The Tamer Tamed

Perhaps a contrary take, apparently, but "Bus Stop" is even better than I remembered it. Marilyn Monroe nails the Ozark accent. It seems clear to me now that Monroe's Chérie is the basis for Julia Garner's Ruth in the "Ozark" Netflix series, down to the hair and violent lessons for men to respect her.

In its time, it was a meta-commentary on Monroe's "dumb blonde" sexpot persona, as finally designed with a great deal of control, with her own production studio, by Monroe herself. It's not mere plot device that Chérie's planned trajectory is to Hollywood, where she hopes to receive some respect. No doubt she won't find it there. Note the "Life" magazine photographers, too, snapping a photograph of her derrière. These are the sort of magazines for which such objectification form Don Murray's Bo's only experience with women until he literally meets his "angel" straight out of these pin-up spreads. I like to think the Chérie/Cherry name business an allusion to such doubling of actress/star persona, Norma Jeane Mortenson/Marilyn Monroe, performative dumb blonde/actually so, sex/exploitation, molestation, and patriarchal shaming. The entire construction is a rebuttal to the critics, media, and culture ogling her body as an empty vessel lacking intelligence and acting ability. So, coming off of her Hollywood hiatus and Method studies at Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio during her contract walkout, and excuse my French-as-a-chanteuse, she acts her ass off here, and it works.

I'm a bit perplexed reading some of today's commentary on "Bus Stop," the moral of which seems as relevant now as it was in 1956, if only one would pay attention to it. There seems to be much lambasting of the Bo character, which is well deserved. You think his behavior for most of the runtime to be boorish, obnoxious, intolerable? So does the movie. That's the point. He's brute patriarchy personified. While perhaps not quite Oscar-nomination worthy (especially for Supporting Actor, since he's decidedly a co-lead, including 64.51% screen time according to Matthew Stewart, who tracks these things), which besides was another Hollywood slap in the face for Monroe (who, however, did receive a Golden Globe nomination), Murray is quite good in this respect. His gentler-manned father figure Virgil learns a lesson, too, over his sexist double standard viewing Chérie as only good for "practice" but not marriage.

It rather seems as though some critics stopped watching the film before these character were reformed, though, or otherwise oblivious to what seems as clear of a message as may be made without putting a sign outside the bus stop bluntly stating, "We showed you the bad behavior of Bo and other male characters not because we endorse it, but because we're opposed to it." Nevertheless, Tim Brayton's review calls the film "very dated, and very problematic," while Dennis Schwartz inexplicably calls it "misanthropic" and literally states the opposite of the film's message as, "reduces romance to a physical attraction and of never saying I'm sorry for being a male predator, and that the manner of breaking a bronco could also be applied to taming a woman." Except there is apologizing for exactly that, and there's an entire discussion with Virgil on different types of attraction, which Bo at first comedically misunderstands.

Meanwhile, Genna Rivieccio absurdly states, "as most films of this era were wont to do, Bus Stop reiterates the notion that when a woman says no it really means yes, and that you've simply got to wear her down like a calf" and that it's supposedly "a movie so overtly dripping with misogyny and the suppression of the female will." Molly Edwards manages to call the film "entirely misogynistic" while supposedly evidencing that with the patently opposite of misogyny, writing "It's disturbing to watch her give in to Beau's advances because he's asked for the first time if he can kiss her, and because he's the first person to accept her history with other men." That's misogynistic "by modern standards," confirming consent and acceptance--seriously? "Bus Stop" was downright progressive and still is if such reviews are to be believed. It makes me wonder about the unforgiving nature of today's increasing number of relative singles, so-called "incel" sexism, #MeToo overreaches and reactionary reprisals, and general concerns with a breakdown in dating and those too scared to even talk to the opposite sex. Abduction bad, respect good; that shouldn't be dismissed as old-fashioned.

"Bus Stop" is basically somewhere between a gender-reversal of Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" (or more John Fletcher's counterpart "The Woman's Prize, or the Tamer Tamed") and a precursor of the Jane Austen-driven "Bridget Jones's Diary" (2001), complete with the underdressed "playboy bunny," men fighting outside, and a knockout of a rom-com line. "I like you the way you are, so what do I care how you got that way?," as Bo says, anticipating Colin Firth's Mr. Darcy's retort, "I like you very much, just as you are." A rom-com decidedly not in the vein of the Nora Ephron knockoffs that have polluted screens in more recent decades, the truly creepy trash the likes of "Love, Actually" (2003).

Clever, then, that Bo's occupation is as a "tamer" of livestock, for which he performs at a rodeo. He's the sexually inexperienced one, though, and so attempts to treat Chérie as if she were cattle to lasso and wrangle. But, it's him, his behavior that must be tamed by the sexually-experienced woman, and wrangled outside in a fight, to treat her with respect. The Taming of the Hick. Foreplay before jumping into the marriage proposal, let alone assuming the answer. I like, too, that this is something of a modern Western given the studio-mandated disaster of an actually misogynistic Western that Fox last forced Monroe to star in, "River of No Return" (1954)--part of the reason she walked out on her contract. That movie is worse and with a worse moral, yet it manages to receive higher scores on Letterboxd (3.1 to 2.8, as of this writing) and IMDb (6.6 to 6.4). Even the performativity and knowing acknowledgement of the objectifying male gaze (and physical groping) involved in her decidedly less-polished singing here is vastly superior. This classic film holds up quite well to this day.

Works Cited
Brayton, Tim. "Bus Stop: Review. Hollywood Century, 1956: In which the movies look to the more prestigious and respectable world of Legitimate Theater for pointers." Alternate Ending. Website (9 June 2014). www.alternateending.com/2014/07/hollywood-century-1956-in-which-the-movies-look-to-the-more-prestigious-and-respectable-world-of-legitimate-theater-for-pointers.html

Edwards, Molly. "Bus Stop at 65: The movie that changed Marilyn Monroe's career forever." Total Film. Website (31 August 2021). www.gamesradar.com/bus-stop-at-65-the-movie-that-changed-marilyn-monroes-career-forever/

Rivieccio, Genna. "Bus Stop: A Film That Didn't Do Justice to How Marilyn Monroe Fought to Break Free From the Studio's Stereotype of Her, Nor Is It Much of an Acting Stretch From Her Own Life." Culled Culture. Website (22 December 2019). www.culledculture.com/marilyn-monroe-bus-stop/

Schwartz, Dennis. Bus Stop review. Dennis Schwartz Movie Reviews. Website (5 August 2019). dennisschwartzreviews.com/busstop/

Stewart, Matthew. Screen Time Central. Website. www.screentimecentral.com/supporting-actor-oscar-nominees