I Am Legend: A Comparative Study Part 3

I Am Legend and the Movies Which Followed It

I Am Legend, a 1954 novel written by Richard Matheson

Last Man on Earth, a 1964 movie staring Boris Karof; written by William F. Leicester, with screenplay by Richard Matheson (as Logan Swanson), Furio M. Monetti, and Ubaldo B. Ragona

Omega Man, a 1971 movie staring Charlton Heston; Screenplay by John William Corrington & Joyce Hooper Corrington, based on the novel by Richard Matheson.

I Am Legend, a 2007 movie starring Will Smith; written by Mark Protosevich, Akiva Goldsman, based on the novel by Richard Matheson.

Part 3: The Changing View of Women

Science fiction often portrays images of a future world that might or could be possible if certain political, scientific, or military conditions persist. These notorious “what if” stories are usually a warning about dire consequences if things don’t change. It might be an obvious warning about greenhouse gases and the effects of global warming, as in The Day After Tomorrow, or it might be a warning about the dangers of overpopulation and food shortages, as in Soylent Green. Sometimes, though, the warnings are about social issues. These are more subtle. In recent years, there have been studies in the metaphorical representation of women, people of color, and homosexuals in fiction, movies, and sitcoms. These metaphoric images often depict them as “others” to beware of. We see this “other-ing” of women in the original 1954 novel, I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson, and we see a change in the portrayal of women through the subsequent movies based on the novel.

The Dangerous Sexuality of Women

One of most striking differences between the 1954 novel, I Am Legend, by Richard Matheson, and the movies which are based on this novel, is the way women are portrayed. Again we must look at the historical context of women’s social role in order to see why women are portrayed differently in each of these stories. First of all, it is important to acknowledge that Judeo-Christian beliefs depict woman as the original temptress through the Biblical story of Adam and Eve. In this Genesis story, Eve, the first woman, tempts Adam to eat from the forbidden Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, thereby causing man’s expulsion from Eden and the ensuing consequences that man must work by the sweat of his brow and that woman must have pain during childbirth. This deeply rooted idea permeates western cultures and shows up in many stories, essays, and sermons, creating a fear of women followed by the necessity to control women as part of a spiritual mandate.

We see the dangers of women quite clearly in I Am Legend (1954). Our main character, Robert, relates how the female vampires are “withering and twisting” to get his attention on several occasions. There is an emphasis on the women who are “enticing him out, tempting him” to come out and be killed. Robert says, “The women were out there…their flesh waiting for his touch.” The sexual implications are undeniable in the novel, for “The lustful, bloodthirsty, naked women flaunting their hot bodies at him… no not hot.” These dangerous, lustful women are contrasted with Robert’s dead wife, Virginia, during the flashbacks in the novel. Virginia is the quintessential wife: meek, mild, submissive to her husband even when she disagrees with him. We see this in the scene when Robert’s daughter, Cathy, becomes infected with the virus. Virginia wants to call a doctor for Cathy, but Robert refuses because Cathy would be quarantined. Virginia mildly accepts his judgment and bends her will to his. Even her name is an implication of purity, as Virginia is a derivative of virgin. While we see Virginia as the perfect wife, she does not inspire passion in Robert. As Robert reflects back to the time after Virginia died from the plague, his feelings are calm as opposed to fiery: two day since he buried her, two eyes,“two lips touching, two hands on the bed…everything in the world seemed suddenly to have dropped into a pit of duality, a victim to a system of twos.” This is the duality of women: sensuous versus pure, emotion versus logic, good versus evil. Women represent the superstitious side of man which must give way to logical thinking and order. The conflict between these opposing forces is reinforced when Robert goes to the library and considers the lonely life of the spinster librarian, “never knowing the fierce joy and attended comfort of a loved one’s embrace, to sink into that hideous coma… all without knowing what it was to love and be loved. That was a tragedy more terrible than being a vampire.” Notice the duality is carried forward in this scene with the opposing ideas of “fierce” and “joy” linked in a phrase, but it lacks the sensuality that Robert feels when a female vampire blocks his view through the keyhole of the door and lifts up her skirts. “In the first second of it he felt that terrible heat drudging up from his loins like something ravenous.” This “terrible heat” is associated with the dangerous, “ravenous” sexual arousal which is far different from the“attended comfort” he felt with his wife and, as such, must be controlled and killed. Even Robert admits that he only kills the female vampires during his daytime hunting trips. It is only the females that he captures and on which he experiments. Robert also admits that all the female vampires have started looking like his daughter to him, so perhaps killing them is a fitting punishment in his eyes. These hot and ravenous female vampires now represent not only lustful sex, but incestuous sex which must be stamped out.

Women as Competitors for Jobs

As the climax of the book approaches, Robert realizes that “sex was quickly losing its meaning without the endless prodding of mass hypnosis. Loneliness he still felt.” So by the time Robert catches Ruth, the “living vampire”, he has disassociated himself from desire. Even though he notices that Ruth has the body of a young girl and he watches her breast and thighs as she struggles, he also realizes that he is not sexually attracted to her. Ironically, when he stands close to Ruth and smells her hair and her scent, he pulls away and realizes he dislikes the human smell of her. “He was afraid of loving again.” As it turns out, Ruth is a “ranking officer” in the new society of living vampires and was sent to help capture Robert for execution. In the brief scene where Ruth visits Robert in his cell, we see a second reason to fear women. Before the 1950s many men refused to allow their wife to work because it reflected poorly on the man’s ability to support the family. Most jobs also required women to quit once they were married. Yet in the decade before the novel was written, women entered the workforce in non-traditional jobs during World War II. After the war, women were forced to give up the freedom and independence associated with earning better wages in order to return to the home. Many women had difficulty reverting back to the traditional role as the stay-at-home housewife and mother, so there was a dramatic shift in the workforce demographics. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women of working age represented only 19% of the workforce in 1900. By 1960, shortly after I Am Legend was written, the percentage of women in the workforce grew to 60%. This created greater competition for jobs, so women who chose to work frequently faced criticism and harassment, especially if they worked in non-traditional jobs (i.e. jobs other than nursing, teaching, secretarial positions and child care). We can infer that women during the 1950s were viewed as dangerous to men’s role as head-of-house and bread winner, which is subtly reflected in Ruth’s participation in Robert’s capture and execution. In her position as a “ranking officer,” Ruth has helped kill Robert, the last man on earth. Here again we see woman as the destruction of man.

Note that The Last Man on Earth (1964), the movie which most closely resembles the novel, has lost the overt fear of women as sexual beings and competitors for jobs. This is a result of the strict censorship of the period which muffled sexuality. As a result, most of the tension that builds in the novel has been diluted and is ineffective. Women are still depicted in submissive roles, but Ruth’s position as a leader of the new society of living vampires is obliterated.

Women as Saviors of Men

By the 1970s, when Omega Man was filmed, censorship had lightened up. However, the sexual tension and duality which built the theme of science (man) versus superstition (woman) is hampered. The Civil Rights Movement for African-Americans and the Equal Rights Movement for women resulted in a changing film presence for woman and blacks. The role of the surviving women in this film is one of savior and sexual partner. Omega Man features a dramatic scene in which Robert is rescued from the Family by a bold African-American woman, Lisa. Lisa and her friend, Dutch, rush into the midst of the Family on a motorcycle amid explosions of motif cocktail in order to rescue Robert. Lisa is shown as a strong, independent woman who is Robert’s sexual equal. It is Lisa who makes the first move to seduce Robert and, though they are temporarily interrupted by an attack from the Family, they end up in a mutually consenting relationship. The character of Lisa fits into the “strong, black women” stereotype which was apparently more palatable than a “strong, white woman” during this period. Even though she is strong, she “turns” into one of the pigment challenged Family near the end of the movie. She must then be rescued by the white man, Dutch, after Robert has been killed by the Family. In this film men maintain their protective role. Omega Man is not the last man, as implied by the title, for Dutch takes the Robert’s immune-protected blood and the remaining children to the mountains to restart a human society. This lack of human termination makes the title almost meaningless and the stock characters (standard characters that have predictable behaviors), which are also flat (none of them change or grow throughout the story), cause Omega Man to lack the depth of the original novel.

The female survivor, Anna, in the 2007 movie, I Am Legend, with Will Smith, also rescues Robert during an attack by the Dark Seekers. Anna is a portrayed as a soft spoken Hispanic woman. Anna displays the quiet strength and nurturing nature of the customary role for women, so it is not surprising that there is no sexual tension or involvement with Robert. She is rather the voice of hope which Robert has lost. She insists there is a survivors’colony because God told her, reinforcing the traditional idea of women as being motivated by the heart rather than the mind. In I Am Legend (2007), it is the superstition of hope in the personification of Anna which saves humanity. It is hope and listening to her heart which gives Anna the strength to takes a vial Robert’s blood to the survivors’ colony so an anti-virus can be developed. This version of the story has taken the opposite path of the original 1954 novel. In both versions, superstition (women) dominates reason (men); however where originally it killed mankind, now it saves mankind. Even though the characters in I Am Legend (2007) are still stock and flat, the story works as a feel-good movie.

I could be write or I could be wrong.

C.Lynn