Holly At Tiffany's Analysis

We’re all familar with the little black dress and Audrey Hepburn. These are just some of the icons launched by the classic film B reakfast at Tiffany’s. The 1961 film has left its mark in modern American pop culture. The time of its release was a time when women were beginning to question and transform their womanhood. The film certainly created buzz amongst women for the character Holly’s appearance of a break from social norms. While Holly Golightly appears as a representation of a new female independance for women in the mid 1900’s, the films underlying message is actually no different from the messages of female oppression given since the previous decades. What appears on the surface to be a pro feminist movie actually hides
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Women of the
1950’s had two options: either be virginal or become a man’s play thing. Holly, however, made the men her play things as she embraced a new sexual behavior for women. She used the full force of her charm and was profoundly flirtatious with men from the start of the film. She’s unashamed and not concerned with modesty as shows herself to her house guests in only her towel. Wearing nothing but a robe she climbs into Paul’s apartment and lays in bed with him, while he himself is covered in only a sheet, and she happily goes with him to drink at a strip club. It’s obvious her relationships with her many rich male companions are definitely not platonic, as Holly is later revealed to make her money as a call girl.
Along with her unexpected amount of sexual freedom for a woman in the early 1960’s, she also has the power in her relationships. In one of the first scenes of the film a man who brought her home chases after her to her door desperately asking why she disappeared on him when she, as he claims, loves him. After she received the $50 from him, she refused him. She leaves him with an insincere “I worship you darling,” and closes the door in his face. She manipulates