The Villainization of Femininity: Analyzing Psycho (1960)

In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock shocked and terrified audiences with the release of his psychological masterpiece Psycho. The complexity of the characters, use of sexuality and violence, and the amount of thought and creativity that went into each shot have all led to this film being as influential today as it was over sixty years ago. The infamous shower scene alone is in itself a lesson in the art of filmmaking, and the entire movie is jam-packed with moments like this. As all horror movies do, this film shines a light on societal fears at the time of its release. The 1950s is a decade known for the popularity of the image of the nuclear family at the expense of women, and this film sees the result of this. A famous quote from the “Master of Suspense” himself in which he explains the use of women in horror perfectly sums up the portrayal of femininity in Psycho. “Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints” (Alfred Hitchcock). Women in horror are often used as props to showcase how disturbed their male antagonists are and Psycho is one of many examples of this.

Hitchcock’s filmography was impactful through the decades because of the way he forced audiences to fear normal, everyday aspects of human life. His use of realism to generate fear contrasted the other films in the horror genre being released at that time. While the Universal monsters and atomic science fiction films were terrifying audiences through the forties and fifties, Alfred Hitchcock had viewers fearing things as simple as birds, looking out the window, and showering at a motel throughout his career. This realism is very prominent in Psycho as the antagonist Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) seemingly kills without logical reason or motive. The apparent fortuity of his crime mixed with the complexity of his mind delivers this sense of authenticity and relatability to the world and its randomness. This segues into the question that defines Psycho’s portrayal of women: Why was Marion Crane, the protagonist of the first act of the film, killed? 

Marion, played by iconic scream queen Janet Leigh, is a character the audience gets to know very intimately. She goes against all the stereotypical standards of women set in the decades prior. She is in a premarital sexual relationship with her boyfriend Sam Loomis (John Gavin), who she is shown scandalously meeting with at a motel during her lunch break. Marion even goes on to steal money from her job in order to run away with Sam and start a new life with him. The film falsely presents itself as a crime drama as a way to subvert the audience’s expectations, before suddenly changing halfway through to a darker, more complex story. The switch from crime to slasher occurs during the shower scene specifically. The story leading up to this iconic scene is that Marion makes a stop after stealing the money at the Bates Motel where she has a strange, yet endearing interaction with Norman Bates, an awkward and seemingly harmless young man who runs the motel with his mother Mrs. Bates. Norman leaves to bring Marion dinner after showing her to her room, where she promptly hides her stolen money. Norman and his mother have a relationship defined by closeness and borderline verbal abuse as shown through a screaming match that the two have inside their house on the grounds, as overheard by Marion. Norman and Marion have a meal in his office, where his bizarre closeness with his mother and his hobby of taxidermy are revealed. Marion then goes back to her room to shower and as she undresses, Norman watches her through a peephole. In her earlier scene with Sam, Marion is shown to be wearing a white bra. However, when we see her through Norman’s voyeuristic gaze, she is shown in a black bra despite both events happening on the same day. The shower scene follows this, depicting Marion being brutally stabbed to death by a faceless figure appearing to be Norman’s mother. One could argue that, in a moral sense, the reason for Marion’s death is the universe’s way of coming back at her for stealing money from her employer. However, the final shot of the shower scene sees Marion staring blankly as she lies dead on the bathroom floor and the camera pans around to show she is looking at the hidden money. This stare solidifies the shift in genres, showcasing how even though the money at one point seemed to hold so much mileage to the plot, it became an unimportant detail in the new story picked up for the next act of the film. This is solidified when Norman discovers the crime scene and covers it up by disposing of Marion and all of her belongings, including the never uncovered hidden money, in her car and sinks it in a nearby swamp. So if money is not the defining factor in the reason for Marion’s death, what is?

Marion is not being punished for her embezzlement, but instead for a different event that occurred earlier in the film. One of her prominent character traits is her sexuality, which is the first thing the audience sees of her since her opening scene is the one with Sam in the motel room. She is an early example of the eventual slasher trope that characters cannot have sex and live to see the end of their movies. Though she is overtly feminine, her unapologetic sexuality makes her not a suitable maternal figure or housewife image. Her scene with Sam is the only time her sexuality is expressed on her own terms, as she is later watched by Norman and ultimately killed by him while in the shower, an intimate setting. Maternal and feminine themes can be found all throughout the film, from its set design, props, score, script, and casting. Bernard Herrmann’s score of the film, specifically during the shower scene, is some of the most well-known music in cinema history. One of its unique qualities is the way it uses only a string section to produce the soundtrack. The use of these instruments relates to the themes of femininity in the way that they have a high register that resembles the stereotypical high pitch of a woman's voice. Herrmann's biographer Steven Smith explained on NPR how the score of the shower scene elevated the viewing experience for the audience, saying, “With Herrmann's cue, you are Janet Leigh. You are feeling the absolute terror and panic and loss of control that she is feeling in trying to fend off this sudden attacker” (Smith). In the scene where Marion and Norman have dinner in his parlor, they are surrounded by paintings of women as well as stuffed birds made by Norman himself. The most prominent stuffed bird is a large owl that is perched on the wall right next to Norman. Owls are associated with nighttime and the moon, which are all connected to femininity. There are other connections to birds in relation to womanhood in the film, like Marion’s last name being Crane and Norman telling her that she “eats like a bird”. Even the Bates’ house takes on a womanly, maternal form since it is the only place we hear Norman’s mother talking. The way that it is positioned to almost look over the motel could even symbolize the control Norman’s mother has over him as alluded to early on and eventually revealed in the film’s final twist. 

In the film’s finale, it is revealed that Norman, under the impression that he is his mother, was the one who murdered Marion in a jealous rage. Norman began splitting his personality with his mother as a coping mechanism after he murdered her and her boyfriend years prior out of jealousy. Murray Leeder explains Michel Chion’s concept of de-acousmatic and connects it to “Mother” in Psycho, describing it as, “where the voice is eventually pinned to a fragile, conquerable body on the screen - ‘Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!’”(Leeder 171). Some aspects of Norman’s character lead to the possibility of queer coding, such as how he dresses, his sexual frustration, his innocent and shy demeanor, and his troubled relationship with his mother, even cross-dressing as her when committing his crimes. The casting of Anthony Perkins also compliments this, as he was known in Hollywood for being a closeted gay man and he often brought this internalized queerness to his roles. Lyanna Hindley writes in “Queer-Coding Perkins and Psycho” that, “Amongst 50’s Hollywood peers, Perkins was a known but not out homosexual man, a highly likely reason for his casting. Hitchcock would have surely been aware of Perkins‘ sexuality and must have ignorantly believed that his sexuality would aid in portraying Bate’s occasional effeminate nature and ambiguous sexuality” (Hindley). Norman’s effeminate characteristics are what define his abnormalities and are directly connected to his wrongdoings. Even when he is caught in the end, a psychiatrist explains that “Mother” has completely taken over his mind which is shown through an inner monologue by Norman in his mother’s voice. His condition is assumed to be the result of their unconventional relationship and her overbearing nature as a mother, so much of the accountability for the murders that Norman commits are often redirected to Mrs. Bates. Marion was killed by Norman because her sexuality threatened the maternal part of his personality, sparking feelings of jealousy and rage. So the audience is left to subliminally believe that Norman is not one hundred percent to blame for these crimes and that accountability is to be shared with Norma. An extremely twisted and misogynistic argument could subliminally be made by film viewers that Marion had some responsibility for her own death since it was her sexuality and attractiveness that drove Norman to kill her. These may not be the intended takeaways from the film, however, they are interpretations that add to its overall realism since these are the thought processes that women fear in regard to men.  

The deaths of both Marion and Mrs. Bates exemplify the reasoning behind the fear most women have of men. Marion was targeted by Norman for his desire for sexual attention from her, while Mrs. Bates was targeted by Norman because of his desire for her pure maternal attention. The one similarity between the two victims is their gender and the reason why they died is because of how Norman reacted to their gendered qualities. In Psycho, the true antagonist presented is not Norman, but rather femininity. The old-fashioned motherly femininity represented by Mrs. Bates and the newly liberated femininity represented by Marion both ended in the same outcome. No matter how a woman chooses to express herself, whether it be more maternal or sexually liberated, she is always at risk of being put in danger at the hands of a man due to her gender. Tatum Dooley in her article “The Problem With ‘Hitchcock Blondes’” explains her issue with Hitchcock’s portrayal of women in his films, saying, “He (Hitchcock) perpetuated a prevalent trope that a female’s worth is based on her looks that makes it impossible to win: too attractive and she shouldn’t be trusted, not attractive enough and she is worthless” (Dooley). Arguably, the scariest part of the movie Psycho is the way it tricks audiences into subliminally sympathizing with Norman Bates and not holding him fully accountable for the severe and disturbing crimes he committed because of the way the female characters and femininity, in general, are vilified throughout.