Lecture Notes for Attack of the 50 ' Woman
Last updated 10.24.01

In a sense, Nancy Archer is 50' tall before she has her encounter with an alien in the desert.
    She's worth $50 million dollars (an impressive sum in the 1950's) and is the
    owner of the fabulous Star of India diamond.
        She pays most of the town's taxes, so when she tells the sheriff that she's
        seen a huge alien in the desert, he plays along instead of giving her a
        breathlyzer.

But all of Nancy's money doesn't buy her happiness, or even respect.
    Everyone in town knows about her husband's philandering and even helps
    him hide.
        The sheriff and his deputy happily take bribes to say nothing to Nancy of
        Harry's  whereabouts.
    Apparently her money doesn't attract any respectable men, only fortune
    hunters.
        Perhaps respectable men feel intimidated by her immense wealth, or
        perhaps there's something wrong with Nancy herself in that she can only
        find worthless men attractive.
    Even local newscasters feel free to make fun of Nancy.

Nancy's encounter with the strange, ovoid alien only magnifies her female anger, which is represented as something monstrous rather than a justifiable response to external stimuli.
    No one feels much pity for Nancy when she's a normal size and is angry at
    Harry over his infidelities.
        The typical wisdom of the day would hold that Nancy's to blame for her
        husband's wandering eye. She's shrewish, and she's also getting old.
    The two doctors who treat Nancy's unusual condition speculate as to the
    source of her alcohol problem.
        One observes that Nancy's alcohol problem began when she married
        Harry, but another says that women who are "that age" (menopausal?
        over the age of 30 without bearing children?) start to lose touch with
        reality.
            Like Carrie White, Nancy's anger is suspect.  It's a hormonal problem
            (men, of course, never have hormonal problems).  She's already
            hardwired to be unstable.

In post-World War II America, white men shrank while women (and perhaps minorities) grew to monstrous proportions in the imaginations of white men.

Other websites of interest:

    Stephanie Coontz, The Way We Never Were, discusses the reality behind the
    myth that 1950s family life was much the way it was represented in popular
    situation comedies.

    The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan, describes the "problem with no
    name" experienced by women in post World War II, pre-second wave
    feminist movement.