Authored by Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a fascinating play revolving round the story of a neurotic, dysfunctional family steeped in hidden deceptions and hypocrisy. The play was adapted into a film in 1958 under the direction of Richard Brooks. Released by MGM studio with starlets like Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman in central roles of Brick and Maggie, the film won a superb commercial success. Though Richard Brooks retained much of Tennessee Williams' original prose and conversation intact, he made few alterations in the story. He added some new dialogues, curtailed the parts of Gooper and Mae and made Brick undergo transformation, with the film ending in happy union in a typical fashion of Hollywood. However, Brooks also made changes to one of the major themes of the play and that is the homosexuality of Brick. Keeping in view the contemporary mindset of the audience, the theme of homosexuality was implied in a very subtle way. Whatever may be the alterations; the film was a huge box office success and earned Academy Award nominations for six major categories including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography and Best Adapted Screenplay. This paper will discuss at length about the theme of masculinity and homosexuality as highlighted in the movie through the relationship between Maggie and Brick, showing how the film’s director Richard Brooks tweaked the storyline at the end to make it more acceptable to the audience.
Brick is Big Daddy's favorite son. His name suggests his 'brick' of a personality that stands for the archetypal masculinity. His 'enviable coolness' is the result of sexual repression that buries all his emotions underneath the facade of masculinity. In order to escape from the memory of his dead friend Skipper, he increased his distance from the world with the help of liquor. Brick suffered an injury in the very opening scene of the movie when tormented and drunk he tried to leap over the hurdles of a track close to the football field of his former high school. He stumbled upon the fourth hurdle and slumped to the ground and in the next scene he was shown confined to his room in the Pollitt plantation mansion with a sprained ankle. Throughout rest of the movie we see Brick walking on a crutch. If Brick needed crutch because of his external injury, he relied on alcohol to escape his loneliness. Maggie tried numerous ways to woo Brick who outrightly averted her overtures. Finally when Maggie out of frustration tried to force herself on him, Brick with the help of a chair tried to keep Maggie off her advances making the audience feel as if she was a crazed animal, the frustrated 'cat' on a hot tin roof. The lack of passions in their relationship was due to Brick's undercurrent homosexual desires.
But beneath the repression of Brick’s sexual desires lied the hypocrisy of the society which demanded men to be a perfect model of masculinity and men who did not have the masculine characteristics had to be pretentious about their masculinity. The hypocrisy and pretentions led these men to live a depressing life and that is what happened in Brick's case too. Masculinity refers to the set of attributes attached with the personality of a man. Manliness, virility, strength and not showing affection too much are regarded as some of the masculine traits. The men who didn't possess these attributes naturally suffer a lot of pressure from the society. From the very beginning of the film, the ongoing tension between Brick and his wife Maggie was apparent. She tried various ways to gain her husband's attention. She tried to change her clothes in front her husband while trying to seduce him but could not succeed. Her words exchanged with her husband echoed her frustration, "Why are you looking at me like thatI don't know how to describe it but it froze my bloodliving with someone you love can be lonelier – than living entirely alone! - if the one that you love doesn't love you" (Williams, p 8).
Brick's detached emotions could be seen as an archetypal masculine trait which prevented a man from expressing his emotions. But the moment Maggie said "You were a wonderful loverSuch a wonderful person to go to bed with, and I think mostly because you were really indifferent to it", it became evident that they did not share sexual intimacy any more as her words seemed to have referred to a past event (Williams, p 10). The nature of their past sexual relation became all the more clear when she said, "You know, our sex life didn´t just peter out in the usual way, it was cut off short, long before the natural time for it to, and it´s going to revive again, just as sudden as that (p 20). Her statement clearly indicated about Brick's indifference towards sexual life from the beginning of their relationship. His indifference and his 'enviable' coolness which were mistaken for his masculinity were actually signs of his repression and frustration.
Brick's repressed feelings didn't only put his own life upside down; it also made Maggie's life a living nightmare. Her desperation to become pregnant took her to Memphis where she visited a gynecologist who told her that she could have children any time she wanted. But how could she have children from a man who could not stand her? Brick not only refused to share bed with Maggie, he over and again with his words showed his abhorrence for her. When Maggie kissed him on his mouth, he immediately wiped his lips with the back of his hands as if the kiss was distasteful enough to linger on. The lack of intimacy between Maggie and Brick was not even hidden from the notice of Big Daddy who said, "They say Maggie sleeps on the bed and you sleep on the sofa. Is that true or not? If you don't like Maggie, get rid of her!"
The film and the play went on a slightly different path from this point onwards. If in the play Brick's inability to perform the role of a husband to Maggie or son to Big Daddy was due to his repressed homosexuality and remorse over his friend Skipper's death, the film showed the reason as Brick's inability to take up adult responsibilities (English 1302). It was under the probing questions of Big Daddy that Brick revealed that he started drinking only after Skipper's death. During the conversation with his father Brick made it clear how close he was to Skipper by stating, "At anytime, anywhere, anyplace, I could depend on him" (Filmsite Movie Review). Skipper was a crutch for Brick, someone he could lean on. It was clear why his unnatural affection for his friend created a distance between the husband and wife.
While Big Daddy was investigating Brick's problems, Maggie was summoned for further clarification. A confrontation took place which tumbled many hidden facts out of the closet. Maggie in her desperation to win Brick back from Skipper was willing to try any means even if that meant sleeping with Skipper to prove Brick that his friend was heterosexual. When Brick was away in Chicago, she thought that she could manipulate Skipper to go into bed with her but at the last moment she panicked and ran fearing that her act might end up with Brick hating her instead of Skipper. In a very stereotypical fashion keeping the views of the contemporary audience in mind, Richard Brooks changed the storyline here. In the actual play, Maggie slept with Skipper as is evident in the words uttered by Maggie in the play" And so we made love to each other to dream it was you, both of us! Yes, yes, yes! Truth, truth!" (Williams, p 25). The change of storyline was due to the taboo attached with adultery and homosexuality during those days and so Brooks feared that unless the storyline was changed, the plot would not be acceptable to general population of audience. It is because of this taboo that Brooks made Brick go through a transformation at the end by uniting him with Maggie at the last scene while in the actual play Maggie decided to make Brick drunk to make love to her as she stated "By locking his liquor up and making him satisfy my desire before I unlock it! (Williams, p.90).
In conclusion, one of the major themes touched upon in the film is the masculinity and homosexuality of the film's hero Brick who in order to escape from the grief over his friend's death resorted to drinking. The unnatural affection of Brick for his friend had impacted his marital life increasing the distance between husband and wife to a great degree. Owing to the taboo attached with homosexuality and adultery, the film's director Richard Brooks tweaked the actual story line and underplayed the theme of homosexuality. The hypocrisy of the society which demanded men to fit into the hallmark traits of masculinity and forced the protagonist to keep his sexual desires repressed made a mark on the film too as Brooks in order to make the storyline acceptable to contemporary audience plunged into the same hypocrisy.
Work Cited
Williams, Tennessee. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Dramatists Play Service, Inc. 1 Oct 1958. Print.
"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" by Tennessee Williams. English 1302. Web. 6 Aug 2013 <http://complitnotes.weebly.com/cat.html>
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). Filmsite Movie Review. Web. 6 Aug 2013 <http://www.filmsite.org/cato.html>
