Women In Streetcar Named Desire And Blue Jasmine

Blue Jasmine, movie by Woody Allen is a successful adaptation of the play “Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams. Blue Jasmine shows Jasmine, main character, living in entitled world, once wealthy woman falls into nothingness. Jasmine recreates the character of Blanche DuBois in Streetcar Named Desire in context to contemporary age. Like Jasmine, Ginger represents Stella as her sister; however as an adopted sister. Auggie, Stella’s ex-husband and Chili, Ginger’s current, blue collar boyfriend play the role of Stanley Kowalski. Woody Allen hopes to showcase Streetcar Named Desire in context of our modern era through his movie Blue Jasmine. Although Blue Jasmine portrays variety of similar themes from Streetcar Named Desire,
Although some parts of women’s role is similar in both plays, Allen modified the women’s role in Blue Jasmine to represent modern lifestyle. Even when Stanley ruthlessly beats up Stella, Stella responds that “there are things that happen between a man and woman in the dark-that sort of make everything else seem unimportant.” (Williams Scene 5). Stella refuses to leave him behind because she is dependent to him. She does not have money and also carries his child. Without Stanley’s support, Stella is left to suffer on her own with their child. However, Ginger, in the film, believes Jasmine when she tells Ginger that there are “guys out there who wouldn’t pull a phone out of the wall,” therefore, Ginger cheats on Chilli with a guy who was economically “better” than Chilli. Unlike, Stella, Ginger is not compelled to stay with Chilli because Ginger holds a job and is able to take care of herself and her sons. Other than being financially secured, Stella lived in era where it was not accepted for woman to divorce her husband and be a single mother. In Ginger’s case, she resides in a culture where it was acceptable to leave the husband if it was not a happy marriage and also women have the ability to find job as well. Allen demonstrates the similarity between the play and the movie by showing the existence of the dependence on men
Allen could have taken the homosexuality of Blanche’s husband to what leads him to kill himself, however, homosexuality in our society is accepting now and therefore, like Blanche, homosexuality of her husband wouldn’t have driven Jasmine to her destroyed state. Therefore, to make the movie relevant, Allen instead uses current Wall Street issues to wove into what drives Jasmine crazy. Initially, the dirty money of her husband and the affair of her husband with multiple women is what drove her insane. Men, like Stanley and the society drives Blanche to the edge of her mental limit, but for Jasmine, it was a complete different cause,. Stanley’s parallel characters, Auggie and Chilli’s swagger and accent imply threat to Jasmine, like it did to Blanche; however, Allen makes a case against this idea. He instead makes Jasmine as the main villain that destructed herself. The only reason audiences sympathize with Jasmine is because both Jasmine and Blanche hold tight on their