Feed My Coffee Addiction
After seeing Dressed to Kill as one of the first films mentioned in David A. Weiner’s In Search of Darkness documentary, I added it to my list of horror/thriller films to watch, and coincidentally saw that the 40-year anniversary takes place on July 25th. I’m more than familiar with Brian De Palma’s films, including his dabbling in the horror genre (Carrie, Phantom of the Paradise). De Palma has been known as a “diet” Hitchcock for some time, taking extreme inspiration from the acclaimed director and adding a more New York/New Jersey sleaze feel to his films. He’s well-known for the picture-in-picture simultaneous double shots in almost every one of his movies. I’ve always found his directing to be top-notch. His writing? Not so much. Regardless, I went into Dressed to Kill with an intent to celebrate it’s 40th birthday, and all I left with was a reminder of how problematic some films could be, even at the highest level.
Wow. I’m almost not sure where to start with the film. At first, it follows Kate Miller, played wonderfully by Angie Dickinson. Kate goes to therapy because she’s in a sexually abusive marriage and fantasizes about being intimate with someone she doesn’t have to pretend to like. Her doctor Robert Elliott, played by Michael Caine, encourages her to tell her husband of her thoughts, because that will make everything all better. Kate decides to give in to her desires and hook up with a stranger she meets at the local art museum. After her sexcapade, Kate is confronted in an elevator and slashed to death by a mysterious blonde woman. The murder is witnessed by the always awesome Nancy Allen (Robocop films, Poltergeist III). The film starts out as a decent murder-mystery.
It wasn’t long after this point that I started producing audible “oofs” and gritting my teeth at the cringy writing. It isn’t too far into the film before the story reveals to the audience that the killer is a transgender patient of Dr. Elliot’s. Threatening messages are left on his answering machine from the killer, letting him know the murder was all Dr. Elliott’s fault. The killer was a woman trapped inside of a man’s body, Dr. Elliott wouldn’t approve her sex-change surgery, and now she’s gone mad with anger, taking out her revenge on women, thus perpetuating the myth that transgender women are sick, vicious psychopaths, only out there to murder other women and eventually spy on our children in the bathroom.
Let’s fast-forward to some other extremely problematic moments in the film. Nancy Allen’s character is a sex worker that witnesses a murder. She goes to the police on her own volition and is not only suspect #1 at first, but the police officer working the case immediately blames Kate’s murder on Kate’s own sex life. The officer brings up the fact that if Kate wasn’t so willing to jump in bed with strange men, like the man at the museum, she would still be alive. You see, in De Palma’s film, if you don’t choose to stay at home and meet your abusive husband’s sexual needs, then you’re just asking for death.
Okay, so the film negatively represents one entire minority group, why not go for another. I noticed the lack of POC in this film early on, but it wasn’t glaring until I watched the only two scenes that featured black actors. The first scene was a group of black men in the subway, surrounding our white woman protagonist, accosting her, threatening her, then chasing her down in attempt to rape her. The second took place directly after she escaped the group on the subway train. A black, male police officer suspiciously looked her up and down, obviously assuming she was the one breaking the law, while the actual killer stared directly at her through the window, right in front of him, looking 10 times as suspicious.
If you haven’t seen this film, I’m going to spoil it.
The film ends with the audience learning that the killer is Dr. Elliott himself. He is a man that wants to be a woman, but his “woman side” and “man side” couldn’t get on the same page about going through with his surgery. When his “man side” became aroused by a woman in his therapy sessions, his “woman side” would get jealous and kill them. That. That is the explanation. The woman in him got jealous of other women and killed them. What we have here is Brian De Palma equating transgender people to split-personality disorders, and weaving in the “jealous woman” narrative. Per usual, he took an idea that Alfred Hitchcock created, and made it even more offensive. He basically caps the film off with the protagonist asking another therapist, “What is wrong with that guy?” and the therapist answering with, “He is a transsexual.” Yikes.
Part of me regrets having watched this film. After the viewing, I didn’t know how I was going to approach a “40-year celebration” write-up of it, because it’s certainly not worth celebrating. One of the highest profile directors in Hollywood at the time, uses minorities to perpetuate horrible stereotypes and opinions about transgender people, spousal abuse, groups of black men, and sex workers. It wasn’t cool then. It isn’t cool now. Regardless of it being “a product of the times,” a defense I’ve seen on many different occasions. The times were wrong.
Even though I struggled with the idea of shining a light on this film, I believe going back and viewing films like this extremely important. We can use it as a measuring stick to see how far we’ve come in cinema and how far we still must go. The only good emotion I had from watching this film was the sense of pride I felt at the end, knowing that a film like this hopefully couldn’t be made today and hopefully can never be made again. There’s no place for it in cinema, aside from being a dated reminder that we should always be trying to do better.
RELATED: Review: ‘In Search of Darkness: A Journey into Iconic ’80s Horror’
Feed My Coffee Addiction
 and its controversial themes. Starring Michael Caine, Angie Dickinson, Nancy Allen.){kind=link}
I think you missed the point a bit. I don’t think De Palma was endorsing misogyny from the detective and others in the movie. I think the reaction from Det. Marino was pretty authentic with the reactions liz would face during that time. Plus, in the end Liz was proven right and Marino’s critique of her as a dumb hooker proved totally incorrect. De Palma made both Kate and Liz likable people that transcend their characteristics. Liz was the “happy hooker” who is portrayed as intelligent and resourceful . I think the message of the movie is that people are multi-layered and transcend their initial characterizations.
Hi Blair! Firstly, thanks for taking the time to read the article and share your opinion on it. I appreciate it!
Where as I do agree with you that I think the particular reactions of Detective Marino are indicative of 1980, as I stated in the article, I believe it shouldn’t have been acceptable then, and it shouldn’t be now. I also agree that Liz was portrayed as an intelligent and resourceful, but remember, De Palma wrote Detective Marino as the one to save the day, by having Liz followed and protected. Marino’s character got his guy and still got away with his stereotypical opinions on sex workers. It’s kind of hard for me to see that he’s not promoting a misogynistic view when a misogynistic character still gets the exact conclusion he wants. If Liz had hatched her plan, defeated Dr. Elliot and then gotten Marino involved to clean up the mess, I believe it makes a better statement.
I promise I’m not sitting here wanting De Palma’s head, but he does have a pattern with correlating transgender or/and cross-dressing with psychopathic murders and split-personality (Raising Cane). At the very least he was ignorant (as were most people in 1980) on trans people, and decided to write that story anyway. The other bothersome thing for me is that none of the explanations in this film were that Dr. Elliott/The Killer was a psychopathic murderer/split-personality who was also a trans person, but the other way around. He was a trans person that was having these thoughts, and that’s why he was a murderer.
Regardless, films are built for us all to view and interpret them in our own subjective ways, and that’s a beautiful thing. Once again, thanks for reading!
I see your point about the misogyny. But I don’t think it’s an endorsement of it in terms of the overall plot. I think point that DePalma is making is that people can have more than one characterization. Kate was, on paper, the typical housewife but clearly valued more in having freedom and someone that was involved with her that wasn’t self-absorbed like her husband (yes, she died for it but I think she was written as pretty sympathetic). Marino was the disgusting sexist but also somebody who had the instincts to have Liz tailed for the plot to catch the killer. Liz was the hooker shown dealmaking for riches yet had solid smarts and cared enough to take Kate’s son under her wing. And finally, Dr. Elliott was the psychiatrist charged with helping people but had a different identity as a murderer. I will agree that the transgender storyline was problematic. But I mainly thought it was problematic as it used mainly as a big plot twist as a opposed to a reasoned usage of that aspect of someone’s life. Having a transgender storyline I didn’t think was in and of itself transphobic and offensive but that it was mainly used to shock (for the time in 1980) rather than having a rational discussion about it. Given that, I’d say the absence of a reason for the transgender storyline to be there was ill-advised and more of a problem then the idea that DePalma was catering to transphobia. It leaves that subject open to caricature that so many in the LGBT community have endured. So it is irresponsible for art to leave that impression. Finally, where I did find annoying misogyny was not in the plot but in some of the camera fixations on body parts throughout the movie. For instance, the opening shower scene had a very long fixation on Dickinson’s body double’s breasts along with the soap on the body etc. Stuff like that wreaked of the exploitation of horror movies at the time and it looks like it followed that same formula. Let me know what you think! I appreciate the discussion as you said!
But I overall disagree with your conclusion that the movie itself is filled with bigotry and misogyny which seems to be your ultimate conclusion. You make a point about racism in the movie when Liz encounters the group of black men in the subway and then mentioned a black cop didn’t believe her. I don’t think it was a point mocking minorities when she wasn’t believed. I think that’s how one would be treated if they were in peril in the city especially the subway when it comes to crime at the time. Notice how when she was running through the train cars nobody seemed to care. I think more problematic is a movie like I Spit On Your Grave than this one.