His Girl Friday charts the marriage and divorce and remarriage of Walter and Hildy and the engagement -- and near marriage -- of Hildy and Bruce. Hildy says she wants domestic bliss in suburban Albany but she chucks it to remarry Walter and relaunch her career. Can someone balance career and marriage? Who is the best kind of spouse? Is happiness possible in marriage? What is this film saying about that state of marriage -- or love -- in the modern world?
His Girl Friday gives an interesting commentary on the direction of modern marriage, relationships, and what makes someone appealing. The film opens up with Walter Burns learning from his ex-wife Hildy that she will marry Bruce Baldwin, an insurance agent, the next day in Albany. Despite the coming marriage, there is clear tension between Hildy and Walter, which continues to grow throughout the duration of the movie. Walter’s life is much more exciting than Bruce’s, and Walter is much more mature and cunning. Walter is a high-up at the newspaper Hildy used to be the top writer at and uses her old love of the business as a temptation to come back, though she continuously declines. Walter’s newspaper is covering murder committed by a man thought to be insane who is facing the death penalty. After convincing Bruce that Hildy’s writing could save the man's life, Bruce begs Hildy to write for the newspaper, which she eventually reluctantly does when Walter promises to buy insurance from Bruce. When Walter finds himself only with Bruce, he is able to trick him into getting arrested multiple times and delays his train with threats of explosives. Bruce doesn’t catch on to the trickery and believes it's just bad luck, but after many phone calls with Bruce, Hildy knows better than to think Bruce isn’t behind the madness. Despite his trickery of her fiancee, at the end of the movie, after being reminded of the excitement of being around Walter and the newspaper business, it is clear Hildy has no intention of catching the late train with Bruce. At the night's end, Walter reminds her she must leave but intentionally waits until the train had already left. Hildy broke down crying because she thought Walter was really sending her away, and he says he never would. They hold each other and happily agree to marry, leaving Bruce alone. His Girl Friday gives perfect commentary on the importance of excitement in a relationship and how one can only fake their content with good enough for so long.
ReplyDeleteThe film His Girl Friday portrays through the case of Hildy and Walter how people in the modern world define love with tangible successes, ruining their chances of ever finding true love. The beginning of the film reveals that Walter’s ex-wife, Hildy, has finally decided to seek the domestic bliss of suburban Albany and plans to marry Bruce Baldwin, an insurance agent. Adamant about stealing Hildy from Bruce, Walter sets up an elaborate scheme to prevent the marriage from taking place. In all of Walter’s complex planning, what eventually wins over Hildy’s love is the premise of her relaunching her career in the dog-eat-dog world of journalism. The night before the marriage is set to take place, Walter and the newspaper Hildy used to work at are covering the event of a murder committed by a man facing the death penalty. Walter manipulates Hildy into thinking that only she has the chops to cover the spectacle and that she can use her writing to save the man’s life. Only after Walter plants the idea of Hildy retaking her spot in journalism does she begin to stop worrying about making it to her wedding with Bruce. At that moment, Walter has enough influence over Hildy to convince her to remarry him and abandon her dream of settling down with Bruce. His Girl Friday criticizes the modern-day world's perception of love with how easily Hildy is manipulated into marrying a man she had once made an effort to divorce. Just like Hildy, people are quick to associate love with career successes and label someone as their true love simply because it would bring tangible fortunes. For Hildy, the thought of reclaiming a dominant role in journalism and propelling her career with a single flashy headline is enough for her to redefine what her ideal spouse is. His Girl Friday demonstrates how people choose to love through a career-focused lens, resulting in the same situation where Hildy and Walter will likely find themselves again, filing for divorce.
ReplyDeleteThe film His Girl Friday pokes fun at the changes in the institution of marriage over time. The story begins with a woman, Hilda, telling her ex-husband, Walter, that she is engaged to be married to someone new, Bruce. In this conversation, Walter points mentions the idea of "till death do us part", insinuating that marriage is a social construct that has become more lenient than certain phases suggest. Walter also blurts out that they should get married again, demonstrating that a couple can get married, divorced, and married again like it is no big deal. This emphasizes the lack of respect and understanding of the grandiosity of marriage. Here, Walter and Hildy demonstrate marriage to be something you get to choose when you want to be a part of. At the end of the film, Hildy realizes that Walter does truly love her, and she calls off her engagement with Bruce and decides to remarry Walter. This illustrates Hildy changing her mind on who she wants to marry based on a spur-of-the-moment judgment, insinuating that there is not that much thought that goes into who she decides to marry or divorce. Additionally, this emphasizes the ease with which one can get married in society, without any steps or screening. Overall, the film pokes fun at the institution of marriage, and how underwhelming it is becoming.
ReplyDeleteThe film His Girl Friday says that in the modern world, the state of marriage and love does not carry the same importance as it once did. Marriage was and is a very important thing to most people. It is an important identifier of a rather sacred bond between two people. In the film, however, marriage is made to seem like an insignificant and negligible thing. We see this in the first scene when Hilda goes back to her old work to inform her ex boss/ex husband that she is going to marry another man in a couple of days. Upon hearing this news, Walter actually invited her to marry him instead although it was in a kidding way. This scene tells us a lot of what we need to know about the current state of marriage. It shows that it is not such an important or hallowed undertaking anymore. Hilda’s relationship with Bruce is fairly new and happened practically right after Walter and her were divorced. Then now all of a sudden she is marrying this man after not knowing him for long? This could not possibly be more confirming of my point. Marriage is not something that you jump into willy-nilly, so in rushing her relationship with Bruce, Hilda compromises the sacredness of marriage. The second part of this scene that brings concern on the current state of marriage is Walter’s jump to ask Hilda to remarry him. This is bad for basically the same reasons as before. Walter did not have any time to think about what he was saying, given that the conversation was moving very quickly, but said it anyway, which would make it seem like marriage was not a very big deal to him.
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ReplyDeleteIn His Girl Friday, the tumultuous relationship between Walter and Hildy vividly portrays the challenges of balancing career aspirations with family life. Hildy's desire for domestic stability clashes with her ambitions in journalism, leading her to oscillate between her career and her relationships during the film. In the beginning she is convinced that her better life is to be found in the former, pursuing a life far from urban chaos. The film contrasts two relationship styles: one characterized by minimal conflict, embodied in Bruce, a soft spoken and ‘nice guy’, and another marked by more chaos and contention, embodied in Walter who is manipulative, charismatic, and contentious. Despite the allure of suburban tranquility, Hildy ultimately chooses to reunite with Walter and revive her career, suggesting that a path of higher contention may be more fulfilling for both partners.
ReplyDeleteBy the end of the film, Heidi decides to resume her journalism career and relationship with Walter. In so doing, it implies that the better spouse is one who understands and supports their partner's ambitions, even if it leads to periods of chaos and disagreement. While domestic stability may seem appealing, His Girl Friday suggests that true happiness in marriage comes from embracing the challenges and complexities that arise from pursuing individual passions alongside maintaining a strong partnership. In the modern world, where individuals often juggle multiple roles and aspirations, the film resonates by illustrating that a fulfilled marriage can be found through shared ambition and mutual support, even amidst the chaos of conflicting desires.
While not the best example, His Girl Friday, clearly depicts a plausible balance between career, work, and marriage life through Hildey’s clear choice to love Walter through her working life career in the news. Even though I only caught the first small part of this movie in class, there is often a saying I believe fits well with this movie: There are people who live to work, and people who work to live. Hildy has always demonstrated her desire to live so that she may work in the newspaper business. In fact, it is shown in the first couple of scenes that Hildey found her husband, and nearly every other aspect of her life, through her career in the newspaper business. It is when she attempts to test this love, through becoming engaged with another man and expressing desire to change to working so that she may live a quaint life, that her love, friends, and experiences begin to leave her. The greatest example of these events in which I saw in the movie is when the group of reporters are talking in the press room of how short they believe her new marriage would last. They clearly mention aspects of how Hildey’s entire life was formed around her career, including her friends, her passions, and her true love. They believe that by marrying this other man her career and marriage life will become off balance, and thus she must choose which one. As per the previous reasons listed above, the reporters and I alike clearly believe that Hildy will choose her career over her love. Therefore, It can be seen that a balance between her career and her love life can be found by deeply intertwining the two, showing that indeed even in a modern world a balance of marriage and career work can be achieved on a person by person basis.
ReplyDeletePeople can balance marriage and work with a loving spouse, but the film "His Girl Friday" claims that it is not the loving spouse you need, but the one you work best with. Marriage and love are partnerships. If one spouse is working hard, the other one needs to support that work. If both spouses are working hard, they need to support each other. Many relationships work tremendously while balancing work and love, but in the modern world, director Howard Hawks wants to show us that you need chemistry and passion to align more than any other trait in a relationship. Walter is toxic. Hildy and Walter originally divorced because Hildy was unhappy with how Walter treated her. He neglected her, prioritized his work, and many times was straight-up rude. She comes back after the divorce to tell Walter she is marrying a nice man named Bruce. Bruce is less successful, but it is obvious he supports and loves Hildy very much. After Bruce meets Walter, Walter does everything he can to get Hildy back. He throws Bruce in jail, steals their money, kidnaps Bruce’s mom, and does everything I believe you would not want a loving partner to do to show you they are sane and that they still love you. Yet, Hildy falls for Walter’s old antics. He uses Hildy’s passion for the newspaper and for stories to show her that he can not live without it and cannot live without him. They work great together in the newspaper room. It is evident that the message Hawks is trying to convey here is that you need the dominant man who can work with you and get you to work for him as a husband. To a certain extent, there is a great message here. People who work well together often make great couples. But just because you work well with someone does not mean you throw out the rest of the criteria for a loving husband/wife. A healthy work-love balance has been and can be obtained and is definitely important for a working relationship.
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