Caged 1950 movie gay

Once in prison, Marie is torn between Ruth Benton, the sympathetic warden Agnes MooreheadEvelyn Harper, the sadistic matron Hope Emersonand Kitty Stark, the older prisoner who wants to recruit her into a life of crime Betty Garde.

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Instead the film embraces a mix of melodrama and realism, capturing the cruelty — and ineffectiveness gay of prisons. Marie goes from a desperate kid to a committed criminal, the system creating what it claims to want to stop. But Marie will soon learn that prison itself is punishment, because it is torture. Although Ruth is the warden, she lacks the political connections of Evelyn Harper and therefore lacks the power to regulate treatment and additional punishment.

Other than the swagger of various characters, this is the most explicit mention of queerness. In the world of Cagedlesbianism is another punishment, a further reduction of womanhood carried out by the state. This is emphasized by the arrival of Elvira Powell Lee Patricka wealthy crime boss who usurps the position of top prisoner — and top top — from Kitty.

In a movie where every character feels like a lesbian, Elvira is the most undeniable. She enters the prison with a powerful gait and even more powerful resources. But Elvira can make bigger promises than Kitty. Ruth begs Marie to keep waiting and to trust in reformist principles. But Marie has grown too wise. By the end, 1950 has completely abandoned her roles as good girl, wife, and mother.

She leaves the prison reborn as a femme fatale. While the filmmakers present this shift as negative — either to reflect their own beliefs or to appease the Hays Code — lesbianism is not so easily dismissed here as tragedy. While incarcerated, the solidarity Marie finds among the women is her only reprieve.

The conflicts between prisoners often found in prison media are secondary in this film to their united movie against Evelyn Harper and the system that confines them all. She simply chooses to be out. Out of prison, out of the closet, out of a society built on heteropatriarchy and carceral justice. The tragedy of the film is the limited options for these women — the fact that this cruel system still exists so many decades later.

It might not work. But caged is hope in rebellion against a broken system, there is hope in fighting back, there is hope in being a dyke. Caged is available to rent and is screening again at the Film Forum on Friday at p. Drew is a Brooklyn-based writer, filmmaker, and theatremaker.

She is currently working on a million film and TV projects mostly about queer trans women. Find her on Instagram. Excellent article Drew.