Valeria C.

Guerrero del Pozo

Professor Dana Polan

Hollywood Cinema to 1960

11 November 2014

Sexuality, Race and Gender in Duel in the Sun

In many ways, Duel in the Sun (1947) was an ‘oddball’ among 1940s motion pictures.

David O. Selznick, the producer and creative mind behind the film, set out to make a big

grossing film (Schatz 342) and, to achieve that, he adapted a pulp fiction novel that combined

western and melodrama, sex and violence. Although the movie includes a frontier conflict

between the West and the East, its main plot line is centered around the love - hate

relationship of Pearl Chávez, a mestiza, and the ‘wild’ McCanles brother, Lewton. The film

includes scenes with the protagonist covered only with a sarape, bathing nude in a pond and

killing herself to death with the male lead. Although the film had the PCA approval seal, the

National Legion of Decency only granted it a “B” rating after Selznick had agreed to make

additional cuts and add a moralistic prologue and epilogue. Duel was also the most expensive

film to date (Black 48), with a production cost between five and six million dollars, and

initiated the practice of saturation booking (Amer. Film Inst.).

Nevertheless, behind its risqué technicolor images and record budget, the movie

reflects the changing social attitudes of its time, much like any other 1940s Hollywood film.

Although Duel in the Sun mainly upholds traditional race, sexuality and gender ideologies,

dissenting discourses about race, sexuality and gender issues problematize its outright

characterization as ‘conservative’.

The movie traces the protagonist’s failed attempts of fulfilling her father’s death wish:

for Pearl to become a lady. She commits a sexual transgression that she tries to amend
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throughout the film, but both McCanles brothers, Lewton and Jesse, thwart her efforts.

Therefore, Pearl appears as the victim of white society. In a way, the film seems to try to

rescue her non-white identity, following a trend that started in the War Period of putting Latin

Americans on screen as lead actors. However, this should not be taken as a critical dissent to

southern aristocracy. By equating ‘good’ to ‘being a white, prim lady’, the movie is in fact

reaffirming white supremacy. This attitude is reflected in the ambiguity of her ethnic identity

as portrayed in the movie, a racist pastiche of different non-white elements.

Similar conflicting discourses can be appreciated in the film’s discourse around

femininity. Again, by suggesting that what is morally right is for women to remain in the

private sphere waltzing and making small talk—as does Jesse at one point in the film—, the

movie is upholding Victorian sexuality and traditional genre roles. Indeed, in a scene where

the Sinkiller—a preacher-like character—purifies Pearl, he gives a speech tracing back to the

biblical paradigm of the women as the temptresses.

Nevertheless, non-traditional sexuality also seems to have a liberating power for

Pearl. There are several moments in which she appears as a strong and independent heroine,

the most remarkable of which is perhaps when she is heading to her death at Squaw’s Head

Rock. In fact, her nature as a cowgirl releases her from the ties to the private sphere and

grants her the freedom of movement other female characters lack. In another break from

traditional gender representations, Laura Bell, the mother of the McCanles family, stands up

for herself after years of submissiveness to her husband, the ‘Senator’, and he, on the other

hand, shows signs of vulnerability.

In adapting Niven Busch’s novel to the big screen, O. Selznick made two significant

changes that have an impact over the film’s discourse about non-white groups. One of them is
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the inclusion of a sequence that explains the reasons behind Pearl’s strong desire for

becoming a lady. The first scenes of the movie show her father, a run-down Creole aristocrat,

murder her mother, a non-white woman, for cheating on him. Before being hanged for his

crime, he asks her to go to live with the McCanles, “I want you to lean on Laura Belle. Make

her your inspiration and your guide, and then one day you'll be the great lady I've always

wanted you to be . . . Promise me that.”

Pearl seems keen to follow her father’s advice and, to guard her virtue, she adopts an

unfriendly attitude towards men. Initially, she even seems to distrust the kind and cultured

Jesse McCanles. Upon her arrival to Paradise Flats, the closest town to the McCanles ranch,

Pearl answers to his attempts of getting information with an unfriendly remark: “Now you go

'way! I know all about men like you!” Sensing his brother’s intentions with her, Jesse asks

Lewton further along the movie: “Why don't you leave this one alone? She may do very

nicely - if given half a chance.” Laura Bell’s warning to Pearl upon their first meeting explain

Jesse’s remark: “All you’ve got to do is behave like a lady.”

She fights Lewton’s sexual advances, but both brothers tamper with her good

intentions. Lewton does so irreparably by seducing her, refusing to marry her—what would

alleviate her mistake—and killing her fiancé to stop her marriage to someone else. What is

significant, though, is that the civilized and polite Jesse is also portrayed as partially

responsible for her corruption. When he walks in on Pearl and Lewton after they have had

sex, he confesses his love for Pearl, “I thought of what you'd be like when you grew up a

little,” but says that he will never be able to forget what he saw. After his departure she is left

wracked with woe, only composing herself after thinking, “All right, Jesse. . .You said you'd

never forget. . .” From this point on in the movie she stops resisting Lewton and becomes

“his girl”.
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In the script, Jesse’s responsibility is implied more directly. When they meet again

later in the movie, Jesse apologizes for exaggerating the importance of her sexual encounter

with Lewton and adds, “I hope it didn't make any difference.” At this point, the script notes:

“A moment's silence as Pearl absorbs this bitterly; the only "difference" it made was her

entire life!” (Selznick 184, shot 562). When he finally comes to her ‘rescue’, it is too late for

her, something Lewton reminds her by shooting Jesse.

Both brothers represent opposite spectrums of the semantic structure of the Western,

Jesse symbolizing the civilization and Lewton, the wilderness, and so they have a Cain - Abel

relationship. What they do have in common is their social status as white aristocrats.

Following the structure of melodrama, the film places her as a victim of her milieu,

specifically white aristocracy. The denouement, her melodramatic death, adds a final pathetic

touch to this characterization.

At first, then, the film might appear to take a critical position against racial status quo,

when it is actually reaffirming it in establishing Victorian morality as the supreme ideal. In

the process, the film reveals a patronizing stand towards non-white groups, something that

becomes evident when trying to place her ethnic identity with precision. Most elements seem

to point at her being of Mexican-Latin American origin. She carries some of the elements of

the costume of Mexican indigenous groups (“Clothing”) and the charrería (Sands), such as

the sombrero and the sarape. Her father is described as a Creole, a descendant of Spanish

settlers in Latin America. However, the Senator insults her by using words related to the

Native Americans: “papoose,” “squaw” and “wigwam,” whereas Lewton describes her as a

“cute tamale,” a South American dish. The actress herself is a Latina version of the minstrel;

Jennifer Jones features as the white woman she is with a painted brown face and messy hair.
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In consonance with this racist view of her ethnical identity, she exhibits child-like

attitudes in the first third of the film that relate to the nineteenth century notion of the Noble

Savage, which considered “more primitive peoples of the past […] existed in a “golden age”

in harmony with nature, and were therefore more simple, childlike, and blessed, whereas

civilized people of the modern era lived at odds with nature and were thus more alienated and

unhappy” (Barry). That this concept is prevalent in the movie is prevalent upon examining

the film’s script. Shortly after meeting Jesse, she is willing to innocently take off her black

dress in the middle of nowhere and change into a more colorful outfit to please him. The

script describes this scene: “(she gets an idea; innocently, like a savage child) I'll put it on

now” [emphasis added] (Selznick 20, shot 49). Similar uses of the word ‘savage’ appear at

least five times throughout the script in similar contexts. This initial child-like characterization

further accentuates her status as an innocent victim who white society corrupts.

Another way in which the racist portrayal of her ethnicity is evident in the film is

when examining her sexuality. Following the stereotype of the “sexy Latina”, her ethnic

identity appears to be the cause for her intense sexual impulse. Her depiction as lascivious

woman fits the trend of dialectic female representations in post war Hollywood films, the

sexy femme fatale represented by Pearl and the beautiful yet bland woman embodied by

Helen Langford, Jesse’s fiancé. However, in this film, Pearl and her mother, both Latinas, are

the only female characters who seem to have such an intense libido. ‘Trash’ is code word she

repeatedly uses to describe her condition as a sexual transgressor. So, in a line such as, “I

guess I'm just trash - like my Ma,” she implies her sexual instinct is something predetermined

by her race and, thus, out of her control. This is something Pearl suggests: “I couldn't help it,

Jesse. You just can't go away believin'. . . I tried hard - honest I did!”
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The racist conception of her ethnic identity, linked to a strong, ‘inherent’ sexual

desire, can also explain the seemingly inconsistent mood changes the character goes through

in the film. A particularly revealing case is the scene where Lewton first seduces Pearl. It is

usually referred to as the ‘rape scene’, although O. Selznick never meant for it to be such. He

resented the Legion for cutting a passionate kiss they share, since that helped the viewer

understand that the sex was consensual (qtd. in Black 55). However, the kiss only makes her

later reactions even more confusing. After struggling with Lewton for a few seconds—the

script originally featured a longer struggle, but these shots were cut—, a thunder strikes. She,

then, suddenly changes her attitude, embracing Lewton and consenting to the act. The movie

establishes a connection between her ‘primitive, animalistic’ self and the natural elements, as

a result of which the thunder seems to have ‘magically’ activated her libido. When she seems

to have fallen out of the trance, she is completely crushed. Jesse walks in to her room after

they have had sex and she is focused in a close-shot, crying and devastated, as if the whole

act had been forced on her.

These quasi-schizophrenic mood shifts result in painful episodes in which she

humiliates herself before Lewton. The aim of these scenes seems to be to portray the

enslaving powers of sexuality, almost as part of a cautionary tale showing the dangers of

transgressing traditional sexual norms. One of the most pathetic ones occurs after Lewton has

killed Sam, the ranch’s cowhand who was going to marry her. When he sneaks into her room,

at first she points at him with a gun. He does not have to make a great effort, though, for her

her to jump into his arms. The scene ends with her holding to his leg and being dragged

through her room, begging for him to take her to Mexico with him. The ending presents a

similar episode, in which she goes to another of her mood shifts when Lewton calls for her to
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come to him and she answers immediately, crawling towards him since she is fatally

wounded.

However, her sexuality in the film has also a strong liberating power. There are also

episodes as equally striking as her pathetic ones in which she is portrayed as a strong,

independent woman. In fact, driven by her ‘savage’ nature, from the very beginning she

seems to be strong and have a general anti-masculine rhetoric She even doubts of the

educated Jesse when first meeting him, and dismisses him by saying a line she will repeat at

other points during the film: “I know all about men like you!” The climatic episode in her

depiction as an independent woman is in her path towards Squaw’s Head Rock to kill

Lewton. Much like a contemporary heroine, she crosses rivers and climb mountains, on her

own, and decisively shoots at Lewton to take revenge.

Her independence seems to be increased after she commits the sexual transgression.

Even if at first she appears to be intimidated by Lewton, when she consummates their

relationship those fears go away, something the script indicates: “From this point on she is on

the terms of an equal, without fright - but an equal who at one and the same time is ridden

with passion and contempt” [emphasis added] (Selznick 113, shot 389). This description in

the script suggests that in her transgression she has found parity. To put it in another way, the

sexual parameters of the sexuality, even if Victorian, seem to apply in the movie to both men

and women. This sense of parity is evident in a remark Sam, Pearl’s fiancé, makes. After he

proposed, he says that he does not care if she has been with Lewton: “Pearl, I've knocked

around plenty. Who am I to -.” Even more symptomatic of the changing attitudes towards

sexuality is Jesse’s apology for giving to much importance to Pearl’s premarital sex.

Even if the film idealizes the passive role of women in the private sphere, it also

depicts Pearl as freed from some of the traditional gender roles assigned to women. Westerns
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usually include a cowboy that shares elements of both East and West and mediates the central

frontier conflict of the film (Simon). However, lacking this central character, the role seems

to fall partially on Pearl. She is not involved in the solution of the frontier conflict of the film

but she is situated between the civilization and the wilderness, starting from the fact that she

is ‘half-breed.’ Although she is wild, rough, uneducated, her desire to be a lady and her strong

ties to the characters of the movie associated with civilization—her father, Laura and Jesse—

also place her in the East. Her ability to ride, associated with the wilderness, gives her the

freedom of movement that other characters female characters lack.

The breeches in traditional gender roles are not exclusive of the ‘crazy Latina’ of the

film. The movie includes a ‘Girls Choose’ dance number, asserting women as active rather

than passive beings. However, this is more evident in the evolution of the relationship

between Laura Bell and her husband, ‘Senator’ Jackson McCanles. The latter’s authority is

deteriorated throughout the film. The first key moment in that respect comes when he is in

the midst of the frontier conflict. Up until then, he has been the archetype of the West. He is

rough, uncultured, impulsive; he rejects progress and all that could be associated with it,

including his son Jesse. When workers arrive to the limit of the family’s property to build the

railroad tracks, the Senator gathers all the men of the ranch and threatens to shoot at them,

even though they have the legal authority to do the work. However, he caves in to the

authority of the US Cavalry unit, saying that he will not fight the flag he once fought for. This

seems to be a remembrance of the trust in America’s institutions, something not common in

Hollywood post-war films. In this context, it serves to mark the point where the Senator’s

patriarchal authority, a metaphor of the West, starts to fall apart.

Other moments that mark his deterioration come in his interactions with Laura. The

latter stands up to him when he wants to throw Pearl out of the house. This represents a
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transgression toward the usual gender roles of female submissiveness. Furthermore, in

discussing the events that left him in a wheelchair, the Senator acknowledges that his

unjustified jealousy led him to ride recklessly through the night to get Laura back. So, he

recognizes that it was his mistakes that left him disabled and not Laura’s, as he has deceived

himself into thinking up to that point. The distrust in their relationship is an indicator of the

downbeat America of the post war Hollywood in which love is not the perfect ideal anymore.

In the film, the Senator’s acknowledgment of his faults marks the symbolic defeat of the

West, as evident from his forgiveness of Jesse, and it reveals the changing attitudes of the

period towards gender roles. He is not the proud macho patriarch he was before but a humble,

apologetic and crying man facing his dying wife.

The conflicting race, sexual and gender representations of the movie are best

summarized in the parallel of Laura’s and Pearl’s deaths. The movie sets them on equal

ground since both, white and Latina, crawl towards the men they love. The scene symbolizes

female subjection to men, since both women are dragging themselves. At least Lewton is also

fatally wounded—although he appears to be in a better shape than Pearl—, but the Senator is

not. However, both of them are approaching men that have finally changed, even in the last

minute. Lewton discovered he loved Pearl, finally relinquishing his macho-possessive

attitude evident throughout the film, and Laura crawls into a crying Senator who has

acknowledge his fault over the conflictive relationship they have had over the years.

Even as part of a genre that is supposed to uphold the traditional American values,

Duel reflects the changing ideas about gender and race in Hollywood while still presenting a

mainly conservative ideology. Although upholding traditional sexuality, the film reveals an

increasingly complex discourse around sexuality that initiated with the war period. It even

suggests a moderate sexual equality between genders and downgrades Pearl’s transgressions
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through the actions of a positive character of the film, Jesse. The film continues the trend of

presenting Latino characters that started in the war period, although these characterizations

are patronizing and racist, thus upholding the supremacy of white values.

O. Selznick’s film has not aged well. For the contemporary viewer, the sexual

violence, the racist representations of the African American and Latino characters and the

excessively melodramatic ending provoke a series of emotions ranging from indignation to

laughter. However, what is particularly sad is to see that the racist representation of the

Latina, understandable in its time, is still present in the entertainment industry. What is more,

it is as successful as it was back then, as evident from Sofía Vergara’s case, the Highest Paid

TV actress for three years in a row now for her representation in Modern Family (Le). After

67 years, at least the actress that plays this Latina woman is a Colombian and not a white

with a painted brown face.

Works Cited

Jacobs, Lea. The Wages of Sin : Censorship and the Fallen Woman Film, 1928-1942.

Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press. Print.

American Film Institute. “Note.” Duel in the Sun. American Film Institute, 2014. Web. 9 Nov.

2014.

Black, Gregory D. The Catholic Crusade Against the Movies, 1940-1975. Cambridge; New

York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Print.

"Clothing in Colonial Spanish America." Iberia and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and

History. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2005. Credo Reference. Web. 11 November 2014.

Le, Vanna. "Sofia Vergara Is (Once Again) The Highest-Paid TV Actress." Forbes. Forbes

Magazine, 03 Sept. 2014. Web. 07 Nov. 2014.

Sands, Kathleen. "Charrería." Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society & Culture. London:

Routledge, 1998. Credo Reference. Web. 11 November 2014.

Schatz, Thomas. Boom and Bust : The American Cinema in the 1940s. New York: Scribner,

1997. Print.

Selznick, David Oliver. Duel in the Sun (1946): Shooting script. Adapted by: Garrett, Oliver

H.P. Electronic Edition by Alexander Street Press, L.L. C., 2009. Copyright © 1946,

Selznick International Pictures. Web.

Simon, William. “Genre.” Film Form and Film Sense. New York University, New York. 3

Nov. 2014. Lecture.