BY LAUREN RAMANATHAN

In print | Published November 6, 2008

Out of my whole miserable high school career, one day stands out. I was in my 10th grade English class and we were talking about how attraction is formulated. Not surprisingly, most people in the class felt that people were more likely to be attracted to those who share their political beliefs.
Ever since then I’ve marveled at the spectacle of actual liberal-conservative couples. “How do they do it?” I asked myself.

Well, George Cukor’s wonderfully orchestrated classic “Adam’s Rib” (1949, USA) answers that question resoundingly: “With great difficulty!” Revolving around a pair of married lawyers, Adam (Spencer Tracy) and Amanda Bonner (Katharine Hepburn), the film explores the tensions that arise when the personal meets the political.

Mildly conservative Adam decides to take up the prosecution in a case involving a nervous housewife, Doris Attinger (played by a brilliant Judy Holiday), who is arrested for shooting her unfaithful husband Warren Attinger (Tom Ewell), after catching him in the arms of another woman. When plucky Amanda decides to take up the defense, things start to go awry.

She argues that a woman has a right to defend her home, especially in light of the fact that Doris has children to feed. But Adam believes that the law is the law. The fundamental issue here is Adam’s inability to conceive of the ways in which men are privileged in society. So, even if men and women are technically “equal under the law,” how is that standard being arbitrated?

During one scene, it becomes perilously obvious what is at stake for Amanda, when she interviews one of the jurors, asking him, “Do you believe in equal rights for women?” and he replies with a staunch, “I should say not!” (It still shocks me every time I see it.) But work is quickly mixed with pleasure as Amanda sits back down on the bench next to her defendant. She looks across the aisle at Adam, who slyly drops a pencil beneath his desk. She quickly follows suit and the two exchange a flirtatious glance or two surreptitiously under the table before work is quickly resumed once more and Adam must approach the next juror.

Navigating political differences with a spouse can be more dangerous, as proven by the scene in which Adam gives Amanda a massage. Amanda begins singing the song that the Bonners’ overeager next-door neighbor, Kip Lurie (David Wayne), wrote for her. Adam is overcome with anger: not only does his wife emasculate him by kicking his ass in court, but also other men (gasp!) find her attractive! He gives her an abrupt SLAP! on the ass, after which Amanda breaks down into tears, complaining of “typical, instinctive, masculine brutality.” “And it felt not only as if you meant it but as though you felt you had a right to!” she shrieks. Of course Amanda’s response to this situation is quickly gendered and trivialized. “Guaranteed heart melter, female tears!!!” Adam exclaims. But Amanda throws the game right back at him, kicking him in the shins with a shrill, “LET’S ALL BE MANLY!!!!” In what seems to be a purely personal domestic exchange, gender roles are used like weapons. Every action taken is seen as a symptom of gendered socialization. According to Adam, women only use tears to get what they want and for Amanda men are all brutes who would love nothing more than to abuse their wives with impunity. But as the film progresses, things just aren’t that simple.

At one of the wackiest points during the film, Amanda decides to bring in a gaggle of women: doctors, chemists, construction workers, even a circus performer as witnesses in court. Her aim is to prove that women are just as capable as men and therefore deserve equal treatment under the law.
The scene ends when the circus performer lifts Adam, against his will, high into the air. Obviously, such a gag is a source of comedy and, as Adam claims, these women really have nothing to do with the case, but there is something evocative about Amanda’s proclamation that “not only one woman is on trial here, but all women.” Should women be forced to acquiesce to the laws of a society that doesn’t have their best interest in mind? For that matter, should women have to follow the law when men regularly break it without care?

“Adam’s Rib” doesn’t give us those answers, even though the jury seems to be with Amanda and lets Doris off the hook. But the battle of the sexes isn’t won definitively in the courtroom. At the end of the day Adam wins back Amanda by shedding his masculine toughness and, ironically, a few tears.

­­­It is only when the roles are reversed that the Bonners are able to see each other for who they truly are: two very dedicated lawyers and lovers with exceedingly disparate political views. Things seem to end happily ever after, which offers a little hope that we can all learn to get along after all.

Lauren is a sophomore. She can be reached at lramana1@swarthmore.edu.

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