Threats to the Family

I am intrigued by the conversation about motherhood and care giving within Chayefsky's Marty. Women are primarily portrayed as caring and highly put upon, while men (especially unmarried bachelors) live off the work of women. Largely, the women within the film express genuine emotions and live within a realistic—if somewhat sad—world. However, no positive female characters are shown to interact outside of the domestic or caring realm. Even Clara works as a school teacher, mentioning her students in a loving fashion and refusing to take an administrative role in order to remain with “her children.” The script ultimately reduces all real conflict to domestic drama. While Marty does experience certain ups and downs regarding his social class and job, the public world of work represents the potential for expansion and growth. Instead, real conflict originates within the world of family, and must therefore be resolved there.

Women never really escape the home. The dialogue between Marty's mother and aunt bemoaning the horrors of old age for women focuses on the loss of work. Nowhere in the script or the film do women have options to occupy their time other than caring for others. When Clara offers the idea of Marty's aunt getting a hobby, Marty's mother dismisses it as idealistic and overly academic. Men have options outside of the home, but Chayefsky portrays these options as masturbatory and expressions of “middle class latent homosexuality.” Despite the trouble and stress that comes from marriage and family, Marty sees the family as the ultimate site for happiness.

However, Chayefsky seems to see “latent homosexuality” as a major threat to the nuclear family's stability and happiness. The film adaptation certainly accented the threat that Angie (who's name is suspiciously feminine) posed to Marty's future. His attempt to hunt down and sabotage Marty and Clara's relationship almost trumps Marty's mother's disapproval. Heteronormativity is endangered by even heterosexuals, in Chayefsky's world, in a ways that makes it surprising that nuclear families ever form.