Maybe you guys have already discussed it, but it appears that Natalie Wood's character she plays is having a sexual relationship with her own father.
Her dopey mother understands this, is schocked, but doesn't want to go into it.
(See the scene about sitting on her fathers lap, ect)
Why is it appropriate for a little girl to sit in her father's lap but not a teeanged girl? Judy's problem I think is that most girls have, their bodies are grown but their minds and emotions are still somewhere between child and adult and their fathers can't handle that.
sharenovastar--I too felt that Judy wanted to be a little girl around her father, but he couldnt handle it. Who knows what was going on in his mind. Judy seemed quite innocent to me.
shareHer problem was he couldn't deal with her being a teenager and he was emotionally absent from her, and she was still very desperate for his attention and I think the only way she knew to get his attention would be as a child does.
shareVery well said. She loves him, like any daughter loves her father, but she can't find a way to express it. He can't deal with the fact that's growing up.
"Forget reality, give me a picture"-Remington Steele
I think she wants her father's attention, which he has decided to pull back on. He's uncomfortable with her beauty and her sexuality but he won't tell her. I watched the scene and found him afraid of her. The mother picked the father's side, giving comfort to him, not her daughter. If they had explained to her what they felt, she might have been able to deal with the change in showing affection to her from her father. I'm not sure the daughter would have ever accepted it though. She needed her father's love and what she remembers is the comfort of touching, remember how he hugged his son, and played with his hair. There was no comfort of words to replace what she lost.
she loved poetry and romance, but she hit the glass ceiling at birth
Agreed. It's the father that can't handle his daughter becoming a woman. He pushes her away to avoid the incestuous implications he might be feeling. He needs someone to guide him thru this just so his daughter can still have a father.
shareYou say incestuous but could it be society norms of what a male father should do to a female child? He was remorseful when he saw the hurt that he caused with his treatment of his daughter (the bedroom scene with the wife) and tried to help, but if I remember correctly, the daughter rebuffed him and left the house. We Americans (generalizing here) have strong notions about sex and what is acceptable. And that changes every decade or so. Not sure if we go in the right direction with change, not knowing the stats on sexual abuse in other countries. But it does make you wonder how we demonize and make sex acceptable throughout the ages. Also, how the problems (expression of inappropriate sexual conduct) were hidden and left to explode or implode in situations because it didn't fit society's identification of normal. I do agree that we can't be left to our own devices for sexual pleasure, but defining what to consenting adults can do is like trying to hit a moving target.
I include myself in that assessment, since I define sexual pleasure in separate categories - sex and lovemaking. However, now I'm beginning to believe they can be one and the same in loving relationships.
she loved poetry and romance, but she hit the glass ceiling at birth
He's AFRAID it will appear incestuous. His FEAR keeps him from her.
shareI think it's really sick that you people keep bringing pedophilia and incest into something that was written to be a perfectly INNOCENT albeit complicated conflict between a father and his daughter.
This world is so sick, that when every time a man shows affection to his daughter - no matter how old, but especially when she's a child, people get freaky, assuming that there's something perverse and sexual going on.
Stop making assumptions about people and start ASKING QUESTIONS, and you might be very surprised that all men out there aren't actually trying to sexually abuse their daughters.
You can learn more about this scene in the book "Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause". In chapter 10 of this book, it talks about this scene. It says that the erotic subtext was intentional. The script writer Stewart Stern says the relationship reflects "that whole terrible confusion in a man when his daughter reaches that age. All the feelings you're not supposed to have as a father come out. This child you held on your lap-without an erotic arousal-is still a child inside. She needs all the same affection. So you can do nothing except reject her, punish her for your feelings." (p. 150 of that book)
The scene was so controversial that studio censors showed up on the set for that scene. According to the book she was at first supposed to kiss him on the mouth but they changed it.
So this confirmed my feeling that the scene reflected the father did have a fear of being attracted to Judy if he was affectionate with her. Or at least of it looking that way.
Also the book talks about how the director had been traumatized by his teenage son having an affair with his wife, that may have colored this scene as well. Because I can't understand why any parent would be attracted to their kid or afraid of being no matter how attractive they were, but, of course we know it happens.