Homosexuality in Hitchcock's "Rope"
Discuss the representation of homosexuality in Sigmund Freud's "The Sexual Aberrations" and Alfred Hitchcock's Rope. .
Based on the true murder case of Leopold and Loeb, Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) depicts the tale of two intelligent young men and there attempts to execute the perfect murder. With the entire film taking place in one apartment, we watch as Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan strangle there friend David, hide his body in a trunk, and proceed to have a party, all the while with the corpse hidden in plain sight. In this essay, I will address the issue of homosexuality within the text, a theory which, due to the strict nature of the times, is only hinted at within the movie. To do this, I will use Freud's essay on The Sexual Aberrations (1905) and provide parallels between the two texts. In particular I will focus on Freud's discussion of degeneration, sadism, masochism and finally fetishism.
What is interesting when discussing homosexuality within this text, especially when viewed in context of what was believed to be sexually normal at the time, is whether the two murderers sexuality actually has any bearing on the crime itself. Or, more to the point, (and particularly when viewed with relevance to Freud's Aberrations) is it the sexuality, or society's view on the sexuality that led Shaw and Morgan to the conclusion of murder? Freud, when discussing the term "degenerate", disregards any preconceived beliefs of a link between it and homosexuality. He argues that a simple digression from normality does not qualify a person as degenerate (i.e morally corrupt). Therefore, an invert, or person of a homosexual inclination is not, at least as a result of their natural sexuality, a person of degenerate nature. To Freud, degeneration is as much a possibility within heterosexuals as homosexuals. The deviation from normality, in itself, has no bearing on it. “That the inverted are not degenerates in this qualified sense can be seen from the
Based on the true murder case of Leopold and Loeb, Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) depicts the tale of two intelligent young men and there attempts to execute the perfect murder. With the entire film taking place in one apartment, we watch as Brandon Shaw and Phillip Morgan strangle there friend David, hide his body in a trunk, and proceed to have a party, all the while with the corpse hidden in plain sight. In this essay, I will address the issue of homosexuality within the text, a theory which, due to the strict nature of the times, is only hinted at within the movie. To do this, I will use Freud's essay on The Sexual Aberrations (1905) and provide parallels between the two texts. In particular I will focus on Freud's discussion of degeneration, sadism, masochism and finally fetishism.
What is interesting when discussing homosexuality within this text, especially when viewed in context of what was believed to be sexually normal at the time, is whether the two murderers sexuality actually has any bearing on the crime itself. Or, more to the point, (and particularly when viewed with relevance to Freud's Aberrations) is it the sexuality, or society's view on the sexuality that led Shaw and Morgan to the conclusion of murder? Freud, when discussing the term "degenerate", disregards any preconceived beliefs of a link between it and homosexuality. He argues that a simple digression from normality does not qualify a person as degenerate (i.e morally corrupt). Therefore, an invert, or person of a homosexual inclination is not, at least as a result of their natural sexuality, a person of degenerate nature. To Freud, degeneration is as much a possibility within heterosexuals as homosexuals. The deviation from normality, in itself, has no bearing on it. “That the inverted are not degenerates in this qualified sense can be seen from the