JP "Day of the Outlaw"

In Andre De Toth’s film, Day of the Outlaw, the audience observes women represented as simple objects to outsiders and the number one focus for protection from the Town’s men. An army captain and his gang of outlaws ride into town causing Blaise Starrett and Hal Crane to put their problems aside in order to keep their small town safe.

As in most, if not all Western films, the audience is able to connect what is going on in the country at the time to what is being represented in the film. Throughout Day of the Outlaw, the audience examines women’s roles in the 1950s through the four women of the town that is under the endangerment of Captain Bruhn and his men. The women are presented as nothing more than an object of entertainment for the outlaws. They have a Saturday night social, where they are tossing the four women around amongst themselves, like rag dolls. Holding onto them tightly and aggressively putting them up against walls attacking their faces for pleasures. This connects to the introduction of the Barbie doll, which was a creation by Ruth Handler in 1959. The women are representing mere toys to the outlaws throughout the film.

By the end of the 1950s, the average age of marriage for women in America dropped to twenty, and was still dropping, into the teens. Out of the four women portrayed in this film, three of them are married and the fourth, youngest woman is talking about what kind of man she wants to marry; simply implying marriage is on women’s minds starting at a young age.

Lastly, during WWII, women were encouraged to enter the labor force. Women finally realized they could do the same work that men had been doing for so many years. Once the war ended, many women didn’t want to give up their jobs. They were told that now that the war was over they should return to their more traditional roles as housewives and mothers, so the men could reclaim their jobs. From the late 1940s through the 1950s there was a lot of pressure on women to accept such roles as wives and mothers, dependent on their husbands, and committed to living their lives for their families. While watching Day of the Outlaw, the audience observes the respect women recieve from their men and the voice and set of beliefs they have of their own,. Yet, they are still committed to their domestic responsibilities and abiding by their husbands or male figures around them.