Beat Me Skeet Me: A Critical Analysis of “Secretary” Essay

secretaire, the movie, is a provocative and warped love invoice. Viewers whitethorn go purple with rage or gray with disgust, while many may turn pink with embarrassment in order to hide the red of arousal. This movie crosses dangerous psychological territory the threshold amid desire and pain, between surrender and subjugation. Gaitskills Secretary is more about submissiveness and sexual perversion (Garrett 1). Critic Regina Weinreich argues that Gaitskills debut is startling and refreshing due to the neediness she portrays in her char portrayalers their vulnerablility makes them . . . victims of their have got behavior (Weinreich 1).Steven Shainbergs assume, working from a short story by Mary Gaitskill, is about two specific characters. Some will claim that Shainbergs film makes sexual convolute tasty, maintains that women secretly crave submission to a dominant male, and makes the case that humiliation at the hands of a man brush aside lead to psychological freedom, not to mention all the awful things it implies about the position of secretaries. Yet, Secretary is so consistent in its characters that its fair to say that only in the case of these two weirdly satisfying people atomic number 18 any of the instances true to life. The film shows how specific characters bridge their isolation (Shainberg 3). The additions to the film adaptation of Mary Gaitskills Secretary makes the story more fascinating and better justifies the characters actions.See more how to write a good critical abbreviation essayMary Gaitskills Secretary is about a frumpy wallflower whos so bruised emotionally that shes struggling to connect with herself (Weinreich 1). She gets a job as a secretary and ends up in a foreign sadomasochistic relationship with her employer. Its a great premise for a story, especially in its absurd moments, as when the lawyer begins to spank his new hire for every typo she commits. Gaitskill is an insightful writer her stories be lean and right awa y and tightly controlled, yet the end of Secretary is flat, and too serious (Garrett 1). Gaitskills humor in Secretary is dry and teasingly salacious its a more subtle incitement of sadomasochism. Having been spanked and sexually humiliated by her employer, the narrator whole steps estranged from her take in body. And she likes that estrangement it fires her sexual fantasies.When you finish reading the story, you think to yourself, So what? Why should I c atomic number 18 for this character? The secretary begins and remains much the same. She is the kind of person who suffers from such lowself-esteem that she invites and accepts abuse. She frequently wonders if theres something wrong with herself (Hallgren 2). You cant blame the lawyer for maltralimentation her and you find yourself wishing that hed managed to knock some sense into her. Its hard to feel for anyone so stubborn and resigned. The protagonist in the story wasnt known to hump pain before the incident, so its hard to justify how she responds to her stomps abuse. The only explanations for her reaction are that she was bewildered, curious, or simply passive and submissive (Kakutani 1).In the movie, lee Holloway is a lost young woman with family issues. Shes just been discharged from the asylum and has gone right back to what put her there in the first place, a compulsion to cut herself. Lee finds a job as a legal secretary at the office of attorney Edward greyness. When she first enters the office on a rainy morning, shes eroding a hooded rain coat, which makes her look innocent and introverted compared to Grey in his business suit. The description of the lawyer in the story gave no real picture of dominance, except that he had an aggressive hand shake. The movie, on the other hand, gives the audience a very clear image of his strength and control, and all his little quirks, such as the red markers he keeps and his built up energy that he exhausts by working out. In the film, the characters m otives and personalities are not only dramatically palatable but emotionally plausible (McCarthy 1).Once we get to know Grey, we learn that hes trying to let out his inner pervert, and the effort is reservation him into a repressed wretch his eyes bulge with suppressed rage and fear. Lee is the fly the spider cannot resist. Through their increasingly bizarre relationship, Lee follows her deepest longings to the high school of masochism and finally to a place of self-affirmation. The knob-secretary relationship starts to take on master-slave overtones before the big moment when, as punishment for a couple of innocent typos, Grey demands that Lee bend over his desk so he can administer a few thwacks across her ass. Lee is transformed.As Lee submits to this humiliation, she experiences an exhilarating hold out and a shock of recognition (Ansen 1). The episode allows her to stop the impulse of cutting herself. Louise Pembroke, a self-mutilator herself, argues that S&Mis not a self-h arm substitute. Pain as joyousness is not the same as pain from self-injury as the film suggests (Pembroke 3). Joe Queenan believes that Lee has just make a less destructive and more socially acceptable wall plug for her . . . masochistic tendencies (Queenan 1). As she and Grey continue their dominance/submission games, she begins to dress better, carry herself with confidence and lose the social awkwardness that was her personality. In Gaitskills story the spanking incident was just another quality in the cumulative discovery of character (Johnson 1). Debby came to little if any revelation in the story.The characterization of Lee makes Secretary a charming settledy. As she puts up with the conventional courtship practices of her gentle but dull boyfriend, who is not in Gaitskills story, shes as ungainly and self-conscious as a stranger. Peter asks Lee I didnt hurt you did I? after a bout of imagination-free sex. Lee stares into space, her look signaling, If only (Kemp 2). The spanking incident leads to a flowering of Lees sexual self that pushes aside the boyfriend, her twittery mother, her snotty sister and her drunk father. Greys overbearing manner and his imposing office are the triggers that allow Lee to escape her cocoon and become a kinky sadomasochist butterfly.The twist here is that Grey is hounded by shame and its up to Lee to rescue him from his self-loathing. This helps show the films point that sexual liberation lies with surrender to ones own kinks, and that even perverts deserve to find a soul mate. Lee was so profoundly moved by someone having discovered her secret source of rapture that she was able to be open about it (McCarthy 2). Secretary is, at its core, a little love story which dares to suggest that genuine love can come from sexual dominance. In the written story, the lawyer doesnt show any remorse, except to send Debby a severance check. And, Debby barely comes to any epiphany over the strange occurrence with her boss.In the fi lm, however, the secretary begins as a self-conscious cutter and transforms into a free and beautiful woman. This is what distinguishes the film as truly perverse it envisions S&M not as a stereotypical session with whips and chains, but rather as a force capable of transforming a person.Before the sadomasochistic relationship developed, Lee mutilated herself privately. When their relationship began to unfold, it was as if Lee admitted somebody else into her private world of masochism (Shainberg 1). The protagonist of Gaitskills story seems to accept the sadistic behavior of her boss as a reinforcement of her own piteousness, whereas the protagonist of the movie attains a kind of self-liberation through it.When Lee submits to the lawyers demand that she sit at his desk until he returns in order to prove her love, she undergoes an endurance test. She waits there with her hands flat on his desk as day turns into night and back again to day, eating and drinking nothing, urinating on he r fiances mothers wedding dress, and enduring confrontations with her fiance, family members, a priest and tv crews. The effect of this incredible act of submission, which is found in the film but not the story, is not to reinforce the secretarys low self-esteem, but to demonstrate that she finds within herself a power to endure.She approaches the act not as though it were a psychodrama but as though it was a contest of self-restraint. Her ability to suffer surpasses the lawyers ability to enjoy the spectacle of suffering, her masochism exceeds his sadism, and with this realization they enter into a strange new territory a loving relationship in which the usual imbalance of power between sadist and masochist is take off by the strength of her masochism. The two characters seem destined for each other.Mary Gaitskills short story is well written, but touches more on abuse and submissiveness than sadomasochism and love. Gaitskill shows the characters relationship as being determined b y the convergence of mutually compatible fantasies, rather than such abstract passions as love, hate or desire, which are portrayed in the film (Kakutani 1). The movie is much more intriguing and effective at getting a point across. Short stories, unlike films, are limited in the amount of information that can be portrayed, and the depth of which characters can be depicted. The protagonists self inflicted pain, her horrible family ties, and her boyfriend are just a few of the additions to Gaitskills story that make the plot and characters in the movie stronger.Works CitedAnsen, David. Hostile Work Environment Typing, Filing, Bondage This Secretary Aims to Please. Newsweek 17 May 2003 pg.70Garrett, George. Fun and Games for Sadomasochists. New York Times 21 Aug. 1988 BR3Hallgren, Sherri. Stories Explore the Tangled Emotions of Complex Lives. San Francisco Chronicle 29 Dec. 1996 p3.Johnson, George. New and Noteworthy. New York Times 18 June 1989 BR34.Kakutani, Michiko. Seedy Denizens of a Menacing Downtown World. New York Times 21 May 1988 pg.17Kemp, Phillip. Secretary. Sight and Sound 13 (2003) 54-5McCarthy, Todd. Secretary (Sundance). Variety 385 (2002) 36-7Pembroke, Louise. Secretary. Mental health Practice 6 (2003) p 26-7Queenan, Joe. The Story of an Office Romance With a Twist. The Guardian (London, England) 17 May 2003 p12.Shainberg, Steven. Interview by Terry Gross. Fresh Air. WHYY-FM. 31 Oct. 2002.Weinreich, Regina. Small Affirmations. The American Book Review 11.3 (July- Aug. 1989) 12, 19