater star at Warner
Brothers. This after de Havilland’s
string of eight box-office successes
with Errol Flynn was a bitter pill forher. She was also given third billing,
after Lupino and Henreid, and that
This version of the Brontes makes too could not have been easy. De
Charlotte a bully, an “unscrupulous Havilland was coming off of a string
ruler of the Bronte ambitions” (Katz, of pleasant but unremarkable films;
1976), despite her sisters’ retiring even Princess O’Rourke (1943), which
nature. Conscious of her screen won Norman Krasna an Oscar for
persona, this could not have made best original screenplay, cast her as an
the actress happy. Although she wrote ingénue, nothing more. Her ongoingto me in a recent e-mail, “I do not love affair at the time with John
remember that any of the characters Huston may also have contributedin this film were dark or enigmatic,” to her frustrations, as not only was
her Charlotte was certainly the former the maverick director a free soul, he
in her unsympathetic badgering of her was also married and proving to besisters and her brother. Additionally, de difficult to entice into a commitment.
Havilland was extremely contentious He had also directed her in 1942’s
during the making of the film, and co- In This Our Life with Bette Davis,
star Henreid mentioned her difficult guiding her to a mature performance
behavior in his autobiography: “Stars as a long-suffering but invincible
are not vulnerable women,” he wrote. sister to Davis’s spoiled protagonist.
“To get to the top you must have Hence all of this contributed to thean aggressive nature. But of all the creation of a disagreeable actress who

was about to sue her employer, towhom she referred in private as “‘Jack
the Warden.’”De Havilland was known also forbecoming ill when she was frustrated
at the studio. During the wardrobe
and makeup tests, she “was alsoafflicted with an odd sickness in her
legs, which broke out in large swellings
that made it almost impossible forher to walk” (Higham, 1984). It isdifficult to ignore the metaphor ofbeing unable to run away from thestudio and the film.
To give Jack Warner credit, he changed
the script so that de Havilland would
get the closing shot with Henreid after
Lupino’s death; “he wanted to have deHavilland end up with Henreid at
the film’s climax because winning theleading man’s heart would help build
de Havilland’s stardom, and her futurebox office power.” However, Lupino
had been told she was to have theclosing shot, and when she learned thetruth, she was devastated. She cried toher co-star Henreid, who pronounced,“‘Olivia is a troublemaker’.” It is ironicthat in a scene as Arthur Nicholls withde Havilland’s Charlotte, Henreid
intones with complete sincerity, “There
are two ways of dealing with young
ladies of your perverse temperament,
Miss Bronte. It is fortunate for you
that I am not a woman beater”! The
kiss that follows that declaration
is not only unromantic; it looks as
though the actor wants to shatter deHavilland’s mouth with his teeth.
So Olivia’s Charlotte may not have
had top billing and may have been
written—and acted—as a bitch, but
she did get the all-important closing
scene. And even though the film isdisparaged by most scholars because of
its Hollywood-ized view of the Bronte
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 27

Olivia de Havilland playing twins in The Dark Mirror.
family, de Havilland is gripping in therole. Going against her usual personaof rational, bemused, intelligent spirit,
she is strident, needy, bossy, anddeliciously unpleasant.
At the age of 27, her young andrather soft prettiness is settling into
more interesting angles and planes.
The ringlets she wears thanks to
Perc Westmore do not mirror thesimple, smooth style worn by the realCharlotte in the portraits we have of
the author, but they frame the actress’s
face becomingly. Her flowing, hoopskirted costumes, designed by Milo
Anderson, are tremendously flattering
to her figure. Vocally, de Havilland
is also more interesting, utilizing alower register in the romantic scenes
with Henreid, further contributing
to a Charlotte with a dark edge. The
great Ernie Haller photographs deHavilland flatteringly, so if she must
be cast as a perverse heroine, a real/reel life Becky Sharp, she certainlycommands her scenes with her beauty
and intelligence.
In fact, one of her best scenes features
the fabled meeting between Charlotte
and author of Becky Sharp, William
Makepeace Thackeray. As portrayedby Warners contract star and fabled
28 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition“Fat Man” from The Maltese Falcon,
Sydney Greenstreet, Thackeray islike a Father Christmas with great
appreciation for the young writer, andtheir exchange is spirited and lively,
both enjoying their witty repartee.
Yet why Charlotte is so unpleasant isnever clearly articulated in the script.
She seems flighty, wanting one minuteto publish and the next to pursue thelegendary M. Heger, the Brussels
school principal who oversaw thereal Charlotte and Emily’s training
as future governesses. Charlotte’s
motivations aren’t clearly developed,
yet de Havilland makes something of
the woman. Her desires are built on aneed to see the world, just as Emily’sare built on a need to enclose her own.
She feels the weight of her siblings’
fortunes on her shoulders, particularly
given the tragic failures of Branwell.
There is fierceness in de Havilland’s
portrait of Charlotte, and the steel
backbone of the actress shows throughin the character she plays.
The film was not reviewed particularly
well. Bosley Crowther wrote in The
New York Times that “Olivia deHavilland plays Charlotte with avast deal of pretty arrogance” but thatthe film “[p]resented as the story of

the Brontës…it is a ridiculous tax
upon reason and an insult to plain
intelligence.” Today, however, we
can view the film as a romanticizedbut occasionally intriguing view ofa mythic family, told through theblack and white lens of 1940s studiofilmmaking, featuring some of Warner
Brothers’ finest contract players.
The Dark Mirror
The first important film de Havilland
made after her lawsuit win was her
1946, Oscar-winning triumphs, To
Each His Own. However, before thattriumph, the actress was working
again despite her legal battle with Jack
Warner. She returned first to movie
audiences thanks to Paramount’s
1946 tepid romantic comedy The WellGroomed Bride. Originally scheduled
to star Paulette Goddard, who became
pregnant, de Havilland agreed to makethe rather predictable programmer
because Paramount agreed to workwith her, even though the Supreme
Court of California hadn’t yet madea decision on her legal clearance from
Warner Brothers. While her costar was Oscar winner Ray Milland,
the film is hard work for actors andviewers alike.

Also in 1946, she made The Dark Mirror
for Universal, and while this was nota particularly huge box office success,nor an Oscar-winning opportunity, itoffered de Havilland “the challenge ofplaying two roles in a film…no redblooded actress can resist” (Thomas,
1983). In fact, this film replicatedonce again her friend Bette Davis,
who in the same year portrayed twins
in A Stolen Life (brilliantly parodied
on The Carol Burnett Show as A Swiped
Life, complete with foghorn bellows),
and again in 1964’s Dead Ringer. The
film allowed de Havilland to stretch
her acting chops with two roles in one
film, portraying one good sister and
one who is described by psychiatrist
and shared love interest of the twins
Lew Ayres as “completely insane”(Dark Mirror, 1946).
Psychiatry
andpsychological
exploration in films was increasingly
popularafter
WW2;
AlfredHitchcock’s 1945 Spellbound, with the
dream sequence designed by Salvador
Dali, established the template for such
films. It was logical that de Havilland’s
search for roles to establish herself asa serious actress would lead her tofilms addressing the rising Americaninterest in psychotherapy. VladimirPozner’s original story was nominatedfor an Oscar, and the actress insisted
that all of the cast members meet witha psychiatrist. The script was written
by Nunnally Johnson, a triple-threat
screenwriter, director and producer
whose interest in psychological issues
mirrored de Havilland’s. She received
her fourth Oscar nomination for
1948’s The Snake Pit, and Johnson
not only wrote the screenplay for
My Cousin Rachel but also wrote anddirected 1957’s The Three Faces of Eve,based on the true story of multiple
personality sufferer Chris Costner
Sizemore, which resulted in Joanne
Woodward’s best actress Oscar. And
despite mixed reviews, the film wasremade for television in 1984 with
Jane Seymour.

a way to determine the true murderer.
While Ayres examines both sisters,
determining the madness of Terryrather simply—through the use of
Rorschach ink blots—the subtle andgrowing differences between thesisters develop thanks to the artistry ofde Havilland and her director, Robert
Siodmak.
De Havilland reminisced about her
preparation for the role and said,“[W]hen the dialogue director andother members of the company joinedme for an informal appointment
with a psychiatrist to gain insight
into Terry’s psychotic condition…weasked her about the Rorschach Test,
to which Terry had submitted.” And
the result? “The doctor…swore us tosecrecy and then divulged the key tothat test. This secret…I have kept all
this time” (O. de Havilland, personalcommunication, 7 January 2015).
Siodmakdirectedthegreat
psychological thriller The Spiral
Staircase, still chilling despite its
now-primitive diagnosis of thementally disturbed.
Utilizing a“film noir technique… [t]he nuancesemphasized by Siodmak’s lighting
enable de Havilland’s divided sisters
to assume complexities not evident
in their earlier scenes” (Kass, 1976).
He guided de Havilland into a
new persona—complex, sexual, andlethal. While her Ruth is sweet andcharmingly feminine and feisty, notunlike the Errol Flynn heroines ofyore, she employs a lower vocal registerto demonstrate that at 30 years old,
Ruth and Terry and Olivia wereindependent working women, andthat these ladies were not for burning
by anyone—not the psychiatrist or thepolice in the film, nor Jack Warner.
De Havilland brings a new maturity
to the role of Terry particularly, themurderess. She smokes, while Ruth
doesn’t. De Havilland does smoke
occasionally on film, but this issomething unusual for the actress.
Her Terry is also confrontational,
manipulative, and ruthless (punintended). When she is interviewed
using the Rorschach cards, she notices
psychiatrist Ayres watching her, andher responses to his questions about
what she is seeing are cold and clever.
She wants to date the doctor and she
makes the first move—“Will we seeeach other outside of your office?”
Her posture is stronger and her figure
shapelier, almost in anticipation of thetransformation she will undergo as
Catherine Sloper three years later in
The Heiress. There’s a subtle sexuality
in her gaze as Terry, and her overall
subtle shifts in two twins who must be
close enough in appearance to fool awise policeman are effective and fun.
Bosley Crowther, the legendary film
critic for The New York Times anda notoriously crotchety reviewer,
didn’t enjoy the film. He particularly
criticized her performance, saying,“Olivia de Havilland is the dual lady,

De Havilland’s twin sisters, Terry andRuth Collins, refuse to incriminate
each other when an acquaintanceof both is found stabbed in theheart. While one of the womenwas seen by neighbors, neither willcompromise the other’s alibi, so it
is up to psychiatrist Lew Ayres anddetective Thomas Mitchell to concoct
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 29

and for the life of us we never were
sure when she was being Ruth, thegood sister, and Terry, the evil one.
Or, was it the other way around?” But
to play them as extreme characters,
or with wildly different personalities,
would be an absurd choice. Siodmak
guides her to a very complex depictionof two sisters who are too tied to one
another and yet too different to betruly sisterly. De Havilland herself saidof playing a bad sister, “Terry…was so
dark and so evil that playing her was
an extremely painful experience forme—one I would never, ever, want
to repeat” (O. de Havilland, personalcommunication, 7 January 2015).
On the other hand, critic James Ageewrote in The Nation, “I very much like
Olivia de Havilland’s performance….

Broadway roles in Romeo and Juliet
and Candida, raising her young son,and divorcing his father and her firsthusband, author Marcus Goodrich,
her return to the screen “is notablefor providing de Havilland with oneof the few interesting roles she would
have in the next three decades andas Richard Burton’s American film
debut” (Kass, 1976).
The film was troubled. George Cukor,
her great friend and original director
on Gone with the Wind (who famously
directed de Havilland and Vivien
Leigh on the sly, away from the set,
after he was fired and replaced byVictor Fleming), had read NunnallyJohnson’s adaptation of du Maurier’s
film, and first he tried to lure Garboout of retirement. Failing that, Cukor[Director Robert Siodmak] guided deHavilland into a new persona—complex,
sexual, and lethal.
her playing is thoughtful, quiet,
detailed, and well sustained, and since
it is founded, as some more talented
playing is not,in an unusually healthfulseeming and likeable temperament,
it is an undivided pleasure to see.”
Jeanine Basinger, in her insightful
book A Woman’s View, notes thatthe bad sister, Terry, is a frightening
portrayal of “a domineering menace,
full of anger, and a murderess.” Coldly
staring out from behind the lovely de
Havilland eyes, Terry portends theactress’s graceful movement from one
potentially malevolent manipulation
to the next in her incarnation six
years later as a nineteenth century
temptress.
My Cousin Rachel
Although her late sister, Joan Fontaine,
earned a reputation as a Daphne duMaurier screen heroine for her workin Rebecca (1940) and Frenchman’s
Creek (1944), de Havilland earned
her opportunity in 1952’s My Cousin
Rachel for Twentieth Century Fox.
This was to be her return to the screen
after her 1949 best actress Oscar
for The Heiress. Preoccupied with30 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

visited du Maurier in Cornwall andrealized a good film of the novel had
to be filmed on location. But Darryl
Zanuck at Fox refused to do this.
Next Vivien Leigh turned down the
picture, so Cukor dropped out of the
project.
Then Mitchell Leisen, whom deHavilland adored and who had guided
her to her 1946 Oscar for To Each His
Own was supposed to direct, and deHavilland signed on enthusiastically.
But Paramount wouldn’t loan him.
Another director who was consideredwas “Carol Reed…who was…
chosen to direct the movie and thenwas unable to fulfill the assignment
because of a conflict of dates” (O. de
Havilland, personal communication,
7 January 2015). He was replacedby contract director Henry Koster.
While Koster provided “sympathetic
direction” (Higham, 1984), one can’t
help but wonder what the film would
have been like with Cukor or Leisen
or Reed in charge.
While the screenplay by Johnson
successfully condensed the highlightsof du Maurier’s disturbing studyof a lethal woman, the presence ofRichard Burton, Fox’s new star on therise, dominated the film’s story. And
although her appearance as the black
widow Rachel Sangalletti Ashley
intrigues the audience, providing
a 36-year-old actress with a newsensuality and grace, her appearancetwenty minutes into the film, andthe uncertainty at the end of the film
concerning her real motives leave thefilm somewhat unsatisfactory. Whende Havilland was asked “whether thecentral figure of the story was guilty
or innocent, she smiled and declined
to answer” (ibid.).
Recently, she discussed her preparation
for the role of Rachel:“In preparation for My Cousin Rachel,
I had to know whether Rachel was
guilty or innocent before I could
portray her. After reading the booktwice, I still had no idea, which she
was. I read it a third time, and thistime I thought I knew. It was now
my task to play every scene so that she
could be interpreted either way, thus
fulfilling du Maurier’s intention.
Some years later I met du Maurier’s
great friend, Carol Reed, the brilliant
British film director….I asked Carol
Reed if du Maurier had confided tohim the secret of Rachel’s guilt or
innocence, saying that I had read thebook three times before perceiving
what I was sure was the truth, andwas eager to know if I had guessed
correctly. He swore me to secrecy andthen let me know what du Maurier
had told him. To my great delightit was the same as my conclusion.
This is the secret I have kept all theseyears” (O. de Havilland, personalcommunication, 7 January 2015).
As the title character, de Havilland
offers viewers and inscrutable“heroine.” Is Rachel simply thesophisticated, continental widow of
Richard Burton’s dead uncle, or is shea poisonous Borgia who murdered
one rich man and then seduced
his heir? Jeanine Basinger, in her
insightful book A Woman’s View,
comments, “Burton is Eyre to Olivia
de Havilland’s Rochester”.
Her
Rachel is a mysterious temptress who
allows herself to be draped with jewels
by her young lover while brewing atisane for his health. And we neverknow whether that special tea isaphrodisiacal or arsenical.
De Havilland’s Rachel displays her
credentials as a possibly lethal aunt
when we see her continental seductionof Burton’s Philip. She invites him toher boudoir, where she has befriended
his pet dog. In fact, as she pets the dog,
he takes to chewing on her fingers, andshe handles the over-friendly caninewith affection while at the same time
focusing solely on Philip. She tells
him he’s welcome to smoke. Her
Rachel, through feminine maturity,
insinuates herself into the lonely
young man’s heart with her candor,
her smiles, her flirtations, and her linkto his dead uncle. De Havilland’s
demeanor, her slight smiles, and herironic brave helplessness make her theperfect conqueror of foil Burton.
When we see them kissing (always
long, passionate embraces), when heplaces jewels around her neck, when
he gazes at her lovingly and she returns
affection with a brief, slight smile,

we see a new actress. She’s with the
new heartthrob of the screen. She’s
winning his affection—believably-from the young, fresh Audrey Dalton
as Louise, the ingénue in love with
Burton’s Philip. She entertains her
old friend and Philip’s perceived rival
Guido Rainaldi (George Dolenz) in
Philip’s country home and despite theobtuse nature of their relationship—
are they merely friends? Lovers?
Did she cheat on Philip’s uncle
with Rainaldi?—she retains Philip’s
devotion.
In a wonderfully romantic dream scene,
when Philip is ill with fever (or did
Rachel make him ill and then restore
his health?), the young man dreams hehas married her, and de Havilland isbeautiful in this soft-filter scene as hisbride. To use contemporary colloquial
language, she is the ultimate cougar inthis scene, desirable and mature.
This scene follows Rachel’s dramaticturnabout after Philip’s 25th birthday,
when he comes into his majority and

immediately signs his entire fortune
over to his uncle’s widow. She’s very
grateful to accept the money, butwhen he announces they are engaged,
after what has obviously been apassionate affair, she turns icy anddismissive. From thence forward, theidyll is over. Did she seduce him to
get the money? Or did she find hisassumption insulting? Philip’s uncle
was Rachel’s second husband. Did
she also kill the first?
Whether or not her Rachel is saint or
sinner, we see a new de Havilland in
the film. Dressed in black as a widow
for most of the action, her weeds are
off the shoulder, chiffon confections,which make her look like a womanof the world. During the film theactress was divorced, and she wasnow a single mother of a young son,contributing certainly to a new sensual
receptiveness in her performance.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 62

Olivia de Havilland, Audrey Dalton and Richard Burton in My Cousin Rachel
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 31

FILM HISTORYA Paradox of Objectivity Immersed
in Hard-Hitting Action

BY WAJIHA RAZA RIZVIVictory at Sea, a cold war epic byDirector M. Clay Adams, proved
to be one of the most popular
documentary series in the history ofAmerican television. Nevertheless,the series left its viewers immersed ina paradox of objective realism; as the
television news coverage in the era of
the Vietnam War reflects bias due to
network television’s monopoly of thesourcing of national and world news.
According to Frank Russo (1971),
Elmo Roper & Associates polls in
1959, 1961, 1963, 1964, and 1967
confirm television’s status as theprimary, most believable source ofnews; Nielson ratings indicate that 35
million television sets were “tuned toevening news shows each night” (540).
32 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

NBC took the unique opportunity to
beam major events of WWII directly
into the comfort of living rooms via
the new technology of television while
the memories of war were still fresh in
public minds. The living experiencesof the true to life hard-hitting-action,
desolation, destruction, and death
were launched into people’s houses
like breaking news.
Victory at Sea used real WWII footage
to fictionalize and fabricate war
realities that muddle the confines ofobjective rendering. New technologiesof the 1930s had made it possible forNavy camera crews in protagonist(Allies: United States, Union Soviet
Socialist Republic, and Great Britain)
and antagonist (Axis powers: Japan,

Italy, and Germany) teams to use
portable cameras and quality film
stock to film accounts of theiroperations across the globe. Peter C.
Rollins (1972) argues that the Allied
victory resulted in protagonist control
over antagonist footage. Recounting
a mixture of the actualities of naval
operations of WWII from protagonist
and antagonist points of view, Victoryat Sea episodes offer idealistic
interpretations of war realities.
These
interpretations
reduceobjectivity
tosubjectivity
byinfluencing social and psychologicalperceptions of war in human objects,
a phenomenon which had special
significance and role in the cold war
era. The mediation of the real images

Montages follow repetitive patterns:
Allied forces move from left to rightand Axis powers from right to left. An
impact is created through reinforcing
images of ship, ship, ship, and gun,gun, gun in juxtaposition to enemy
leitmotiv war, war, war like a constantthreat. This action style editing createshigh drama by knocking viewers
with booming, repetitive, in and out
imagery. An impact montage of big
guns, parallel fifty caliber bullets, andbombers follows an impact montage
of big ships creating a thriving impactof the war threat on minds andpersonalizing hatred of American
enemies. The power of the impact isenhanced through the orchestrationof the protagonist and antagonist
leitmotivs and their variants that
effectively perform at the level of thesubconscious.

protagonist naval plane touches thesea surface, symbolizing the positionof the navy as savior of maritime peaceand freedom. Earlier, at the beginningof the documentary, after the V for
victory sign emerges above the tides,
we see several shots of ships in a row
that follow several mid-shots of half
naked naval officers and then close
ups of several GIs. The impact of theAmerican’s militarily invincible muscle
is created. Later, a personalized order,“Strike! Repeat! Strike! Good Luck!,”from the higher naval command isdelivered in a close up, which follows
a tight shot of a speaker, symbolizing
communication of the commanddown the hierarchical chain. This
scene follows a sequence of fast
cutting long and close shots of loyal
officers, flags, ships, and planes as thecommand and ideology rule. The lightbombers of the protagonists fly fromright to left, and of antagonists fromleft to right. The mid-shot (with a backfocus) of an officer celebrating victorywith a flying kiss at the blast of theenemy’s mariner, holds many planesof the protagonists in the background.
The sequence repetitively orchestrates
hype building imagery of sailors, flags,

machines, ships, planes, guns, andtorpedoes to create a powerful impact
montage in juxtaposition to rising
tones of the leitmotivs of enemyattack in the earlier part and victoryin the later. The paradoxical montagesof the victorious Allied advancebuild war icons, dictate war ideology
to make viewers sympathize withlarger than life political causes andbury human cost of victory under thegeneralizations of freedom.
Episode 20, Victory at Sea: Return of
the Allies, Liberation of the Philippines
builds on the binaries of friends/
enemies, good/evil, Allied forces/
Axis powers, Americans/Japanese,
democracy/despotism to complicatecomprehension of war realities.
This film puts together spectacularmontages of Kamikaze flaming planes
crashing into the sea, devastating
damage on Allied ships, fleeing
citizens, a ruined flaming city, a church
temporarily turned into a hospital, asoldier helping a little boy to quench
his thirst with water, and again at theclose of the war, Kamikaze planes
crashing into buildings, and ships
in the harbor, victorious Americans

Photograph by Mark Stevens / Flickr and calltheambulance / Flickr

transforms the image into the real,causing a loss of ability to differentiate
reality from fiction. Victory at Sea
is an erroneous production, which
reenacts the events of WWII outside
their original temporal and spatial
realities. Rollins says it compromises
authenticity at the cost of human“drama that’s packed into history”:
Japanese ships and bombers advancing
on American ships and bombers or
Kamikaze suicide attacks against
Allied targets in the closing phase of
the Pacific campaign. This powerful,‘entertaining’ spectacle spliced withnarrations of then popular celebrity
Leonard Graves and the symphonies
of Richard Rodgers obscures theseperceptions through impact montages
at a breathless pace. This technique,loaded with the official ideologicalspirit of of war, is preserved from thefirst episode, Victory at Sea: Design for
War, to the last episode, Victory at Sea:
Design for Peace.

Episode 19, Victory at Sea: The Battlefor Leyte Gulf, fictionalizes a close
encounter between the Allied forces
and the Japanese. In one of theextended scenes, the shadow of the
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 33

Photograph by Mark Stevens / Flickr and calltheambulance / Flickr

turning the tide of war, and the flags
in Manila, Bataan, and Corregador
following Philippines liberation. The
sequence juxtaposes high and low
pitch symphonic motifs as needed
to end on rising victorious notes as
Graves repeats Roosevelt’s words,“American soldiers fight not for thelust of conquest; they fight to win;they fight to liberate.” The paradoxicalmontages repetitively emphasize, what
Rollins (1972) calls, the American
ideology of patriotism, cause, freedom
and victory over human loss under thegeneralizations of democracy. Enemy
motives for historical Kamikaze
attacks are reduced under a larger
cause of liberation of the Philippines.
The building up of the enemy threat
and misery is dramatically reversed
into his own camp. Rollins says theprotagonist dies for a noble cause
and the antagonist for no cause. One
reality is compromised over another.
The portrayal of un-distressed Alliedsoldiers indoctrinates viewers intomere observers who do not sympathizewith dramatized public deaths of

34 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

the antagonists. The film follows aphilosophy of dangerous moralism;
Fred Friendly, a former president of
CBS News said, “A country cannot
commit to fight the war unless thecountry hated the enemy.” Thispowerful series aims at building
hatred of the enemy and raising talons
to involve the American public in thedrama of war. This pseudo-realistic
series does not offer to viewers a“truly realistic mental picture” of war’s
past, present, and future (Rollins,
1992). The viewers learn about therighteous American character, andan American desire to help the weak;the Philippines is liberated from thethreat of Japanese despotism. The
series orchestrates sublime themesof American innocence, rhetoric ofliberation, machines in action, innocent
protagonists and mean antagonists.
The viewers are emotionally absorbed
in predestined judgment made by
the producers of the oligopolistic
broadcast industry, far from an insight
into the complexities of war.
The Victory at Sea series is a typicalincidence of the mainstream media
and government alliance in pursuitof their own focused interests during
the cold war era. This alliance wasalso operating in Vietnam; where
government and military officials weremedia informants and facilitators in
the drama of Vietnam. In fact during
the period of full-blown Americancommitment in Vietnam, the series
itself was frequently broadcasted inseveral states to build the ‘morale’ ofthe viewing public. The series Victoryat Sea originated the beginning ofmodern war genre within American
documentary. Indeed the media clearly
showed its passion for exploiting theopportunity to build a factory forthe production of current affairs anddocumentaries for consumption in themarket place following its debut.
Wajiha Raza Rizvi is the founding
director of the Film Museum Society
Lahore. She collects the archives ofPakistani cinema, conducts research,
produces films, and provides
consultancy to established media
institutions.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVESJapan’s Ill-Fated
Decision for War
BY DAVID MCCORMACKThe economic crisis of the Great
Depression had a profound influence on Japanese strategic thinking
in the 1930s. The collapse of world
trade prompted the military into reviving long held ideas concerning
the creation of an empire in China.
Japan lacked raw materials and hadseen its population more than double
since the abolition of the Shogunate
in 1868. As a source of much-needed
raw materials and a ready-made export market, China seemed to be theanswer to Japan’s economic problems.
As a precursor to war with China, themilitary, acting largely independentlyof the government, provoked a war in
Manchuria. Army officers wanted toprove themselves more powerful thanthe Japanese cabinet, which in theevent stood by impotently allowing
the Army to realise its goals.
Meddling in politics by the Army
was hardly a new phenomenon in
Japan. During the reign of the Emperor Meiji, a decree had prohibitedthe military from taking part in party
politics. However, the decree failed
to deter young and ambitious officers
from forming secret societies, which
focused on issues of national reformand national security.
On 18th September 1931, the militarists struck when a firefight broke out
following a bomb explosion on theJapanese owned Manchurian Railway.
The following morning units of theJapanese Kwantung Army occupied
Mukden, Changchun, and laid siege
to the city of Kirin.
China appealed to the League of Nations for help. A League of Nationscommission was set up to determine
the causes of the Japanese invasionof Manchuria. Led by Lord Lytton,

the commission delivered its reportin September 1932. Whist branding
Japan as the aggressor, the report recognised the role of China’s anti-Japanese propaganda in inflaming tensions. Notwithstanding provocations
by the Chinese, the report called for
a voluntary withdrawal from all areas
occupied by force in Manchuria.
The Japanese Government reacted angrily to the Lytton Report, and in February 1933 withdrew from the Leagueof Nations. Manchuria was annexed
and became the Japanese territory ofManchukuo. In May 1934, the Armynegotiated a truce, establishing a demilitarised zone south of Manchuria.
The perpetrators of the Manchurian
Crisis were a group of officers belonging to the Cherry Blossom Society
founded in early 1931. Their prime
objective was to establish a military
dictatorship in Japan.
Long before the Manchurian Crisis, secret societies such as the LeftShoulder Clique and the Imperial Commander’s Society flourished.
These societies had the same militaristic ambitions, which characterised
the Cherry Blossom Society. The rising tide of militarism in Japan led topolitical turmoil, culminating in theassassination of Prime Minister Inukai in 1933.
Inukai had founded the Constitutional National Party as a popular
movement opposed to the autocratic
government of army general Prince
Katsura Taro. Inukai became prime
minister in 1931, following the fall of
the Wakatsuki Reijiro cabinet, which
had failed to control the army. His
premiership was characterised by hisstrong opposition to elements within
the Army who wished to usurp thepolitical power of the cabinet. Inukai’s assassination clearly marked theend of party political participationin Japanese home affairs. With thepoliticians rapidly losing control of
events, the political vacuum created
was quickly filled by the Army, whose
main factions the Kodo - ha (Imperial Way) and the Tosei – ha (Control
Faction) engaged in a power struggle
to determine Japan’s foreign policy.
In August 1935, Colonel Saburo
Aizawa, a member of the Kodo – haassassinated General Tetsuzan Nagata for allegedly bringing the Army
into disrepute as a result of his dealings with the Zaibatsu corporations.
Seven months later, a group of officers including Tukatsaga, Muranka,
Asaichi, Isobe, Teruzo Ando andYasuhide Kurihara gathered approximately 1400 troops around them andattempted a coup. The aim of the coup
was to restore the authority of theEmperor by force. Government residences were attacked, resulting in theviolent deaths of the Finance Ministerand the Director of Military Education.
The coup however lacked the support of the High Command and aftersome initial doubts, the Emperor also
made a stand against the coup leaders. In the subsequent purge, membersof the Kodo – ha were compelled tovacate important posts. The Generals
extracted a high price from the politicians for restoring order, making it
clear that from now on they would
veto any Government decision relating to national security. With the military effectively dictating policy, it was
only a matter of time before hostilities
in China would be resumed.
On 7 July 1937, a Japanese infantry
detachment on a night exercise came
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 35

Photograph by Marion Doss / Flickr

under fire whilst resting on the banksof the Yunting River near Peking. At
the ancient Marco Polo Bridge, thebugle had just sounded the end of theexercise when incoming fire was detected coming from nearby Chinese
positions. There was a brief skirmish
as Japanese troops returned fire. A
second Japanese company was rushed
to the bridge, but by the time they arrived it was all over. A Japanese staff
officer negotiated a truce. Both sides
had only just agreed to break off hostilities over what had been a unfortunate mistake when a second volleycrashed into the Japanese positions.
Whilst the first shots fired into theJapanese positions may have been accidental, the second were definitely
suspicious as relations between theJapanese and Chinese troops had
previously been good. The following
morning Japanese troops withdrew
under a local agreement and in doing so again came under fire. It wasabundantly clear by now that a third
party had an interest in keeping theskirmish alive. Nonetheless, the Japa36 | Eye Magazine Sixth Editionnese and Chinese accused the other ofbreaking the truce. As a consequence,negotiations came to nothing and inJapan voices could be heard demanding swift retribution.
Prime Minister Prince Konoye felt
compelled to acquiesce to the militarists’ demands, lest his government
fall. It made little difference to themilitarists if the incident was started
by Chinese troops or by Communist
agitators. In their eyes, the prestige of
the Empire of Japan had been damaged and as such they chose to reactby launching a punitive expedition
against the Chinese mainland.
Within eight weeks of General Katsuki’s proclamation of a punitive expedition, the Japanese force in North
China had increased to sixteen divisions. This reinforced army under thecommand of General Terauchi deployed southwards to engage Chinese
forces defending Shanghai and Nanking. The Yangtse was heavily defended by elements of the German trained,
Chinese Central Army, manning theirown version of the Hindenburg Line.
The fortified area stretched from Kyiangyin to Hangchow. Japanese forces
outflanked this impressive defensive
line by carrying out an amphibious
assault at Hangchow Bay. A further
landing at Plover Point panicked thedefenders into a hasty retreat, leaving
the way open to Nanking.
The battle for Nanking was brief but
bloody, and on 13 December forward
elements of the Japanese Army entered the city. The following day saw
the arrival of the main body of troops,
and with it began the terrible episodeknown as the Rape of Nanking. Fora month Japanese troops engaged in
an officially sanctioned reign of terror.
The death toll ran into many thousands, and as details of atrocities became known in the west, public opinion hardened against Japan.
Japan’s international standing had
been seriously damaged by events
in China. A fierce debate broke out
amongst the High Command with
General Tada urging the suspension

gkufeng. A ceasefire was negotiatedand held out until May 1939 when aJapanese Cavalry Regiment was attacked at Mononhan. The Kwantung
Army reacted swiftly and dispatchedaircraft to carry out a reprisal raid
deep inside Mongolia. What had atfirst appeared to be a minor borderincident soon escalated into a major
confrontation as both sides rushed reinforcements to the area. In this undeclared border war the Japanese cameup against a formidable adversary in
the form of General Zhukov. Japaneseforces were outflanked and envelopedby Zhukov’s fast moving armoured
units.

The attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941.
of all offensive operations. He echoed
General Ishiwara’s warning that the
war in China was too severe a drain
on Japans limited resources. However,despite General Tada’s warnings the
expansionists in the High Command
prevailed. On 16 January 1938, Prime
Minister Prince Konoe stated thatthe war would be prosecuted with renewed vigour.
In March the Japanese forces advanced south towards Hsuchow. On 7
April, spearheads attacking the townof Taierchwang were cut off and surrounded. The Japanese troops put up
a desperate defence. A relief effort
failed and all 8000 troops died to aman. This defeat though humiliating
for the High Command was only atemporary setback. Hsuchow fell on
19th May and by October Hankow
had been occupied. In February 1939
Hainan Island was overrun, Japanese
troops pushed on to the border ofFrench Indo China, cutting off therail link with Hanoi.
The forces of Chinese Generalissimo
Chiang-Kai-Shek retreated into thevast hinterland of China, setting up
camp at Chungking, some 900 miles
from Hankow. Here they were practically invulnerable to all but aerial
bombing. The war in China had entered a period of stalemate. Japaneselosses had been high and the economy
had been placed under a great strain.
The Japanese leadership therefore decided to suspend offensive operations
in favour of a period of consolidation.
On the mainland, steps were taken to
establish a puppet regime, at the sametime diplomatic pressure was directed
at isolating Chiag-Kai-Shek from his
supporters in the west. With the only
real opposition in China supposedly
neutralised, Japans attention turned
towards the Soviet Union.
Since the start of operations in China, Tokyo had been concerned about
the possibility of Soviet intervention. There had been regular incidents
along the Manchurian – Siberian
frontier. In July 1938 a pitched battle
took place when a mechanised Soviet
force defeated the Japanese at Chun-

The Soviets enjoyed overwhelming
artillery and air support and an overall
2:1 advantage in numbers. The Japanese forces received such a comprehensive thrashing that they readily
accepted an offer of a Soviet ceasefire.
This comprehensive defeat made theHigh Command recognise that theSoviet colossus was not to be underestimated. The High Command became
convinced that any further conflictwith the Soviet Union would be disastrous for Japan. The Foreign Ministry subsequently began negotiations,which led to the signing of the Russo-Japanese Neutrality Agreement inApril 1941.
The outbreak of the European war in
September 1939 created serious problems for Japan as imports of Strategic
materials dried up. The “moral embargo” imposed by the United Stateslaid Japan open to punitive tariffs onimports and exports. Desperate situations require desperate remedies andas no solutions were available in China, Tokyo turned towards South East
Asia. The abundant reserves of Oil,
Nickel, tin, rubber, bauxite and ricemade the region particularly attractive
to Japanese strategists.
On 24 July 1941, Japanese troops occupied French Indo-China. Two days
later, the United States responded byfreezing all Japanese assets and credits. This action was quickly followed
by a total oil embargo. The British andDutch followed the American lead,
forcing the Japanese leadership intoa dilemma regarding their operationsin China, which were proving to bea severe drain on the nation’s limited
resources.
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 37

Attempts to reach a diplomatic solution with the United States neverreally got off the ground. The terms
laid out by the U.S. Secretary of State
Cordell Hull demanded nothing lessthan a total withdrawal from Manchuria, China and Indochina. Such
demands were unacceptable to Tokyoand as the charade of diplomatic negotiations was played out, Japan prepared for war.
The more realistic members of theHigh Command knew that a total victory over the combined mightof the United States and the British
Empire was not possible. It was postulated that if Japan could gain timeto secure a firm base in South East
Asia and the Pacific, the western democracies would be unwilling to pay
the price in blood to turn back thetide. A negotiated settlement could
then be reached recognising JapaneseHegemony in the region. Admiral
Isoruku Yamamoto was more realistic
than most, he knew that once the material strength of the allies was fully
mobilised, it would be overwhelming. He wrote that if war did come “I
shall run wild for the first six months
or a year, but I have no confidence forthe second or third years”. As Japandrifted ever closer to war, Yamamotostood squarely behind the Emperor.
He concluded that the best chancefor success lay in a pre-emptive strikeagainst the United States Pacific Fleet
based at Pearl Harbour.
The Navy commenced exercises simulating an attack on Pearl Harbour inJuly 1941. The exercises proved so
successful that the following montha Joint General Staff conference recommended that military preparations
should be completed by the end of
October. The Army fully supported
this timetable, though they did express concern that preparations could
not be fully completed without a firm
38 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

decision to go to war.

erates had was lost.

The Army and the Navy reached acompromise at the beginning of September. It was decided that preparations for war would proceed as tothe previously agreed timetable. War
preparedness would then be followed
by a decision for war if no diplomatic
solution was found by early October.
The schedule for war, outlined in adocument entitled ‘Guidelines for
implementing national policies’, received the approval of the Emperoron 6 September. Having obtained
royal sanction, military preparedness
went ahead against the backdrop of a
diplomatic charade.

On 4 November, a meeting of theSupreme War Council reviewed thefinal operational plans. The projections were optimistic. The destruction of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, coupledwith a German declaration of war offered the possibility of a short war. In
this atmosphere of breezy optimism,
the Council unanimously agreed to adecision for war. A deadline of 1 December was set for an end to diplomacy, with a proviso that hostilities
would commence whatever the stateof current negotiations. The decision
for war received the sanction of theImperial Conference on 25 November. The deadline was later extended
to 8 December, the diplomats would
thus be sacrificed in a bid to prolong
talks for as long as possible.

The Inner Cabinet met on 12 October to discuss what, if any diplomatic
avenues were left open. Foreign Minister, Soema Toyoda suggested a withdrawal from China ‘in principle’. Sucha compromise was anathema to Minister of War Hikedi Tojo. The Naval
representative, Kojiro Oikawa agreed
that a decision for war had to be taken
one way or another, but that such a
decision should be left to the Prime
Minister. The Prime Minister in turnasserted that he could not be held responsible for the outcome if the Armycontinued to insist upon war. The
meeting ended with no firm decisions
having been made.
On 14 October, Tojo delivered aspeech to the cabinet brimming withforce and passion, in which he attempted to force a decision for war.
Prime Minister Konoe remained resolute, not wishing to take the ultimate
responsibility for starting the war. The
Navy meanwhile would only pledge
itself to support whatever decision
was made. Tojo was unable to accept
this impasse, stating that if the decision was not in favour of war, the 6
September guidelines would need tobe revised. He went on to assert thatsince the cabinet had been responsible
for the guidelines and had not adhered to them, they should resign.
Konoe saw the best hopes for peacebeing in the formation of a new cabinet. On 16 October the entire cabinet,
including Konoe resigned. Any hopesthat Konoe may have had were short
lived, as that very day, Tojo received
the royal mandate. With the rise ofGeneral Tojo, any influence the mod-The Kuruso Mission had arrived in
Washington on 15 November. A
smiling Kuroso told waiting reporters,“I am indeed glad to be here in yournation’s capital. I extend greetingsfrom the bottom of my heart”. His
smiles hid the grimmer truth that hewas not authorised to offer anything
more than a meaningless reshuffling of Japanese troop dispositionsin China. On 20 November, Kuruso
presented the Japanese proposal that
America should cease aid to China
and revive trade agreements with Japan. Six days later, Hull clearly stated
President Roosevelt’s demands thatJapan give up it’s conquests in China
and formally withdraw from it’s Axis
partnerships.
Over the course of the next three
weeks Kurusu continued in his impossible task of attempting to wrangle
concessions whilst waiting for Tokyo’s
response to Roosevelt’s demands.
However, as he was fully aware, the intractable question of China effectively
precluded any meaningful discussion.
Having played for time with some degree of skill, Kurusu finally delivered
Tokyo’s long awaited response rejecting American demands at 13.45hrs on
the afternoon of 7 December.
The Japanese fleet had put to sea long
before the response of the U.S. Secretary of State to Kuroso’s proposals
was known. Any chance of a last minute solution was lost when the Tojo
Government declared its unwilling-

Photograph by Marion Doss / Flickr

The Imperial Japanese Navy wanted
to avoid a direct clash with the UnitedStates as it would involve the deployment of significant naval and air assets. Meanwhile, the Army remained
preoccupied with China, it’s leadersrecognising that any accommodation
with the United States would entail ahumiliating withdrawal from the conquered areas on the Chinese mainland.

ness to make any concessions regarding Japanese conquests. With talks indeadlock, the Imperial War Council
in Tokyo gave orders for the attack toproceed.
The attack force was made up of thesix carriers Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, Soryu, Shokaku, and the Zuikaku. The
escort consisted of nine Kagero classdestroyers and two battle cruisers. A
separate force of 27 long-range submarines made their way to Hawaiian
waters by way of the Marshall Islands.
The plan for attack was bold and did
not wholely anticipate the element oftactical surprise.
Having avoided detection, the Japanese fleet reached its attack positions
at 06.00hrs on Sunday 7 December. The first wave of 183 planes waslaunched soon after, followed by a second wave of 170 planes at 07.000hrs.
At anchor in Pearl Harbour were 70
warships. The primary Japanese target,
the U.S. aircraft carriers were all out

at sea that day. Despite this, in a little
under two hours the U.S. Pacific Fleet
was put out of action. The battleships
Arizona and Oklahoma had been
sunk and six other capital ships badly
damaged. The attack was a stunningtactical victory and would buy time
for Japan to “run wild”. Yamamoto
had gambled on a short war, only
time would tell if his supreme gamble
would pay off.
In explaining Japan’s ill-fated decision
for war in 1941, it is also important
to consider if there was an alternative.
The most obvious choice of course
would have been a decision not to
go to war. As an ally of Britain during the First World War, Japan had
declared war on Germany. Despite
having little interest in the European conflict, Japan profited by taking
over German colonies in the Pacificand extending economic influencein China. Any possibility of profiting from the current war in Europe
was however out of the question. As

long as Japanese troops remained in
China, the economic blockade would
continue. A withdrawal from China
was unthinkable; consequently Japan
faced the prospect of war or economic
collapse. The resignation of the Konoe
cabinet had offered some possibilities.
However, the appointment of Tojo removed any remaining hope of an accommodation with the United States.
For Tojo, war was inevitable; to delay
would result in the United States extending its air power into the Pacific.
Every passing day would see Japan becoming weaker; it’s oil reserves dwindling. To expedite matters, Tojo wasable to resolve the Navy’s demand forincreased resources at the expense of
the Army. The die was thus cast, having crossed the Rubicon, the nation
united in what would be seen as a life
or death struggle for survival.
David McCormack is a British
based writer with an interest in modern military history.

Japanese Surrender on the USS Missouri, Sept 2, 1945.
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 39

Flying a bigger kite

Photograph by Miragec14 / Wikipedia

By Michael Liam Kedzlie
Over the past 60 years Japan’snational security needs were focusedon maintaining a credible level ofdefence to secure it’s territorial
sovereignty. In this role it has been
in a long-term security partnershipwith the United States who havebased military forces alongside theJapanese Self Defence Force in Japan.
However, though the longstanding
policy of territorial self defence will
for the future be maintained, under
the new defence normalisation policyof the Shinzo Abe led government,
Japan’s national security outlook
will evolve even further. Japan now
wishes to play its part as a “normal”
defence contributor in a range ofpossible missions from humanitarianand disaster support missions as wasseen during the 2013 Philippines
mission, through to UNSC Chapter
VII mandated combat missions. To
be able to conduct these types of
future taskings beyond Japan’s current
EEZ and force structure, the country
will need to have strategic airlift andsealift capabilities. Japan has recently
built amphibious support ships suchas the Ohsumi Class, but in termsof developing a coherent strategic airtransport capability Tokyo is lagging
behind.
40 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

The C-2 Boondoggle
One of the cornerstones capabilities
of any modern military is airtransport. The ability of nations toquickly deploy by aircraft material
and machinery overseas, backed
up with sufficient numbers of
personnel to assist in carrying out
those vital missions. Whether thatmission is a UN mandated combat
taskforce, peacekeeping mission ormore frequently in the post cold
war era, a humanitarian and disaster
relief mission, airlift capability is
critical in achieving any operational
success. With respect to the ability
to respond to disasters, be thattsunamis, earthquakes, typhoons andother emergencies that frequently
hit the Asia-Pacific region, the rapid
deployment of a strategic airlift
asset can simply make the difference
between life and death.
In the past tactical transport aircraft
such as the locally built Kawasaki C-1
and the venerable C-130 Hercules
were suitable for Japan’s domesticallyorientated needs as its military areaof interest remained solely within
the territorial archipelago. However,with the new Abe policy direction
Japan is now requiring an improved
airlift capability. This is the same issue
that other Pacific rim nations suchas Australia and Canada have foundsince the end of the Cold War andespecially since the events of 9/11
when they have found that theirageing and relatively small C-130
transports were not meeting themodern strategic airlift requirements.
Both Australia and Canada havepurchased the large, but highly
capable Boeing C-17A GlobemasterIII. New Zealand is also finding itself
greatly limited by its current airlift
fleet and is also currently weighing up
purchasing a small fleet of larger andmore capable transport aircraft.
In the late 1990’s the Japanese Air
Self Defence Force ( JASDF) begin
to investigate the replacement of
its tactical air transport fleet andby 2001 they had the government
support to locally design and build
a new replacement aircraft. At thetime a requirement for a strategic
air transport capability was not apolicy being pursued with any vigor
by Tokyo defence planners. In 2007
emerged the Kawasaki C-2 design, alarger tactical transport aircraft thanthe legacy Lockheed C-130 and
Kawasaki C-1 aircraft it was to replace.
However, the design specifications
were directed at providing a domesticorientated tactical capability andnot one in which would normallysupport a longer-range strategic levelof airlift tasking. Essentially the C-2
design, though introducing new 21st
century construction technologies,
was an aircraft that was generally only
capable of a modest improvement on
the class leading Lockheed C-13030J tactical transport. Kawasaki
Industries then constructed two
prototypes and these began their test
flights at Gifu prefecture in March of
2010. Since the fanfare of the earlytest flights the public has not seen orheard much about these aircraft otherthan it is currently under low-rate
initial production. Five years ago it
was expected that the first operational
C-2 squadron was going to be
deployed to Miho airbase in Tottori
Prefecture by January 2015. Since
the early test flights the C-2 project
has been postponed three times withthe latest incident last year beinga rear cargo door failure caused bypressurization issues. This has delayed
the introduction of the aircraft into
JASDF service for a further two years.
The eventual introduction into service
date is still unknown.
The C-2 project seems to have someserious problems. Furthermore, itsmooted build cost of $80 million
back in 2007 has allegedly ballooned
out of proportion and is currently
unknown publicly. Some reports
in local Japanese media and online
media make the plausible claimthat the C-2’s eventual cost will be
as much as the far larger and morecapable American built Boeing C-17,
which has a current flyway cost ofaround $220 million. Because the C-2
was originally destined for a domestic
Japanese customer, the JASDF, it was
not designed from the outset with aview to attracting exports sales inmind. This is another looming issue,
as the aircraft will need strict US
or EU airworthiness certification
to attract potential international
military buyers. Following the liftingof policy controls on the export

Japanese military equipment by theShinzo Abe administration, aircraft
such as the C-2 can now be sold on
the international defence market,
but the costly task of retrospectively
gaining this necessary airworthinesscertification is an expensive hurdle
that drives up the true procurement
cost of the aircraft to a point where it
may be very uncompetitive. This is dueto the considerable amount of uniquecomponents that have been integrated
into the design that will need further
testing.
The Kawasaki C-2 as a competitive
aircraft in the tactical airlift market
is up against strong and establishedcompetition. Lockheed still build theirimproved version of the sixty year old
Hercules design the C-130J-30 and
the European aviation giant Airbus
have introduced their new A400M,
which of similar size and likely cost isable to achieve a number of capability
requirements that modern militarycustomers seek. Lockheed will
introduce a larger Next Generation
version of the C-130J-30 later thisdecade and are already planning thetypes eventual replacement later next
decade. The new and now operational
A400M is also a formidable export
competitor in which the C-2 will haveto compete against. Malaysia has fourof these aircraft on order and Airbus
Group, are actively looking for moresales in the Asia-Pacific region. The
A400M has rough airfield capability,
can also act as a supporting tanker
aircraft with its mid-flight refuelingcapability, possesses a longer flight
range, has lower operating costs
for its size, and has a more flexible
load and cargo carrying capability
than the C-2. Unlike the Japaneseaviation industry, Airbus also have an
established global support network
to assist customers, which if the C-2
were to find export buyers would bea further hurdle to contractually copewith as 30 year support contracts are
now industry standard. Established
Brazilian
aircraftmanufacturer

Embraer is this month beginningtest flights of its own tactical militarytransport aircraft the C-390. Thoughslightly smaller than the C-2 it isstill an advanced design produced by
the worlds third largest commercial
aviation manufacturer. Embraer
also has experience in supplying
and supporting defence customers
including the Royal Air Force, a trackrecord that gives confidence to otherpotential buyers.
Modern militaries are not funded byspendthrift governments. They do nottake punts. The issue of customers
having long-term confidence in any
manufacturer being able to carryout the long-term defence support
contract might be the biggest barrier
for the nascent Japanese aircrafteven if its ongoing issues are solved.
The C-2 is a highly sophisticated,
technologically complex new aircraft
and it is wishful thinking that its
introduction into foreign air forces
will go smoothly. Support contracts
for modern defence forces are regarded‘turnkey packages’ involving, spares,
training, documentation and software
support including the transfer ofsource codes for the whole of theplatforms operational life. Which inthe case of large airlifters like the C-2
is between 25-30 years. Often the costof the whole of life support contract
is greater than the cost of the initialacquisition. Failures of contractual
obligations at this level are not merelycommercial contractual breakdowns,
but serious political breakdowns at
the government to government level.
It is a realm of high stakes and highcosts with huge political fallout if
development and support issues go
pear shaped. The software integration
issues of the Australian Kaman SH2G naval helicopter purchase is abillion dollar case in point of how
readily and quickly defence contracts
can end up being a fiscal boondoggle.
Moreover, in a move that is seen as
either desperately covering it’s bets
or facing the market reality of heavy
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 41

Photograph by the US Army / Wikipedia

competition within the international
defence marketplace, the C-2 has also
been touted as a possible civilian air
cargo aircraft with it’s prosed YXCvariant. Again it will be up against
strong competition in a commercial
market that is dominated by tightcost controls that are currently giving
former eastern bloc aviation companies
such as Antonov the market edge. It isa market in which Embraer wish to be
involved in as well.
If there is still a white elephant in
the room it is that the C-2 is thewrong aircraft, at the wrong time,
being built under the wrong policy
considerations. The aircraft that Japanneeds to meet its new outward looking,regional
partnershiporientateddefence posture, requires a larger
strategic airlift capability as provided
by aircraft such as the Boeing C-17.
Even the similar sized Airbus A400M
in the least would make better sensein that it is versatile enough to airlift
heavy tactical loads strategic distances.
However, for some reason Japan has

42 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

not been able to pull the plug on theC-2. Vested interests? National pride?
Maintaining an industrial aircraft
base? That there are jobs to nurtureand protect within the local aviationindustry is understandable, but ones
domestic industrial policy however
ambitious, should never compromisea nations defence capability. The
C-2 project is frankly a boondoggled
attempt to reinvent the wheel
especially when viable and more
proven solutions have been available.
So what should the JASDF do? If the
C-2 is cancelled that would mean job
losses, hopes dashed and a move backto square one. Jobs are important,but more important than expensively
propping up what is effectively anunderwhelming vanity project? In
my view no! Nevertheless, those local
aviation industry jobs can be saved by building another aircraft. Someone
else’s proven and thoroughly tested
design.
So what to do? It is all very well one
being critical of the C-2 program, but

criticism should also offer a solution.
In my opinion what the JASDF
should actually do and using the kiteflying analogy to suggest new ideas issimple. Fly a bigger kite. Fly a larger
more suitable aircraft. The solution
emerges from what is being donewith Japan’s recent F-35 Joint StrikeFighter acquisition from the US
whereby local aviation manufacturers
will build under license this advanced
strike aircraft. Therefore, the Abeadministration should promptly
cancel the C-2 before it gets any
further money thrown at it and engage
a proven international manufacturerof tactical and strategic airlifters tobuild aircraft locally under license.
Preferably at the Kawasaki plant tooffset the employment loss of the C-2
project.
This would mean that Japan will thenget a proven, world-class airlifter thatcan undertake the sort of strategic
tasking tempo’s that are required
when operating throughout the AsiaPacific, as well as meet much of its

tactical or domestic needs. Japan could
look at also building under license asmaller tactical airlifter like the provenand popular Airbus Groups C-295M
or Lockheed C-27J to round out its
air transport fleet giving the JSDF a
greater and more cohesive spectrumof airlift solutions, which solely
relying on the C-2 will not address.
What the JASDF should not do iswaste taxpayers time and money onoverly ambitious defence ‘show pony’
projects where there is no economic
viability, strategic merit, institutional
depth, nor competitive advantage.
All it does is divert scarce capital
investment away from realistic projects
with proven operational performance
where there is an identifiable gap inthe export market. Platforms such as
the small yet well- regarded Kawasaki
OH-1 light combat helicopter, theKomatsu LAV light armoured vehicle
or indeed Japan’s first rate submarine
technology would have made for abetter starting point to internationally
showcase Japan’s defence sector
capabilities.

The other nations whom the Japanese
Self Defences Forces are likely to train
and work alongside with in the future
decades are consolidating around airtransport platforms that are logisticallyinteroperable with each other. These
logistical synergies in coalition
operations are an essential part ofideal modern operational doctrine.
The United States and Australia haveformal security alliances with Japan
as well as together, therefore it would
make sense for at least Japan haveoperational synergy with those twonations use as it moves into its regional
defence partner outlook. Other
countries within the wider AsiaPacific rim such as Singapore, India,
Canada and New Zealand, are also
working more and more on integrated
capabilities and operational doctrinesthat are US/NATO based. It is withinthat context Japan as an informal
member of the US lead global liberal
democratic ‘Allies’ nexus needs tofurther integrate and enhance with andnot attempt project duplication. For
example the Long Beach production

line of the C-17 Globemaster III isdue to close later this year when thelast of the ten speculative whitetails
are built and offered for sale. Though
at least two of these final white tailversions are heading to Australia,
another to Canada and possibly afurther 2 or 3 to New Zealand, it
leaves possibly 4 or 5 final whitetails
that could be potentially snapped up
by Japan. These aircraft transferred to
the Japanese Air Self Defence Forcewould be part of the transition acrossto locally licensed C-17 production
and would keep the Kawasaki aviation
workers very busy well into the future.
Of course Japan would have the true
strategic airlift capability its needs tomeet its new defence policy outlook
and its logistical support chain would
be synergetic with allies it would work
alongside.
Michael Liam Kedzlie is the Editorof Eye Magazine and the Research &Policy Manager at the International
Academic Forum.

Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 43

Rape Culture in Music

Lyrics that Provide a Step-byStep Guide to Sexual Assault
BY ANTONELLA REGUEIRO FERNANDEZ“Robin Thicke’s rape anthem
is about male desire and maledominance over a woman’s
personal sexual agency…she’s
relegated to the role of living sex
doll whose existence is naught but
for the pleasure of a man”.

44 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

Editor’s Disclosure: This article
contains sexually violent language andimagery that may be upsetting to somereaders.
The Music and the Misogyny
Misogyny is not a new development in
our world. Society has become immune
to the objectification, sexualization,and violence that surround women.
Whether it is product advertisements
or music videos, the issue of violenceagainst women permeates our culture.
Rooted in that premise are more
serious issues such as the spread of andacclimatization to rape culture. In thisculture, rape infiltrates many aspects ofsociety and consequently allows for its
continuity by reflecting acceptability
to the act of rape. It is here where theunthinkable happens, as victims findthemselves being blamed for their
attacks, underrepresented in the legal
sphere, and constantly reminded of
their misery via mainstream media.
The pervasive nature of such culture
has lasting effects on the communities
we inhabit. This research seeks toimpress upon the readers the gravityof the situation through a lyricby-lyric analysis of some of themost prominent songs which haveperpetuated, and more importantly
glamorized, glorified and validated aculture of rape.
The extolment and acceptance of rape
lyrics is an extension of the acceptanceof such an event in our societies,
as music and media are usually areflection of the community they arise
from. “In a rape culture, people are
surrounded with images, language,laws, and other everyday phenomenathat validate and perpetuate, rape”(FORCE, n.d.). Music is one of therealms in which this validation takes
form. The producers of this music
not only feed from, but also feed
into, the repetition and propagationof sexual assault. Rape music is
not new in our society, yet it haspermeated the industry to the point of

becoming more than a happenstancein a single musical genre. Rape hastranscended musical styles, languages
and cultural barriers, to become an allencompassing issue without regards
to sociocultural delineations.
The spider as the stalker
Rape is a persistent malady in our
nation as shown by the numbers
found on the website for the Rape,
Abuse & Incest National Network(RAINN), which states that “there
is an average of 237,868 victims(age 12 or older) of rape and sexualassault each year” in the United States(“How Often,” n.d., par.1). Songs thatperpetuate the idea not only of rape,
but of a right to rape, may very wellplay a part in the sustenance of suchhigh number of victims. I begin thisanalysis with the overt examples ofrape-related violence in music, toaddress the acceptance of aggression
against women in popular culture.
The artists in this section were chosen
due to the heinousness of their lyrics,
and their unabashed use of rape as aselling point for their music. Instancesof rape in music cross cultural andlanguage boundaries, and involve a
demographic which spans from rap,
to metal, to ska punk. Regardless ofthe type of music, the message seems
to be the same. It is a message thatenables male entitlement over thefemale body and their ability to maketheir own choices.
The first example comes from oneof the most controversial rappersof all time: Eminem. According to
the artist’s IMBD profile, Eminem’s
album, “Slim Shady EP,” went to
triple platinum. His 2002 release of“Marshall Matters LP,” sold over one
million copies during its first week
alone. His career has been awarded
with MTV Music Awards, Grammy
Awards, and even an Academy
Award for his “8 Mile” soundtrack.
This immense success speaks to his
popularity and thus, his potential

influence on society. Originally bornunder the name of Marshall Bruce
Matters, this young artist from
Detroit grew into one of the mostviolent lyricists in the music industry.
He has, undoubtedly, the most graphic
account of rape in this research, in hissong “Stay Wide Awake.”
The song begins with the author
identifying a “young girl”, a minor,
sitting in a park, seemingly vulnerable
to his advances. He approaches the girlwith the intention of causing physicaland emotional harm. He befriends his
intended victim, and then proceeds toexact such a violent attack that even
I am uncomfortable describing it.
From the start, the song is an assault
on the humanity of any woman, as
he does not hesitate to refer to theyoung girl in his song as a “whore.”
The aggression escalates as the lyricist
uses inanimate objects as aides in theviolation of his victim.
Sit down beside her like a spider, hi there
girl, you mighta
Heard of me before, see whore, you’re thekind of girl that I’d assault
And rape then figure why not try not tomake your pussy wider?
Fuck you with an umbrella, then open itup while the shit’s inside ya
Not only is the degradation of thegirl accomplished by name-calling,
it is also exuberated by the use ofan umbrella to worsen the damage
inflicted on her. The girl becomesnothing but an object to be “played”
with at the discretion of her rapist. By
the end of the song, the listener has
been described a total of two rapes
and one murder – all of females. In
the second instance of rape, the singer
insinuates that the woman is to blame
for the attack because she is naked
in her own house “but I [the singer]
can see she wants me.” The woman isleft without a choice due to the man’s
perception of her desires.
Throughout the song, the author
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 45refers to himself as spider and astalker who hides in the darkness
and preys on his victims. In one of
the instances, he even hides in the
woman’s basement and waits until shegets into the shower before attacking.
Afterward, the violence is freely
issued upon his victims. Throughout
the song, the author perceives himself
as an artist producing the same levelof work as Mozart, glamorizing his
acts by comparing them with classic
masterpieces.
Eminem’s “Stay Wide Awake” lyrics
propagate the phenomenon of rape.
The fact that his albums continue
to sell millions validates the support
for his music from the population.
It is the buyers, after all, who makethis “art” permissible. In supportingan album with a song in which
women get violated, both physicallyand emotionally, the population islegitimizing the permissibility ofrape in music. Rape, then, becomessomething to bob our heads to andpump our fists in the air for, insteadof being something we fight against.
The argument could be made in an
attempted defense of artists like
Eminem, stating that their music is
made to satisfy the phenomenon ofrape fantasy; that in no way are thelyrics inciting actual instances of rape.
However, the difference should beclear. Rape fantasy involves partners
in consensual interactions. The
women participating in rape fantasy
have willingly given their partners thepower to re-enact an instance of rape.
The men, on their part, have been
allowed to wield such power but only
to the extent to which the women feel
comfortable – there are safe words,
and the word “no” retains its meaning.
Rape fantasy caters to the “dark” side ofmany of us, but those many are awareof their actions and are consenting to
the event. The lyrics in these songs
reach an incredibly wider audience, as
the numbers show, and the message
behind the verses is spread to children
46 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

and adults alike, some of whom may
not be mature enough to deal with theseverity of the content. Therefore, rape
lyrics do not have defined boundaries
of influence. Rape fantasy is not rape
because the women are consenting,and their consent is not to rape, but tothe illusion of it. Rape lyrics promoterape, not consensual sex.
Cocktails and contempt
The instances of explicit rape in musicare endless. However, this essay seeks
to go beyond the unambiguous andinto the realm of the concealed. There
are songs that are not as evident intheir disdain for women, as they do
not directly address the issue of rape,
but rather insinuate the act in between
rhythmic beats.
I begin this section with a controversial
song which, to my knowledge, is the
only song that has actually inspired
repercussions against the singers.
“U.O.E.N.O” by Rocko, featuring
Rick Ross, produced a backlash ofsuch magnitude that the latter artist
found himself dropped from someof his endorsement contracts andapologizing publicly via his official
social network sites. The verse chosen
has no direct mention of rape init, yet the insinuation of the act is
unmistakable:
Put Moly all in her champagne, she ain’t
even know it
I took her home and enjoyed that, sheaint’ even know it
A “Moly” is a synthetic drug that has
made its way into the pockets andtongues of thousands of drug users
in the United States. It is part of
the fastest growing drug problem in
America, the synthetic drug market,
and it has been found in nearly every
state (Griffin, Black & DiCarlo, 2013).
It is a popular way to alter the mindof willing users and of unsuspecting
victims alike.

The lyrics to this song objectify thefemale victim, who has been druggedby the lyricist, as something to beenjoyed without consent; after all, theperpetrator takes her home and enjoys
that. The use of “that” in the verse not
only illustrates the objectification anddehumanization of his victim, butalso the contempt for “it”. The victim
becomes a thing that does not evendeserve to be named. However, there ismore to this song than meets the eye,as rape is not only being committed
but also glamorized. The artist did not
put the drug into a Coca-Cola, or abeer, or boxed wine; he is dropping the
drug into champagne. Champagne, bycustom, is a high-quality and highpriced drink that is mostly drank
during special occasions. It is a drink
which, in popular culture, has usually
implied a high-class environment.
Rape is, therefore, occurring not in
the streets of the ghetto or the backalleyways of our cities, but in a world
filled with money. The message is thatrape occurs everywhere because it isall-encompassing; no one can escapeit, regardless of the means at our
disposal for protection.
Rick Ross was dropped from his
Reebok© endorsement deal and was
motivated to write an apology to his
audience. In his apology, Ross stated:“To the young men who listen to
my music, please know that using asubstance to rob a woman of her rightto make a choice is not only a crime,it’s wrong and I do not encourage it”.
This apology begs the question of
why the song was written in the firstplace. The lyrics to a song are not done
overnight, they are listened to by theartists and their producers before they
are released. Rick Ross was very muchaware of the message he was spreadingand his apology is an insincere
consequence of the repercussions he
was made to “suffer.”
These are not blurred lines
These subliminal messages of rape

have crossed genre lines and foundthemselves embedded in top-chart
pop songs, the latest of these being
the catchy, yet eerily sexist, song titled“Blurred Lines” by Robin Thicke,featuring Pharrell and T.I. This songplayed repeatedly for most of 2013.
According to the Mobile Marketing
Magazine’s website, “Blurred Lines”
became the song most searched forvia the mobile application, Shazzam,
with approximately 17.8 million tags
worldwide. According to the New
Musical Express’s website, this single
became the highest grossing single of2013, with 1.44 million copies sold.
These numbers serve to illustrate theimpact of these lyrics, as the song was
not downloaded by a few individuals,
but by millions. The ability for music
to be downloaded via the internet,
recognized via phone applications,and distributed by the click of abutton, makes the content of thesongs a matter of importance.
The lyrics to “Blurred Lines” havebeen criticized by different outlets
of social media for their message ofrape. It is so subtle, in fact, that many
may not even recognize the content
even though they have heard the song
repeatedly.
I hate these blurred lines
I know you want it (x3)
But you’re a good girl
The way you grab me
Must wanna get nasty
The most prominent message foundin the song is that of the existence of
blurred lines of consent and a senseof male entitlement. It is obvious forthe singer that because a woman has
approached him, she must want it;
therefore, he has a right to claim her.
The singer knows that the woman
would otherwise not engage in any
sexual activities with him, because
she is “a good girl.” The implications
for both men and women in thissong are alarming, because womenare perceived as having initiated thesequence of events by approaching thesinger in a way he found provoking.
Men, on the other hand, are being
instructed to take any movement fromthe women they deem provocative asa sign of approval and consent. Thisoutlook feeds into the already existing
paradigm of victim-blaming prevalentin our society. Examples of this mindset can be found across the nation andat all levels of society. News reports
in December, 2013 revealed that ahigh school student in Texas had been
kicked out of her school for reporting
rape and accused of lewd behavior;consequently, she was sent to a schoolfor children with behavioral issues
along with her rapist, whom she wasforced to see every day (Pesta, 2013).
This blatant disregard for the victimsof sexual abuse is so ingrained in oursociety that some music artists havethought it appropriate to continue its
proliferation.
Sezin Koehler (2013) recognized thisissue and proceeded to compare thelyrics of “Blurred Lines” to the images
provided by Project Unbreakable, anon-profit organization that works tohelp survivors of sexual assault copewith their trauma through art. In theimages, victims of sexual assault standEye Magazine Sixth Edition | 47

with posters in hand, containing thewords said to them by their rapists
during the act. The words found on
the poster are disconcertingly familiar:“You know you want it,” “Good girl.”
The side by side comparison pierces
through the audiences’ ignorance ofthe similarities between these twoseemingly disconnected entities, andproduces a simultaneous reactionof both awe and shame. For theaudience, it would be hard to believethat the song they have been dancing
to for over a year is loaded with thesame words which have been told tocountless victims by perpetrators ofrape.
Koehler concludes that “ultimately,
Robin Thicke’s rape anthem is aboutmale desire and male dominance overa woman’s personal sexual agency…
she’s relegated to the role of living sex
doll whose existence is naught but forthe pleasure of a man”. It is the role ofwomen to be complacent to the wants
and needs of their male counterparts,

48 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

while at the same time being the
subject of blame for their behavior.
The women’s behavior is conversely
observed and judged relative to thepersonality of the male character
involved. This flexibility in perspective
allows for a million possibilities inwhich everything, from a sensual
dance to the grazing of a hand, canbe perceived as a blatant invitation forsexual advances.

And she keep staring me right in my eyes
No telling what I’m gonna do
Baby I would rather show you
What you been missing in your life when
I get inside

The song does not seem to be incitingor suggesting rape yet, but slowly
it has begun to resemble Thicke’s
assumption of entitlement as aconsequence of the woman’s actions.
She is now drunk, and because she
Another song within the realm of has approached the singer in a way
what is known as “pop” that satisfies he finds provocative, he now does not
the conditions to be included in this know what he will do. He just wants
research is Jamie Foxx’s, featuring to get “inside,” leaving us to question
T-Pain, “Blame It (On the Alcohol).” where exactly that is – inside her life,
The single was released on December, or inside her? The singer continues as2008 and managed to reach both he believes that with just a “couple
Gold and Platinum levels by May, more shots,” the woman will “open up
2009. At first, the song seems to be like a book” that he will then proceed
blaming alcohol for the endeavours of to read. The song follows with “Shawty
the party goers. However, a closer look got drunk thought it all was a dream/
reveals that what is being blamed on So I made her say ‘Ah, ah, ah’.” Therein
the alcohol is much more sinister.
lies the admission that the woman did
not even know what was happening
She put her body on me
when the man took advantage of her.

Photograph by HyundaiCardWeb / Flickr

In the images, victims of sexual assault stand with posters
in hand, containing the words said to them by theirrapists during the act. The words found on the poster are
disconcertingly familiar: “You know you want it,” “Goodgirl.”... For the audience, it would be hard to believe thatthe song they have been dancing to for over a year isloaded with the same words which have been told tocountless victims by perpetrators of rape.
Her levels of intoxication were so highthat she thought she was dreaming.
Much like Rick Ross, Jamie Foxx took
the woman home and enjoyed thatwhile she thought she was asleep –she did not even know it. The patternof intoxication and abuse seems
irrepressible.

body/If I steal a kiss, would you get madat me? What would you say if tonight I
seduce you in my car/Let the windows
get foggy and the idea is that you enjoy
it/If I disrespect you and then blame thealcohol/If I hike-up your skirt would
you give me the right/To measure yoursensitivity, put your body at play.

Besides having crossed the lines ofmusical genres, the issue of rape
culture in music has also broken thebarriers of language, allowing for
the Anglo-speaking community toshare the spotlight with the Spanishspeaking
constituency.
Bachatasensation, Romeo Santos, came into
the business as a Spanish-speaking
singer for the musical group Aventura,
which has sold over 4 million copies in
the US. Their success as a group gave
Santos a stable ground upon whichto launch his solo career. His second
solo album, Formula Volume 2, is thefocus of this research, as it contains
the song “Propuesta Indecente.”
The lyrics below are in their original
language with the translation provided
adjacently by the author:

The content of the song is a direct
assault on the female character,masked under the guise of anirresistible proposal. Santos tells thewoman that he will disrespect her,
whether she is okay with it or not,and will then blame the act on the
consumption of alcohol. Further
context might help to understand that
this is an act of dominance. The secondline of the song is “Te adelanto nome importa quien sea el” (In advance
I’m letting you know I do not care
who he is). The woman in this song
has willingly chosen the company of
another partner, and the singer refuses
to accept this by imposing himself on
her decision. He insists on dominating
the situation, even if it means
disregarding her freedom to choose
her own partner, and he will turn toalcohol as his aide if he must. Linessuch as the subsequent “Este martini
calmara tu timidez” (This martini willcalm your shyness), are testament
to the reoccurrence of a pattern of
intoxication and entitlement.
This move is surprisingly similar to
Rick Ross’ and Jamie Foxx’s, as all
three singers seem to believe that
intoxicating women is a precondition

Si te invito una copa y me acerco a tu
boca/Si te robo un besito, a ver, te enojas
conmigo?/Que dirías si esta noche teseduzco en mi coche/Que se empañen losvidrios si la regla es que goces/Si te falto al
respeto y luego culpo al alcohol/Si levantotu falda, me darías el derecho/A medir tu
sensatez, poner en juego tu cuerpo.
If I buy you a drink and get close to yourfor taking advantage of them. Whether
it is via illicit drugs or through alcohol,
these songs seem to give the audiences
a step-by-step guide to commit sexualassault. Santos proceeds to ask if itwould be okay with the woman if
he hikes up her skirt. This behavior
allows us to wonder whether or not hewill stop if she declines, or if he willcontinue regardless of her levels of
inebriation. There may not be a direct
mention of rape in Santos’ ballad, butthere is irrefutable proof of a sense ofentitlement from the part of the malecharacter – an entitlement which may
manifest as sexual assertion.
The Hammurabi CodeThe last song chosen for this researchis Sublime’s “Date Rape”, because it
addresses sexual assault in a different
way. The track is found in the album,
40oz to Freedom. According to the
Recording Industry Association ofAmerica, the album has made theMulti-Platinum award category twice;a feature that is only accomplishedby selling over two million copies.
The song starts with a woman being
drugged and raped at a party, andcontinues with the rapist being caught
and prosecuted. If the song would haveended there, the band would not be apart of this research. In fact, it would
have been a breath of fresh air to see
the subject treated with the respect it
deserves. However, the song continues
by following the life of the convicted
rapist after being imprisoned. During
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 49

jail time, the man is raped by otherconvicts and, although heard by
the guards, his sexual assault is notprevented or acknowledged by them.
This instance of rape is provided as
punishment for the assailant’s own
actions; denoting an acceptance tosexual violence that should not be thenorm.
The Hammurabi Code instituted thepreconditions for a system in which
violations of the law were punishedby equal actions; an eye for an eye
was the way of the law. The idea thata rapist should be allowed to be raped
is as primitive as the act of rape itself.
Promoting instances of rape as fair
retribution feeds into the idea that theact of rape is a part of human nature,and that there is nothing we can doto stop it. Recently, an Indian woman
was sentenced by her village court toundergo gang rape as punishment forhaving a boyfriend from another tribe(Smith, 2014). Although the official
judicial system of India does notcondone this behavior, the fact that it
was an option to the village kangaroo
court speaks to the ability for societies
to see rape as an inescapable partof life, and more than that, as anadequate mode of punishment. Thisto the kangaroo courts in India who
saw rape as viable and excusable
retribution. This should not be the casein any society in the 21st century. The
Hammurabi Code was overthrown by
a rich history of advancements in law
and order systems that advocate for theidea that “prevailing social patterns canonly be transformed through a change
in social relationships, structures, andideologies” (Vogelman, 1990). Rapeshould not be a glorified subject in
the lyrics of songs, nor should it be
advocated as suitable admonition for
rapists. Furthermore, as rape in prison
is a deeply embedded issue in oursociety, it should not be trivialized insong, much less capitalized from.
We are all complicit
The lyrics in this research have direct
applicability, consequently making
their implementation plausible. The
songs do much more than promoterape as a type of entertainment; they
provide the guidelines to seemingly
successful ways of performing sexualassault. First, the men must ensurethat the women are vulnerable
enough for the action – whether bystalking them when they are alone
or by providing intoxicants that

acceptance and multi-million dollar
sales. Through it all, men should notforget their entitlement to choose
for women, instead of allowing themto choose for themselves; forgettingthat women becoming intoxicated bywillingly drinking alcohol, does not,under any circumstance, give men theright to abuse their power.
Lloyd Vogelman (1990), in his article
titled “The Sexual Face of Violence:
Rapists on Rape,” concludes that “rapeemerges from a culture that involves
the domination and objectification of
women” and that “as an act of sexual
violence, rape reflects the masculine
role as dominant and controlling.”
These ideas of objectification andmale domination are already foundin society at large, but they havebecome almost permanent by their
proliferation through violent lyrics.
As seen in the verses provided, overt
violence is no longer the seminal
problem. The fact that rape culture
has been so ingrained into the musicbusiness that lyrics no longer needto state explicit instances of rape,
but rather simply imply it as subtext,
should be an alarming observation
to all. Violence is masked by tunes
that are appealing to the public,

Photograph by Wolfram Burner / Flickr

It is within this type of culture that rape victims are blamed
for their assaults, women are shamed for their choices ofclothing, and perpetrators are forgiven their violence.
view of rape as punishment can beextended to explain the argument
given in today’s society, stating thatwomen deserve to be raped because ofwhat they have chosen to wear – they
asked for it; therefore, they must deal
with the consequences.
The fact that the guards in the song
turned away from a man being raped
simply because they believed it to be
the appropriate punishment, place
the lyrics of the song on equal footing
50 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

will alter their condition. Second,
the men must interpret women’s
behavior as acquiescence to theirsexual advancements by focusing
on the way women may grab them.
Third, men are to righteously enjoy
women without their consent whileat the same time forgetting that they
are women at all by naming themsuch names as “that” and “it”. And
lastly, men are to sing about it sothat they may validate and glamorize
their actions with considerable publicconsequently managing to influence
as many people as possible. We are allcomplicit if we do not recognize thesituation and battle against it.
The fight backThe prevalence of sexual assault
in music complements a holistic
culture of sexual violence. The factthat audiences have not rejected thephenomenon and continue to support
even the most overt instances ofrape makes them accomplices to thesentencing of women as deserving ofsuch treatment. Much like the Indian
kangaroo court, supporters of thismusic are allowing the defilement of
women, and in fact validating it, by
refusing to oppose lyrics that containbecomes a dangerous weapon.

such a call to action. Thousands ofpeople listen to these songs on a daily
basis, as proven by a success which canbe easily measured in the number ofsales for each record. Women havebecome so accustomed to the existenceof rape in their environment that they
do not even attempt to recognize
it when it is playing on their radios.
Instead, some women have resigned
themselves to live constantly under
the fear of possible assault and therepercussions of reporting it.

the fact that they refused to change
their verses before releasing theirsongs, proves their apathy towards
the subject. Whether their lyrics
impact a million people or just one,the messages delivered by their music
are a hindrance to society as a whole.
Stopping this phenomenon should bean essential task for our society, and
it is the audience who must end thecycle. It is within this type of culturethat rape victims are blamed for theirassaults, women are shamed for theirchoices of clothing, and perpetrators
are forgiven their violence.

Sexual assault can be suffered invarying degrees, but regardless of theseverity of the attack, the scars areequally damaging to those who suffer
them. The current culture of rape insociety does not aid the resolution ofthis problem, and “in contemporary
popular culture, representations ofrape and sexual violence seem rampant,recurring in rap lyrics, visual arts, andcinematic texts” (Smith, 2004, p.150).
By providing a guide to rape, music

Artists such as Eminem, Romeo
Santos, Jamie Foxx, and Robin
Thicke may all argue against thisinterpretation of their work; yet
the lyrics speak for themselves, andperpetrators to restrain their urges.
It is also intricately bound to theworldview of a society that allows forthe crime of rape to go unpunished,
and for victims to be humiliated intosilence. Pop culture, especially music,
plays an increasingly important rolein the sustainability of rape culture.
The messages within the lyrics inthis research are those of irrefutableviolence and more than that, are aweaponizable guide to sexual assault.
The objectification and sexualization
currently victimizing women in oursociety cannot be deterred if thesesongs continue to exist. The onus of
responsibility must be borne by thoseof us who recognize its happening andactively engage in its cessation.

Originally from Caracas, Venezuela,
Antonella Regueiro Fernandez,
is a doctoral candidate at Nova
In her protest song, “Fight Back,” Southeastern University, USA.
Holly Near recognized the severity of Antonella’s
research
interests
rape culture in our society and aptly range from rape culture and gendersummarized the issue in a few verses: issues, to genocide and terrorism;“By day I live in terror/ by night I but my true passion can be found inlive in fright/ for as long as I can resolving conflicts.
remember/ a lady don’t go out alone
at night”. The occurrence of rape in A fully referenced version of thisour culture is intertwined to much article can be provided by contacting
more than just the inability of the publications@iafor.org.
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 51

The Portrait of Dr. Gachet

A Study in Sorrows

by Jared Baxter“Now I have a portrait of Dr. Gachet with the heartbroken expression of our time. If you
like something like you were saying about your Christ in the Garden of Olives, not destined
to be understood…” — Vincent van Gogh in a letter that he never sent to Paul Gauguin
In the waning spring of 1890, lodged in a corner of the Auberge Ravoux on the outskirts of Paris in Auvers-sur-Oise,
Vincent (as he preferred to be called) painted two portraits of his newest physician, Dr. Paul-Ferdinand Gachet.
The second depiction is safely tucked away at the Muséed’Orsay, while the first grabbed world headlines when it
sold for a record-setting $82.5 million to Japanese business tycoon Ryoei Saito, nearly one hundred years to-theday of its completion. The eccentric Saito, intensely passionate about the portrait, exclaimed it would be crematedwith him upon his death. He died in 1996. The painting’s
whereabouts remain unclear.

52 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

Though not as isolated, estranged or hospitalized as his
two previous years in Provence, Vincent, still suffering andmelancholic, composed the portraits in the final days of
his abbreviated career. He wrote his sister about the firstcanvas:I’ve done the portrait of Mr. Gachet with an expression of melancholy which might often appear to be a grimace to those looking at the canvas. And yet that’s what should be painted, because
then one can realize, compared to the calm ancient portraits,
how much expression there is in our present-day heads, andpassion and something like waiting and a shout. Sad but gentle
but clear and intelligent, that’s how many portraits should beleft:
Portrait of Dr. Gachet
Vincent van Gogh
Private collection

done, that would still
have a certain effect on
people at times.

Preeminent van Gogh
cataloger Jan Hulsker
noted, “much later generations experience it
not only as psychologically striking, but also
as a very unconventional and ‘modern’ portrait.” While the case can be madefor its modernity, this article seeks to demonstrate the doctor’s countenance, posture and composition were inspiredby Northern Renaissance master Albrecht Dürer’s Christas the Man of Sorrows (Staatliche Kunsthalle) from somefour centuries prior.

right:
Christ as the Man of Sorrows
Albrecht Dürer,Staatliche Kunsthalle, Germany

wrote of those earlier, failed Gethsemane attempts, “But
I can’t, or rather, I don’t wish, to paint it without models.”
Finally, the placement of books and foxglove serve as transfigured symbols for Dürer’s three-knotted whip and bundleof birches.
A year at Saint-Paul-de-Mausole had not cured Vincent.
His brother and caretaker, Theo, remained resolute in keeping him there. Until, something extraordinary happened.
Vincent became a celebrity, at least, among the Parisianavant-garde.

Art critic Albert Aurier’s praise in the inaugural editionof the Mercure de France, Les Isolés: Vincent van Gogh,coupled with ten van Goghs Theo had installed at the annual Salon des Indépendants — alongside Seurats, Lautrecs,
Signacs, Anquetins, and Pissarros — where Vincent was
True, there is a long and storied tradition of melancholic hailed as the star of the show as masses thronged to see theEuropean portraits, including many adored by Vincent: brilliance of Aurier’s “tormented genius.” Vincent’s pleas
from Giotto’s Dante (Bargello Chapel), to several other to return north were finally granted.
Dürer’s (Melencolia I, Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle),
to self-portraits by Rembrandt, and perhaps most notably, On their first meeting, Vincent didn’t think much of his
Delacroix’s Tasso in the Madhouse (private collection). This new physician, writing Theo:
article, however, will briefly layout three arguments that
Vincent specifically held Christ as the Man of Sorrows in I think that we must not count on Dr. Gachet at all. First of all,mind when he sat Dr. Gachet for his portrait.
he is sicker than I am, I think, or shall we say just as much, sothat’s that. Now when one blind man leads another blind man,First, painting Christ in the Garden of Olives had been don’t they both fall into the ditch?
gnawing at him for several years, since his time in Arles,
when he reported scraping two failed canvasses due to the That Vincent employedlack of an adequate model and quote, “Because here I see a Biblical allusion is
Still-life with Bible
real olive trees.” Second, if you have ever sat for a portrait, poignant so we’ll briefly
Vincent van Goghyou’ll know the artist positions you precisely as he wishes examine the crux of his
Van
GoghMuseum,Amsterdam
to paint you. This was especially true for Vincent, who Christology and Christ

Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 53

complex. Vincent, his father and grandfather were notCalvinist, strictly speaking, but adhered to a Dutch Reformed niche, the Groningen school and its ideas about
the nature, deeds and person of Christ. They did not prescribe to predestination, nor limited atonement, and evenmore blasphemous, did not contend Christ came to die on
the cross, but to teach His perfection and lead us all into
union with God.

I can’t help saying to myself — well, well — that’s all he needed.
There it is now, full-blown... the artist’s neurosis. Because thestudy of Christ inevitably brings it on, especially in my case,where it’s complicated by the seasoning of innumerable pipes.

An artist’s act of creation is not unlike that of a God. She
raises something from nothing, forms her own rules andhas total dominion over her subjects. Considering oneself
godlike, however prescient Vincent may have been, is a
And perfection, that shadow? For Vincent, that was art.
neurosis all self-reflective artists must grapple. As Vincent
struggled with the concept of his own divinity, his own role
Vincent considered Christ the greatest of all artists, for He as poet, pilgrim and prophet in the world at-large, Chrishad made “living men, immortals.” In this same aggran- tian iconography, again, manifested itself in his artwork as
dizing breath, however, Vincent cautioned his penpal, the transfigurations. Renowned van Gogh scholar Debora Silartist Émile Bernard, whom had recently begun studying verman succinctly stated:the Bible:
Van Gogh’s art had evolved by 1888 into a symbolist project
54 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

Tasso in the Madhouse
Eugene Delacroix
Private collectionthat can be called ‘sacred realism,’ similar state.
a project of divinity made concreteand discovering the infinite in The side-by-side placement of the two paintings makes apweighted tangibility.
parent Vincent held the Dürer in mind when he crafted
Gachet. With so many similarities, it’s the differences inThis “weighted tangibility” in- posture that are more striking. Whereas Dürer painted
cluded a series of portraits as “types.” Vincent strove, not Christ with his hands open, Vincent painted Gachet’s
so much to represent the individual subject, but the broad- closed. Dr. Gachet’s right hand is balled as it rests against
er category, or archetype, each represented. In Arles, he his cheek. His left hand is facing down on the table, rather
painted The Peasant (Patience Escalier), The Poet (Eugène than up, as in the Dürer. Vincent was aware that DelacBoch), The Lover (Paul Eugène Milliet), The Pilgrim (Self- roix had accomplished something similar in his Tasso in
portrait as a Bonze), La Mousmé (model unknown), and the Madhouse. The tradition of painting Christ as the Man
La Berceuse (Augustine Roulin), but he had failed to find of Sorrows required a depiction of His bare torso. Delaan adequate model for his Christ. Agitated, he reported croix brilliantly made an allusion to this as he featured
scraping off two ill-fated attempts. A dire loss for adoring Tasso with his shirt largely unbuttoned and splayed wide.
fans today.
Vincent took Delacroix’s tradition further by painting his
subject’s torso fully clothed, and appears to nod to Tasso
Vincent’s Symbolist project did not mean simply copying as Gachet’s jacket is unbuttoned at the top. Lastly, Vinpast masters anymore than it meant attempting to create cent did not paint the lower-half of Gachet, in imitation
an iconography foreign to his fin-de-siècle place in time. of Dürer’s Christ. To do so would have been obvious andIn fact, Vincent had lambasted Bernard in November of not of “one’s own time,” but of those yesteryears for which
1889, in the last surviving letter to his about-to-be, newly- Vincent had derided Bernard.
estranged friend, scolding him, “in order to give an impression of anxiety, you can try to do it without heading straight for Dürer’s three-knotted whip and bundle of birches, instruthe historical garden of Gethsemane.”ments of Christ’s torture are similar, though transfigured,
representations in Vincent’s portrait. Gachet’s foxglove
Seven months later, after getting to know his new doctor a juts out from the glass at a similar angle as the whip andlittle better, Vincent quickly made a one-eighty and consid- birches. Representative of digitalis, a prescribed remedy forered him as close as a brother. He would sit this reflection heart ailments, it’s an allusion to Gachet’s profession, hisof himself and paint him as faithfully as he could — with devotion to homeopathic remedies and his “heartbroken
all his anxiety and melancholy — but also, with something expression.” The little, yellow novels are a motif common tomore; something as subtle as sublime: the countenance of Vincent. As seen in Still-life with Bible, in which he placed
the suffering Christ. What may be most remarkable, is he a copy of Emile Zola’s La Joie de Vivre, Vincent considdid so, without “heading straight for the historical garden ered French, naturalist novels emblematic of the continuedof Gethsemane.”presence of Christ in his modern world. He carefully inscribed the books’ titles: Germinie Lacerteux and Manette
Gachet’s countenance of melancholy is complemented by Salomon, both by the de Goncourt brothers, Edmond andnoting the posture in which Vincent sat his physician. I’ll Jules. They stand as models of artistic brotherhood: the first,
briefly state, Christ in the Garden of Olives and Christ as the a cautionary tale of death in the city; the latter, a story of
Man of Sorrows are not the same subject. Christ, while re- salvation through art. Recent van Gogh biographers Steflecting in the Garden of Olives (named Gethsemane) occurs ven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith argued the novels:
before His trial and crucifixion, whereas Dürer represented
Christ after the crucifixion. Furthermore, Christ as the Man Reassured [Theo] that this eccentric country doctor, with hisof Sorrows has a richer Biblical history, dating back to The funny white cap and too-heavy-for-summer coat, fully emOld Testament and the prophet Isaiah. Vincent was keenly braced the modern world of the mind, even as he worked toaware of this, evidenced in his Still-life with Bible. Painted cure its inevitable ills.
to commemorate the passing of his father, it depicts his father’s Bible, open to Isaiah 53, the Suffering Servant songs. Vincent’s Christology did not preclude him from painting
Many Christians believe these passages foretell the coming an imitation of Christ, but rather, demanded it. Further,of Christ as messiah.
this necessity was the mother of his aesthetic invention; requiring him to transform the reality he saw before him. In
The goal in Symbolist painting is not to conflate subjects Dr. Gachet, Vincent had found a kindred spirit, a brother,and themes, but rather, to multiply them, through a “com- a man whom shared Vincent’s same sad destiny: to wander
plex play of associations.” Vincent could never have painted the world a man of sorrows.
a crucified Christ. Not only did his personal Christology
eschew such a subject, but his gossamer sensibilities pro- Jared Baxter is an independent researcher living on thehibited any such horrific replication. Vincent’s Christol- outskirts of the Portland, Oregon sprawl in rural Washogy deemed, while accepting His fate, Christ had suffered ougal, Washington. Originally from Salt Lake City, Utah
in Gethsemane as much or more than He would on the he was educated in Manchester, England and Davidson
cross. Vincent evoked Gethsemane many times throughout College, North Carolina. Over the last three years, his
his life and surviving letters, and in each instance he meant research has focused on Vincent van Gogh, in particular,
the trials of wandering the depths of sorrow and suffer- how Vincent’s enduring embrace of Christianity maniing. Curiously, he found his newest doctor, a brother, in a fested itself in his later life and artwork.
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 55

PERSPECTIVES

Where did you get them Rights?

The legislative and public policy journey of the New
Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990

Photograph: Government of New Zealand

By Michael Liam Kedzlie

This year marks the 25th anniversaryof the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act
1990 passing into law. This article is
not intended to be an examination of
the statute and what it says and what
it can do but more of an historical lookat the roots of the legislation and how
the public policy side of it developed
over time. Nevertheless, and mostobviously, the general purpose, the
NZBORA was to affirm a range of civil
and political rights and freedoms. The
right to life, electoral rights, freedom
56 | Eye Magazine Sixth Editionof expression, thought, religon,
assembly, movement. Freedom fromdiscrimination, unreasonable arrestand detention, search and seizure, andthe rights to justice. The NZBORA
was introduced into the politicallandscape due to the acknowledgmentthat New Zealand needed to meetit’s international responsibilities
following our signing up to theInternational Covenant on Civil andPolitical Rights (ICCPR) in 1982.
By signing the ICCPR New Zealand

was obligated to start the process ofenacting its own human principles
it into a single, simply expressed
domestic statute. Furthermore, there
was also the neccessity to put in place
remedies to restrict the perceived
constitutional abuses and negative
liberties undertaken by a previous
Government, and to restrain any
potential abuses of governmental
power. As Tipping J in Hansen v
The Queen [2007] NZSC 7 ably
noted the NZBORA was there“to prevent minority interests frombeing overridden by an oppressiveor overzealous majority.” So insteedof focusing on a grand review of
the NZBORA, that can be done
elsewhere, I am going to look at how
we ended up with the NZBORA theway it is by tracing the public policy
pathway of its development. Stopping
to explain some of the details andevents that existed or conspired
over its long and at times anguishedpolicy development. The NZBORA
seen through the lens of history isa wonderful example to show how
the process of law is raised, refined,
introduced, moulded, varied, adaptedand changed within the political andparliamentary context, until it finallybecame an ordinary statute law.
Public policy as a process, is typicallyborn out of a societal, political,
ideological or legislative need, either
singularly or collectively. This process
may be sparked from events in thepolitical past that require a remedy
or from a requirement that is basedon noble aspirations to create forthe future a more equitable solution
to an outstanding issue. During thethree decade long evolution of the
New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990
(NZBORA) both of these principal‘needs’ were present. The rights of
New Zealand citizens was in existence
prior to 1990, it was not like we did
not have any. Rights steeming back to
the Magna Carta through hundredsof year of statutes and common law
existed. But in the modern and evermore complex paradigm of the late
20th century the loose and confusing
amalgamation legal rights needed
sorting. This of course involved a lotof not just jurisprudence and policy,
but also and not meaning to lower thetone, politics.
The early debate
No single public policy is born thesame. Politics makes it so. Nor doesit evole the same way in how it’s
introduced, discussed, dissected,

enacted and eventually applied as
an Act of Parliament. Even, if it
does indeed survive the Darwinist
process of public policy gestation,
the developmental process is sui
generis. Though a given policy passes
through a number of gateways andinstitutional frameworks as it travels
through the developmental andparliamentary process, the principles
and ideologies that drive thesepolicies, when applied to the various
stakeholders in the subsequent policy
debate make the development of each
Act of Parliament unique.
Though most New Zealanders
associated the NZBORA with the
advocacy of Sir Geoffrey Palmer
during the late 1980’s, the conceptof a Bill of Rights has had an evenlonger history. Initially, the rights of
New Zealanders evolved alongside
the common law for much of thisyoung nations’ history. It wasn’t until
the 1950’s following the abolition of
the Legislative Council and a speech
published in the New Zealand Law
Journal by Alfred North KC, warning
again complacency against the
dictates and decrees of government
and the bureaucracy, that there begana rise in interest amongst the legal andacademic community concerning theprotection of rights for New Zealandcitizens (Rishworth, 2003).
To the wider New Zealand publicduring this era, such rarefied
constitutional debates were ignoredand confined to a small academic
clique within the legal community andtheir small base of progressive liberals,then a very rare breed in in the postwar anti-intellectualist environment of
1950s New Zealand. One of the moreorganised reformist groups during thisperiod was the Constitutional Society
for the Promotion of Economic
Freedom and Justice, who advocateda codified written constitution which
included the protection of individual
rights (Mountplay, 1984). Though tiny
in membership it was well connected

to political influence. This academic
move towards enacting a code ofrights for Kiwi’s no doubt had someinfluence following the 1960 election
when the new National government
promised a New Zealand Bill of
Rights in their first speech from thethrone. After that initial attempt failed
due to political inertia, the question ofenacting a statutory code of citizen
rights went through a period ofdormancy. However with the electionof Robert Muldoon’s government in1975 the debate concerning citizen’s
rights and the curbing of the unbalancein power between individuals and theexecutive moved the debate along
considerably. Over the next 9 years
Muldoon had consolidated his powerin becoming a virtual executive of
one. It was an era marked by thedawn raids against Pacific Islanders,‘car-less’ days, wage and price freezes,
the Clyde dam, ‘Think Big’ and thesubsequent National Development
Act 1980 to drive it through and force
striking workers back to work. An
example of Muldoon over-reaching
his executive powers was seen in thecase of Fitzgerald v Muldoon [1976]
2 NZLR 615 when he attempted tochange the law by Prime Ministerialpress statement.
In opposition the Labour Party
becameconcerned
withthe“elective tyranny” of the Muldoon
Government. A reformist group in
their caucus lead by Geoffrey Palmer,
who in the preceding two decades
had changed his viewpoint regarding
a Bill of Rights, began to see a needfor constitutional restraints to protect
individual and citizen rights from thegovernment abuse of power. A Billof Rights was included in the 1981
Labour manifesto but took greater
prominence in the 1984 manifesto
as part of a wider ‘open government’
policy package that Labour wishedto introduce. The introduction of aCharter of Rights in Canada in 1982
provided further stimulus for thereformist group within Labour. Prior
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 57

to the 1984 election a couple of key
conferences, namely the gatheringof the Labour Party North Island
membership, and a plenary session at
the New Zealand Law Conference
gave Geoffrey Palmer the opportunity
to publicly air his ideas on the new Billof Rights framework. Following thedefeat of the Muldoon Government
in July of 1984, Palmer as the new
Minister of Justice was given theopportunity to quickly prepare a
NZBORA. With some enthusiasm
Palmer and his team went to work.
The Draft Bill
The formation of any public policy
process begins when there is an
acknowledgement of a problem
by the government. It is a stage
whereby various options are exploredand narrowed down to what the
government is willing to accept.
Unlike agenda setting, which isprimarily a stage when the key
actors are non governmental groups
or private persons, policy formation
is typically restricted under New
Zealand’s parliamentary system tothose key actors who have a specialist
interest or contribution to make or arepart of the governmental subsystemsuch as the bureaucracy.
Back in 1963 when National made its
first attempt of a Bill of Rights, theLabour opposition had raised concerns
about the necessity of the new Bill as
did leading law practitioners of the
day such as Denis Blundel QC whoargued it would precipitate increased
litigation and was purely propaganda.
The then University of Auckland Law
School Dean, Professor C.C Aikman
also argued that the Judiciary were not
up to the task of being able, to discern
higher principles of constitutional law.
(Hodge, 1985) This opposition waslater documented in an adverse reportfrom the Constitutional Reform SelectCommittee. (Palmer, 1985) By thatstage the first attempt at a NZBORA
lapsed into a state of dormancy when
58 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

the Select Committee recommended
that the Bill should not proceed.
Following the election of the Labour
government in 1984, the incoming
Justice Minister Geoffrey Palmer, aformer University of Canterbury Law
Professor, drew together a working
group of leading legal academics andpractitioners as well as officials to
writing the seminal white paper ‘A Billof Rights for New Zealand. During
this writing process two draft Bills
were prepared, firstly, on 12 October
1984 and then refined further on 4
December 1984. A report was thenreleased by the Cabinet Committee,
which was then referred to Cabinet
for approval. Following this Cabinet
approval the draft legislation was thenprepared.
What eventuated was an entrenchedBill that would now control
repugnant legislation through thepower of judicial review. The draft
Bill noted that there were limited
checks and balances of parliamentaryand executive power and cited New
Zealand’s obligations under theinternational convention on Civil andPolitical Rights. It was from thesecore principles that Geoffrey Palmer
and his constitutional reformist teambegan to push the policy process
towards a new Bill of Rights.(Palmer& Palmer, 2004). The next step inthe process was the undertaking of areport from the Cabinet Committee.
The White Paper
In April of 1985 the Government
released its Draft White Paper. Mostof the rights outlined and indeed
the wording were drawn from theInternational Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (ICCPR) andthe Canadian Charter of Rights
and Freedoms. The draft paper also
proposed that, once enacted, the Billof Rights should become supremelaw otherwise it could be cut down
or modified by any inconsistentlegislation.
In the forward of the White Paper
Geoffrey Palmer made his intentions
clear. He commented that it was “amost important set of messages to themachinery of Government itself andthat will point to the fact that certain
sorts of laws should not be passed,that certain actions should not be
engaged in and that a Bill of Rights
provides a sets of navigation lights forthe whole process of Government toobserve.” This new attempt to enact
a Bill of Rights began what Geoffrey
Palmer later described as a ‘long andtortuous’ process until its enactment
six years later, due to the howls ofprotest from the public and politicians
alike. This included some of Palmers
own Labour party. The White Paper
including the new draft Bill of Rights
was not formally read for a first time in
the house but was instead tabled andreferred directly to the Justice and Law
Reform Select Committee, which sorta range of public submissions.
The Select Committee
The procedure for any Bill to passthrough Parliament is set out in thestanding orders, which are in effectthe High Court rules of Parliament.
( Jefferies, 1992) Standing orders
exist to allow orderly debate andpolicy scrutiny within Parliamentand can allow a new Bill to be either
read for a first time and voted on andsent to the select committee or justsent directly. Once referred to a selectcommittee a Bill is examined over alengthy period. The select committees
during this time will invite public
submissions; hold public hearings tolisten to some members of the public
who have made submissions allowing
for the issues to be aired, concerns to
be raised, points and perspectives to
be articulated and then provides’ theopportunity for changes, should benecessary, made to the Bill. (Palmer,
2002) The end result is that the
select committee produces a reportcontaining a reprint of the Bill with
amendments. The report will usually
include a commentary explaining theissues the select committee considered
and the recommended changes to theBill, which then form the basis of
the next debate in the House. If theselect committee amendments are notsupported unanimously by committee
members, then each amendment
needs to be voted on following thesecond reading debate. Otherwise
they are automatically included in theBill if the second reading is passed.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer, Former Prime Minister of New Zealand.
the proposed legislation also camefrom Maori interests. One facet of
the Draft Bill was the attempt toaffirm the rights of Maori under theTreaty of Waitangi. Maori were upset
that the Bill would make the Treaty
subordinate and argued that it shouldbe the Treaty that has constitutionalparamountcy and not any NZBORA.
(Tamahere, 1987) Further criticism
also came from the feminist
movement who argued that it would
lead to the further marginalisation of
women if the ultimate law-making
power shifted from parliament to the
judiciary. (Broadsheet, 1985)
The Tenacious Geoff Palmer
The decision-making stage of any

public policy process is overtly political
as a government decides, which policy
from by now a reduced palette of policy
concepts is it to promote further. In
New Zealand this is marked by it
being almost exclusively involving
just the executive branch. The Cabinet
manual guides this process andoutlines that legislative proposals are
submitted in an established form andare then forwarded to the relevant
Cabinet Committee and the ‘control
departments” such as Treasury for
response.
Geoff Palmer was more tenacious thanhis predecessor Ralph Hannan backin 1963 in achieving his legislative
objective and thus formed the Billof Rights Monitoring Group to
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 59

Photograph: GNHRE (Creative Commons)In the case of the first SelectCommittee NZBORA report, it was
revealed that public support for anentrenched Bill of Rights was entirely
absent. Some objections were rather
hysterical such as claiming that it was
inspired by communism, or didn’t
protect the New Zealand flag, andeven that it failed to acknowledge
that God was the source of all rights
in a Christian country. (Haywood,2008) Not surprising really, due tothe political climate surroundingthat unsettled period of the mid
1980’s when the Homosexual Law
Reform Bill was also being publicly
debated. Protestations that weretending towards the extreme wereeasy to ignore, however a numberof submissions did garner theattention of the Select Committee
members. The response from the legal
profession and academic circles was
overwhelmingly against the proposed
Bill, dubbing it ‘window dressing’ and‘lacking in any meaningful standards’.
This criticism was mirrored by the
opposition attacks. (Smellie, 1985)
Others considered that the draft Bill
did not go far enough and needed toprotect further social and economic
rights, (Elkind & Shaw, 1986)
whereas others, notably the New
Zealand Law Society, consideredthat it went too far in entrenchment
and needed to be watered down since
Kiwi’s could already complain directly
to the Human Rights Committee ofthe United Nations. Opposition toPhotograph: Government of New Zealanddevelop a strategy to enhance publicdebate and guide the public towards
acceptance of the Bill of Rights asoutlined in the draft white paper.
(Hushcroft & Rishworth, 1995) This
group however, had the unenviabletask of balancing a Bill of Rights thatwould not do too much in the way ofscaring the public regarding legislative
entrenchment, whilst at the same timeachieving worthwhile protections forindividuals. The select committee
later reported back in October 1988,
with the majority recommendationthat the Bill should proceed not
as entrenched supreme law, butinstead as an ordinary statute. It also
recommended, in response to Maori
opposition, that the Treaty of Waitangi
not be included or referenced. The
draft Bill was accordingly redrafted
and re-introduced to Parliament in
October 1989. With its controversial
aspects now dampened down, there
were significantly fewer submissions

60 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

received by the Select Committee.
From there Geoffrey Palmer, now the
new Prime Minister was ready to put
the revised Bill of Rights before theHouse.
Following a decision by the Executive
to promote a particular policy
through to the policy implementation
stage, the Governments plans arethen put into practice. (Howlet &Ramesh, 1995) At this stage policy
instruments are chosen, legislation
is drafted, programmes are designed,
resources are allocated and services
are delivered. It is a formal stage
that again involves the executive
instructing their officials and theofficials advising the executive. New
Zealand has very much a ‘top-down’policy implementation stance because
our constitutional arrangements haveallowed the executive to wield greater
influence. The political influence
involved at this stage in the policy

process is strong particularly when
our Cabinet takes a collective decision
positioning and with political parties
usually voting along party lines in theHouse being the norm. This control
over the implementation extends
over into the strategy applied by aGovernment in pushing the Billthrough the House. Parliament canunder Standing Orders rush throughBills under urgency and truncate theusual formal process if they have thepolitical numbers to allow the urgency
motion to pass. An example of thisurgency strategy was utilised by the
new National government in trying
to push though a raft of criminal
justice legislation following the 2008
election.
The final straightAs outlined in previous passages there
is a formal process under standingorders for a Bill to pass throughthe House involving the Ministers
introduction, first readings, selectcommittees, second readings, selectcommittee reports, as well as thecommittee of the whole House. The
New Zealand Bill of Rights was ofcourse lengthy and complex in its
journey through this process and in its
eventual passage through the Housein 1990 saw only small amendments
such as the wording in section 5.
Once the final form of any Bill isagreed, it is again reprinted to show
any amendments that have been madeand then it is then ready for its thirdand final reading. This is usually asumming-up debate on the Bills final
form and a last chance for MP’s toforce a change. The final NZBORA
debate was lively and had vocal
opposition right up until the final voteend with the National Party members
dubbing it a ‘Claytons Bill of Rights’.
However, the Bill was passed by the
Labour Governments clear majority
and received its Royal Assent on 25thof September 1990.
The final stage in the policy process
is the evaluative stage where by
the policy is monitored with aview that at a later stage the policy
can be reviewed or amended. This
monitoring is essentially a feedback
loop to parliament regarding its
impact and comes from a wide rangeof actors both in the public sector andprivate sector. In terms of the Bill of
Rights the one most significant ofthese actors are the Judiciary who
have had the role of applying it to
the various landmark cases over theyears since its enactment such as
Baigent’s Case [1994] 3 NZLR 667,
Quilter v Attorney-General [1998] 1
NZLR 523 and Moonen v Film andLiterature Board of Review [2000] 2
NZLR 9.
The Legacy
Nevertheless, there has been criticism,and some of it has been high poweredsuch as the criticism of the UN

Human Rights Committee. Theircomplaint is that New Zealand does
not have an entrenched supreme billof rights and is merely an ordinary
statute and so does not override otherlegislation. Of course there is always
a certain legal elegance especially inthe beaurcractic sense to have grandlegal super structural frameworks
overlayed, everything all nipped andtucked with no loose ends, t’s crossed
and i’s dotted. However, as Court ofAppeal and Supreme Court judges
have consistantly shown since its
enactment in 1990, the NZBORA
in diverse cases such as Hansen,
Hopkinson, Quilter, Hoskings andof late Drew v AG (which developed
further rights of prisoners to legal
representation in prison disciplinary
hearings), the judiary will actively
contribute to the ongoing debate
around human freedoms and rights.
Therefore, human rights compliancein New Zealand will be achieved
through contested debate and thebalancing of the powers under thecrown, not from just from the rigidityof entrenchment. New Zealandof course does not have a formal
constitution either, and we do seem tobe the top of the class with respect topersonal freedoms, human rights andother important terribly things suchas rugby. Such things are important to
us. Long may it continue.
In his personal evaluation of the
NZBORA Sir Geoffrey Palmer notedthat it achieved two things. Firstly, it
required the Executive to undertake
rigorous processes in reporting
legislative breaches of the Bill to
Parliament and secondly, it provided
the Courts with a new weapon to
apply statutory interpretation, thatwas made even more secure with theInterpretation Act of 1999. Bothachievements are important, butwhat the NZBORA did not achieve
was the inclusion of economic andsocial rights for in New Zealander’sbecause in Palmers mind “suchbroad policy questions would havemade it unmanageable”. (Palmer,2006) This for some will always be adisappointment, along with its lackof being our supreme law. Geoffery
Palmer is probably right on that point.
One can throw too many ingredients
into a public policy solution, turning
it into an unweildly static monolithic
piece of legislative nonsense, that intrying to be all things to all people
disatifies, conflicts and confuses morethan one intends.
No doubt in the future someone will
have a very shiny bright idea and havewhat the great Sir Humprey Appleby
described as the political “courage,”to move the NZBORA to its nextstage in the policy cycle. Yet, the long
title of the Bill of Rights states thatthe purpose of the bill is to affirm,
protect, and promote human rights
and fundamental freedoms in New
Zealand and to affirm New Zealand’scommitment to the ICCPR. Appliedwith good common sense, by a learned
Judiary separated from the vaguries ofpolitical machinations and vanities,
the NZBORA does that and that is
all it needs to do. That, in my view
this alone made its 25 year policy
incubation worth it and the 25 years
since its enactment as somethingworth celebrating. So whatevercriticisms exist, the New ZealandBill of Rights Act 1990 needs to berecognised as having been a milestone
in achieving and securing high levelcompliance with civil and politicalrights for New Zealanders and as amodel for others who seek to refine
and evolve their own status of humanrights in their societies.
Michael Liam Kedzlie is the Editorof Eye Magazine and the Research &Policy Manager at the International
Academic Forum. He is an admitted
Barrister and Solicitor of the High
Court of New Zealand.

Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 61

“WHAT A COOL LIAR YOU
ARE, MELLY”
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 31
Her dark eyes flash a brightintelligence,andtheactressemanates a soignée quality, offering
her traditional warmth along withsomething else—an enigmatic sexual
elegance. The voice is still melodiousbut, as in The Dark Mirror, anotherregister lower, incorporating a slight
British intonation which “she uses...toadd a further note of mystery to the“Olivia de Havilland does a dandy
job of playing the soft and gracious
Rachel with just a fain suggestion of
the viper’s tongue.” When she dies atthe end of the film because of crossing
a condemned bridge, which Philip has
not warned her about, after he finds
a letter from Rainaldi reaffirming herlove for “that boy,” she asks poignantly
before she dies, “Why?” Yet she’s been
sending money out of the country.
She is leaving for Italy, the country ofMachiavellian, Borgia-esque women.
Is it to allow Philip to have a proper
marriage to Louise? Or is it tocontinue her free life as a merry andWarner brother, Bette Davis, in thisfollow-up to the camp, grotesquely
memorable 1962 production, What
Ever Happened to Baby Jane? De
Havilland recently explained, “After
Joan Crawford fell ill playing a dark
character, Miriam, in Hush…, and it
appeared she would never recover,the film’s director, Robert Aldrich,brought the script to me in the Swiss
Alps, where I was vacationing withmy children. Once I had read it, I said
to him that Miriam, like Terry, wasall dark and that I could not submit
myself again to playing a characterso unremittingly malevolent” (O. deWriter Victoria Amador with Olivia de Havilland.
woman who explains so little about
herself, letting her actions speak forher” (Kass, 1976). Her hair is styled
elaborately for her social appearances,
but when it is long, loose and flowing
down her back while she wears awhite nightgown and kisses Burton
passionately, we have an actress who
is a true femme fatale; “this single kissby one of the world’s great actors was
the most erotic she ever received onscreen” (ibid.).
All of the tension of a du Maurier
thriller requires a good anti-heroine,and de Havilland enjoys the challenge.
This time, Bosley Crowther applauded;
62 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

now wealthy widow? Those questions
are unanswered, and when Burton is
pictured in the last shot of this film
staring out at the sea, murmuring,“Rachel, my torment,” we see thatde Havilland’s Rachel, rather likedu Maurier’s Rebecca, has not beenconquered, even by death.
Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte
So who better to replace the ailing
Joan Crawford in the 1964 shock
horror flick, Hush...Hush, Sweet
Charlotte? Who better to co-star
with, and almost drive mad (as acharacter, not as a colleague), the fifth

Havilland, personal communications,
7 January 2015). While de Havilland
was interested in working again withher friend Bette Davis, she’d taken
critical heat for appearing in Lady in a
Cage in 1964, one of a series of 1960s
shock/horror films which seemed toviolently exploit the fading careers ofonce great Hollywood actresses.2 De
Havilland didn’t want to be limited
by identification with that genre andthus initially rejected the offer.
Additionally, de Havilland didn’tlike the role of Miriam Deering in
the original script, as she recounted
recently: “Undaunted, Aldrich thenposed several questions which he knew
would pique my curiosity: ‘Weren’t
you attracted by the dichotomy?
Intrigued by the ambiguity? By theambivalence?’ I replied that I saw
no dichotomy, no ambiguity, noambivalence whatsoever in Miriam’s
character, but that I would read thescript again that night” (ibid.).
After the years of battling for astronger career and more consideredroles, de Havilland was not about toaccept a script she didn’t like: “WhenI met him the next morning, I said,‘I still don’t see any dichotomy, any
ambiguity, or any ambivalence in
Miriam; but I think I know how
you can achieve this: give her perfectmanners. As written, in her very firstscene Miriam [was] abominably rude
to Agnes Moorehead, a ‘slavey,’ leaving
no doubt whatsoever as to Miriam’s
villainy. By giving her perfect manners
the audience will be mislead regarding
her true character—which ought not
to be revealed until the last possible
moment” (ibid.).
Fortunately, “Bette Davis…liked thisidea; a re-write was arranged, and thescript was altered accordingly” (ibid.).
Aldrich agreed to change the role’s
concept from a patently evil woman
to that of a “refined and charming andapparently sympathetic lady... [which]gave the character an ambivalence
that no actress could resist” (Thomas,
1983), and thus de Havilland
enthusiastically accepted.
That duality of the divine and thedark permeates Hush...Hush, Sweet
Charlotte, which, while occasionallyexploitational and Grand Guignol,
earned seven Oscar nominations
and garnered generally good reviews.
Rather than being as a film inwhich de Havilland and Davis are“turned into complete travesties ofthemselves” (Haskell, 1974), Hush...
Hush demonstrates that the actresses
were having a grand time “playingout their campy roles, taking theold melodramatics of their Warner
Bros. heyday and going over the top”
(Matthews, 1995).
Several critics at the time of its releaserecognized the film for what it was: athriller whose notable cast raised thescript to deliciously melodramaticheights. Arthur Knight called deHavilland “properly oversweet as thesolicitous Cousin Miriam.” And Time
captured the tone of the film in its
review entitled “Dragon Ladies”: “Tomake clear that the fright is all in fun,this monster rally offers not two but
four seasoned movie queens--three ofthem ready to let down their hair….
The tidy one is actress de Havilland,
who flings away her composure but
retains her chic” (Knight, 1965).
De Havilland’s performance, however,offers a bit more subtlety than thatstatement implies.
Her ladylike
cousin Miriam Deering, sweetly
named, substitutes charm for curare,tipping her intentions like poisoned
arrows and delicately letting them
fly at poor Charlotte. De Havilland
explained her approach to thecharacterization as follows: “’It’s
always the charming ones of evil
intent who are the dangerous ones;
the other ones you can see coming.
But you can’t see Miriam coming,and she’s really dangerous’” (Thomas,
1983). She certainly is. Blackmailer,
killer, poseur, seducer, avenger–and all
done with that honeyed de Havilland
allure.
A view of this aspect of de Havilland’s
lethal sweetness had appeared inearlier films. One must consider deHavilland’s last half-hour as Catherine
Sloper in 1949’s The Heiress, in which
duality again rears its duplicitoushead. Her cool, calculated revenge
upon golddigging Montgomery
Clift, culminating in that long walkup the dark stairs into permanent
spinsterhood, is bone-chilling. It took
an effective actress to believably walkaway from Clift’s pre-car accident
beauty, no matter how manipulative
his Morris Townsend was.
So Miriam Deering continues theelegant tightrope of characterizationof satin and steel often found inde Havilland’s performances. Her
southern softness in this role reminds
us of the spine of her famous Melanie.
Scarlett got everyone back home toTara, but Melanie had the baby while
the Yankees were storming Atlanta,suggested Scarlett rifle the pocketsof the Union deserter, comforted a
weeping Rhett Butler, and kept her
weak Ashley faithful to her. After allof that, de Havilland’s dainty bellecum-ruthless avenger in Hush...Hush

menaces as creamily as a cyanide
teacake.
What separates Hush...Hush from otherWilliam Castle-ish genre classics, andwhat places it only slightly below Baby
Jane for pure camp delight, is the toneof the acting. Aldrich’s directing style,informed in part by the uneven scriptof Henry Farrell and Lukas Heller,
is wildly inconsistent in Hush...
Hush--is it a comedy? A tragedy? A
tragicomedy? A parody? It’s almost
as though everyone wandered onto
the same set at the same time andappears in their own strange southern
Gothic film. Yet the veteran actors
are riveting and somehow it all works,
the participants playing off eachother in true ensemble tradition, theircollective years of studio training
resulting in a delightfully broad,macabre entertainment.
Bette Davis careens from being wildly
bitchy to disturbingly vulnerable as the
not-quite-mad Charlotte Hollis, who
may or may not have cut off the handand head of her married lover, John
Mayhew, back in the 1920s, when he
ended their affair. Bruce Dern plays
the unfortunate John in yet anotherincarnation of the creepy antagonist
he played in numerous ‘60s B-films.
Noblesse oblige kept Charlotte out of
jail, but thirty-some years later, she is
the local crazy woman whose family
manse is about to be destroyed by thecounty to build a new highway, andshe will have none of it. Reminiscentof William Faulkner’s eponymous
southern belle-cum-murderer in “A
Rose for Emily,” Davis gives us amemorably vulnerable heroine.
Other Hollywood greats have awonderful time in this spirited,spooky tale of revenge. Joseph Cotten
portrays manipulative lawyer Drew
Bayliss as an aging, slurring, drunken
southern doctor and gigolo. Mary
Astor is Jewel Mayhew, the widow ofJohn, a frail old lady with grande dame
dignity. Cecil Kellaway invests his
compassionate insurance investigatorwith gentle English charm. Agnes
Moorehead (who won a best
supporting Oscar nomination and aGolden Globe award for her efforts)
is utterly hilarious and scene-stealing
as the white trashy Velma Cruther,Charlotte’s maid and strongest ally,legendarily crass ‘n crude, a Flannery
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 63

O’Connor nightmare, the woman for
who the word “slattern” was invented.
And in the center of these varied
styles stands the eye of the storm.
De Havilland plays Miriam as anormal, poised woman, an outsider
to the rather extreme goings-on way
down South. Yet the poise gradually,
impalpably becomes transparent.
Beneath it we see the need to avenge
the past which set the “tragic” eventsin motion, and that anger and hurt
surfaces in some high dramatic
moments. There is also however thecool sociopath whose elegant restraint
masks an empty heart. Those scenes
are eerie, efficient, chilling. Amidst agathering of gargoyles, de Havilland
gracefully insinuates her romantic evil,a true femme fatale. As she says, “[P]ortraying Miriam became a game forme, thus saving me from undergoingthe dark experience which had so
profoundly and negatively affected meon The Dark Mirror (O. de Havilland,personal communication, 7 January2015).
The plot is appropriately convoluted,
albeit a pale mirror of the equally
convoluted but much smoothervehicles created for stars like deHavilland and Davis and Cotten andAstor during the golden age of films.
In 1927, on a warm southern evening
in New Orleans, in a grand mansion(the beautifully preserved Houmas
House between New Orleans and
Baton Rouge), a party is roaring forMiss Charlotte Hollis. She is the
beloved daughter of her Big Daddy,
Big Sam Hollis, played by Victor
Buono doing a wonderful Burl Ives
impersonation.3
However, unbeknownst to MissCharlotte, Big Sam is hopping mad at
Charlotte’s secret lover, John Mayhew(Bruce Dern). Not only is John
currently married to Jewel Mayhew(Mary Astor), but if he marries
Charlotte he’ll someday get his hands
on her daddy’s money, and that ain’t
about to happen. Big Sam orders him
to cancel their planned elopementfrom the summer house and thenskedaddle.
John reluctantly breaks the news toCharlotte, who screams at the cad, “I
could kill you!” And just a few minutes
later, someone efficiently chops off
64 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

John’s head and hand in the summer
house. Then into the party walks La
Somnambula Charlotte, her pretty
white Jezebel-ish dress drenched inblood.

land that time forgot. The soundtrack
score by Frank De Vol accompanying
her entrance is as lush as the foliage,
all piano and harps, ladylike music forthe ladylike killer.

Jump ahead to 1964. Charlotte still
lives in the mansion, Baby Jane in aball gown, haunted by her memories
of John and her belief she killed
him. She managed to beat the rap
but she is no longer the belle of theball. She’s become isolated, the town
crazy woman living in a haunted
house, tormented by local little boys.4
Charlotte’s only “friend” is her hired
woman, Velma Cruther (Agnes
Moorehead), a raw but loyal southern
servant.

De Havilland plays the early scenesof the film with a kind of wide-eyed,gentle glissando. The delicate line
between her eyes seems permanently
furrowed in concern and amazementat Charlotte’s condition. Her false
eyelashes tilt up at the edges likewings, and the rest of her makeup
is restrained. She holds the gazeof the person to whom she speaks.
She wears gloves and the Dior-like(de Havilland’s private couturier ofchoice) tailored dresses of an elegant
woman. In fact, her wardrobe isquite sexy – halter chiffon dresses,
high heels, and bare arms. Her hair
pertly frames her face; she’s petite andslim with continental carriage. Her
voice is warm, her vowels long andsoothing, and her timbre young andlight one moment, low and wise thenext. Miriam at first glance is how we
expect a worldly woman of a certain
age to appear.

To make matters worse, the county
plans to bulldoze Charlotte’s ancientfamily home to make room for abridge. She will become a madwoman
without an attic. Her doctor Drew
Bayliss ( Joseph Cotten) advises her toleave, but she will not listen. Who canhelp Charlotte retain her refuge?
Who else but her last remaining blood
relative, Cousin Miriam Deering?
Now an urban public relations person,
Miriam’s mother was a northerner,
but Miriam was raised in the mansion
after being orphaned. Out of familial
loyalty, despite her outsider/Yankee
status, Miriam returns to Louisiana
and to her “home” to fight the county
and save the house, or so Charlotte
believes.
But with Miriam’s fashionably lateentrance onto the scene (37 years
after John Mayhew’s murder and 28
minutes into the film), the conflict
becomes far more complicated than amere standoff between a crazed, aging
Southern belle and the “guvmint.” It
becomes Miriam’s conflict; she is anavenging angel balancing the scales ofjustice, ruthlessly, in her favor.

But at this early stage, there’s thesuggestion of the serpent in thegarden. Miriam’s attire is a genteel
disguise; de Havilland’s soignée
presence, while trim and chic,
costumes a carpetbagger in sheep’s
clothing. And she shows up a day
early and catches everyone off guard,commenting casually that she had tocatch an early plane while removing
her gloves (prepared for battle) andnot making eye contact with Velma,
who’s not happy to see her.

Miriam also doesn’t suffer masculine
braggadocio gladly. For example,
she meets Drew Bayliss (Cotten),apparently for the first time since hedumped her years before over theCharlotte scandal. Drew tries toinsinuate himself into her good graces
De
Havilland’s
initialscreen by complimenting her awkwardly andappearance in the film is timed aw shucks-ing, “You know I never was
perfectly to establish that “dangerous” any good at expressing myself.”edge between what seems to be andwhat is in her character while also Miriam hasn’t forgotten his ficklenessgiving the star a grand entrance. and reminds him sibilantly, “Oh, that’s
Miriam appears, shot literally in not so at all, Drew. You were always
sunshine and shadow, in the back of very quick with your compliments.
a taxi, wearing a sailor hat variation It was just your inten—tions. They
and a boat-necked sheath, looking were sometimes...a little vague.”thoughtfully out the windows at the De Havilland phrases that line

by holding the “n”, by theatricallypausing between thoughts. She coos
her lines. She’s flirting with Drew
and with the audience, obviously
performing, obviously controlling the
moment. While friendly, her deliveryof the line also offers a preview of thecharacter—she is restrained, no one’s
fool, and very, very clever.
Winning, control, and vengeance are
key elements to de Havilland’s Miriam
Deering. We see those elements in
the reunion between Miriam andCharlotte, Olivia and Bette. The
acting styles of the actresses in thisscene, and throughout their scenes
together, are reminiscent of theircharacters Roy and Stanley in In
This Our Life. De Havilland is calm,poised, warm, and radiant; Davis is
manic, ragged, imperious, and large.
This
consciously
mannered
graciousness begins to fray at the hem,
however, at the reunion dinner thatevening between Charlotte, Miriam,and Drew. Charlotte appears at
first relaxed, sane, as she sips a finevintage and rattles on about how
Miriam’s going to save the day and themansion. All the while Charlotte’s
chatting away, Miriam is shown in
half-shadow, shot by Aldrich from amenacingly low angle. Everything’s
pleasant until Miriam interjects anote of reality into Charlotte’s highhopes. Using a literally musicaltone of voice with her cousin, andapproaching her as one would achild, de Havilland melodically states,“There isn’t anything we can do about
the house. You have to leave.” Thispronouncement of doom is delivered
prettily by the pretty Olivia in iambic
beats, her eyes wide and dark, herdiction restrained, her eyebrowsdaintily arched.

set foot in!” There is a luxuriousness of
consonants in de Havilland’s deliveryof these lines.
And when Charlotte plays her trumpcard, telling Drew and the audiencethat it was Miriam who told Jeweland her father about her affair withJohn Mayhew in the first place, we
experience the full fury of Miriam. In
her icy, calculating style of delivery, theanger and the pain of Miriam unfolds
in the unrestrained explanation deHavilland offers: “Yes, I told Jewel.
And I told your father, too. Why
wouldn’t I? After all, I wasn’t much
more than a child then. And all I evergot in this house was people tellingme how lucky I was. And your father
always favoring you and holding you
up as an example. Why wouldn’t I
tell him that his pure darling little girlwas having a dirty little affair with amarried man” (Hush)? De Havilland
begins the speech slowly, building toa crescendo of hatred, emphasizing
the most vitriolic adjectives. Director
Aldrich closes in on her tightly, hereyes becoming black dots of fury, herface a tight mask of hatred. Clearly,
Miriam has her own agenda.

One by one, de Havilland’s Miriam
thwarts anyone interfering with herplan to shuttle Charlotte away andtake control of the Hollis fortune.
However, there’s one primary
roadblock between Miriam anddriving Charlotte mad—the sly,white-trashy housekeeper and truefriend of Charlotte, Velma Cruther.
The acting styles of Agnes Moorehead
and de Havilland are worlds apartin this film, and that difference iswildly entertaining in their two
major scenes together, culminatingin Miriam’s brutal murder of Velma.
De Havilland’s chic beauty and brisk
efficiency could have been swallowed
up by Moorehead’s delicious Tobacco
Road parody. It would be difficult
for most actresses to hold the screen
against that kind of outrageous
playing. Yet once more de Havilland
uses the frozen heart of Miriam ascounterbalance to her compatriot’s’
juicy slices of ham. She is the again
still point, the eye of the storm. De
Havilland allows the balance of
cruelty and craftiness full sway, andin her brutal killing of Moorehead’s
Velma, we see that divine duality ofmurderous brightness in its gothic
glory.

Of course, the diva battle begins.
Charlotte stares at Miriam with
contempt and explodes, hitting every
consonant in that Bette Davis way,
“What do you think I asked you here
for? Company?” This scene gives deHavilland the opportunity to “actback” at Davis, literally renouncing
Charlotte’s
father’s“generosity”
towards her as she hisses at Davis,“Yesssss, I remember he took yourpoor up north cousin downtown fora whole new wardrobe. Down to asleazy store he wouldn’t even let you
Eye Magazine Sixth Edition | 65

Delivering her epithets in a hissing,guttural voice, and showing her ofbottom teeth and unfurled lower lip,de Havilland intones in a low octave,“Damn you. Now will you shut yourmouth? You’ll do as I tell you and if
I tell you to lie you’ll do that too. I’mnever going to suffer for you again.
Not ever. Do you understand?” Shelooks like she’d like to tear her throat
out with canines, and the moment isgenuinely, brutally chilling, ending
with a drugged, babbling Davis anda soothing, cooing de Havilland
stroking her mad head.
Of course, there must be retribution,and it is divine. And de Havilland
looks divine in her last scene. She
descends the staircase down which
she dispatched Velma rather like
Loretta Young. Dressed in a sleeveless,low cut black evening gown, she pats
her hair into place (a casually evil
touch) and joins her partner Drew
in a champagne toast. With a jaunty
spring in her drink, mature sexuality
on display, quaffing one glass andhaving another, she reveals to Drew,
who is trying to control their future,
the full force of her vengeful heart.

Velma has gone to insurance adjustor
Mr. Willis and expressed her fears forCharlotte and her suspicions about
Miriam, and now she’s sneaked backinto the house to rescue her beloved
Miss Charlotte. Just in time, too
because Charlotte’s been drugged byDrew and Miriam, who as it transpires
are in cahoots to drive Charlotte mad,commit her, and control her fortune.
Velma rushes upstairs to Charlotte’s
room and tries to haul the catatonic
Charlotte out of her bed, but Miriam
slowly enters. The look on her face isterrifying – cold, impersonal, bitter.
De Havilland’s eyes in her close-up
betray icy loathing as she intones
to Velma in a flat disgusted, classconscious voice, “You just can’t keephogs away from the trough, can you?”
Starting to descend the stairs, Velma
makes the mistake of turning her backto Miriam who grabs a chair, raises ithigh above her coiffed head, and slams
66 | Eye Magazine Sixth Edition

it down onto Velma, who naturally
tumbles down the stairs dead. De
Havilland’s murderous intent makes
her look ten years older, her facekabuki-like, white, almost inhuman.
It’s a satisfyingly ghoulish scene and afreeze-frame of the moment suggests
the depths available to the actress,
which she releases sparingly, in thisfilm and in her later career.
This is all building to the climactic,
Dynasty-like confrontation between
the two. Drew and Miriam stage
his murder, convincing Charlotte
he’s dead and that his body must be
disposed of. Miriam takes charge—
how many bodies has she hidden
before? —and drives, unblinkingly,
back to Hell House while Charlotte
whimpers by her side. Miriam’s last
nerve just sprung. She stops thecar, does her trademark slow, lethal
turn, grabs Charlotte’s gown, andthen backhand slaps her six times.6

Chastising his masculine preening,
she notes, “Are you sure you have thebrains to be the senior partner?” Shethen reveals to Drew that she sent
Charlotte dozens of harassing lettersfor years, convincing Charlotte thatJewel Mayhew was behind them.
She also confesses that she caught
Jewel red-handed, so to speak, in themurder of John and blackmailed her
until her money ran out. Even Drew
is shocked by this cruelty and wonders
that she could make both women
suffer for so long. Miriam pertly
replies, “Yes darling, that’s exactly
what I did...You joined this game later
than you thought.” De Havilland’scool intelligence makes this plot
development almost believable.
But murder will out. While Miriam
and Drew chatter mockingly about
their plans to each other (and theaudience), Charlotte creeps to thebalcony above them and listens in. She
seems stunned as Miriam drawls in
mock-southern tones that she’ll haveto pretend to be upset that her cousinCharlotte has gone bonkers. Her fire
returns however when Miriam andDrew chuckle over her impending

institutionalization and impugn thecharacter of her beloved father andher lover. Miriam proclaims in ahigh, sugary voice, “All that lovely
money that Big Sam sweated to get
his hands on. While we’re spendin’ itlike water, Charlotte will be weavinglots and lots of little baskets.” Thisline is delivered in a soprano mocking
tone, sing-song-ed by de Havilland
almost too grandly, as though Aldrichdirected her to be as evil as possible
so she deserves what she gets. That
does it. Charlotte pushes a concrete
planter over the railing of the balcony,
and Miriam looks up in time to shriek
before she dies. Of course, in deathde Havilland looks glorious, laid out
open-eyed in that glamorous gown
and staring up at the woman who hastriumphed over her one final time.

interested in the fact that I can still
count to eight in Japanese! Of course
I send my special greeting to them.”
With the graciousness and enduring
enthusiasm she still displays in her
private life, with its own rewards
and regrets (as Dotson Rader titledan interview with de Havilland), theactress expressed an energy which
could create a gentle Melanie Wilkes
and a steely Miriam Deering. Almost
thirty years ago, she proclaimed, “I
like life! I want to have more of it. To
venture more, create more, experience
more. Oh, I want to go on for a very
long time” (Rader, 1986)! At the ageof 98, alive, well, and living in Paris,
Olivia de Havilland is doing just that.
Even Jack Warner would be proud.

Olivia de Havilland spoke of Hush...
Hush, Sweet Charlotte as being “fullof traps, it was a delicate tight-rope
walking assignment. I found that very
interesting. Aldrich gave it...a kind of
dark glittering style which fascinatedme” (Thomas, 1983). That notion of
the “dark glittering style” perfectly
describes the approach de Havilland
took in portraying her character—abrightness haloed by darkness, ashadow dimming the light.

De Havilland did however
win acclaim for her harrowing
performance as a woman trapped inher house while it is invaded by crazed
thugs. The British magazine Films
and Filming chose her performanceas the best by an actress that year.
2
The party scene offers one ofthe problems of many ‘60s “period”
films—the costumes work, but all of
the extras look like Nancy Sinatra.
Incidentally, the blonde debutantelooking for Charlotte at the party
is none other than Bette Davis’
daughter dearest, B.D.
3
The little boy who breaks into
the house to startle Charlotte is actor
John Megna, who played Dill in To
Kill a Mockingbird. It’s another Boo
Radley moment.

While Olivia de Havilland may havebeen troubled by creating the darkladies she portrayed in Devotion, The
Dark Mirror, My Cousin Rachel andHush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte, sheenhanced the catalogue of her film
performances by showing viewers her
potential to play anti-heroines whichsuggested the depths of her talents.
Had the actress not moved to France
after her marriage to Paris Matchand Coco Chanel biographer Pierre
Galante in 1955, focusing upon her
family and her new Parisian life, andwisely eschewing a Hollywood which
was undergoing radical transformation
due to the rise of television and thefall of the studio system, she might
have pursued additional roles which
elaborated upon her unique gift for
portraying sunshine and shadow.

Notes
1

Interestingly,
Aldrichphotographs de Havilland throughthe bars of the staircase in this andother scenes, as well as in bar-likeshadows throughout the film. Not
only does this add to her black-orwhite characterization, but it also
reminds us of the Warner Brothers
days of great lighting effects.
5
De Havilland’s crisp takecharge attitude in these packing
scenes is reminiscent of her Oscarwinning role as Jody in 1946’s To
Each His Own. In that film, after
having to give up her illegitimate son,
Jody goes to the big city and turns anantique face cream mixing machine
into a million dollar corporation
with no fuss, no muss. That efficient
taking-care-of-business air seems to
be a de Havilland trademark both on
and off the screen.
6
De Havilland actually slappeda stand-in; after all, she and Davis
were friends as well as stars. Pity thepoor stand-in’s face, though; thesearen’t love taps.
4

Victoria Amador is an AssistantProfessor of English at the Universityof Sharjah in the United ArabEmirates. Her research interests
include the golden era of Hollywood
cinema, popular culture, and gothic
film and literature.
A fully referenced version of thisarticle can be provided by contacting
publications@iafor.org.

In an e-mail received from theTokyo-born actress, on November
8, 2014, when she learned this essay
would be presented at the IAFOR
conference in Osaka, Japan, she wrote:“[Y]our listeners may, or may not be
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