A Streetcar Named Desire / YMMV

Accidental Aesop: Blanche loves her little sister very much, and desperately tries to persuade her to leave Stanley, but Stella refuses — and she doesn't. This is the Hard Truth Aesop that every person who's had a loved one suffer Domestic Abuse has had to learn; if they don't want your help, you can't force them to take it, no matter how badly they might need it.
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- Between minor changes between the play and the movie, there is a lot of this coming.
- A lot of fans of the 1951 film like to play up the notion of Blanche being a variation of Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind; this is mainly because Vivien Leigh played both roles, as well as the urban legend that Leigh got the part SPECIFICALLY because Elia Kazan wanted to play around with the idea of "What if Scarlett O'Hara Lost Her Mind" as his take on Blanche. Directors of the original play are rather divided on who's right, and it shows in the performances.
- Blanche is obviously the protagonist, but seen from one point of view, she does come in to Stella and Stanley's "happily ever after" and mess everything up. People tend to forget that she is, in fact, a guest and therefore, in some instances at least, completely in the wrong.
- On top of that, Blanche's dismissive attitude towards Stanley combined with her actions before coming make her less sympathetic: Blanche's selling of their family estate and taking all the money, Blanche's driving her gay husband to suicide and her use of statutory rape while presenting herself as the victim in the situation to be taken in.
- You could argue that Stanley is almost as insecure as Blanche, deep down inside. He seems sure that Blanche could potentially tear Stella away from him, and when he realizes what he did in a fit of rage, he breaks down in tears and calls her back, quoting from the stage directions, "with heaven-splitting violence". His tough persona is merely a facade to hide his deep insecurities and fears.
- A rather interesting point with this is that nowhere in the script does it say that Stanley raped Blanche. It only says that she faints (meaning she wouldn't know what, if anything, happened anyway) and he "carries her to the bed". This means that this scene (and therefore Stanley's character) could be interpreted one of two ways: either he did rape her while she was unconscious or he only meant to frighten her, and didn't go any further than that. Most productions go with the former, with many stagings of that scene removing all room for doubt. And Word of God is that rape is indeed what happened, it just wasn't something that could be shown on stage, and thus was not mentioned in the directions.
- It's up in the air how we're meant to see Stanley's Relationship Sabotage between Mitch and Blanche. On the one hand, it's a dick move — and Stanley clearly told an embellished version of the events. On the other, Blanche was lying to Mitch and Stanley didn't want his friend to be saddled with someone who would definitely be a huge burden.
- Takes on a second meaning in the movie — because Blanche's first husband committed suicide for being sensitive and being bullied by Blanche, it creates an unintentional level of comparison with Mitch, who could be headed for the same fate as a noted "sensitive" guy.
- Stella is seen as a victim of domestic violence, but one scene in particular where Stella describes Stanley smashing all the lightbulbs on their wedding night suggests she might be attracted to Stanley's violent qualities. If you listen to how she talks, she almost sounds as if she's turned on. Note that she never seems to have a problem standing up to Stanley and she's not afraid to shout back at him. It's entirely possible Stella could be addicted to the drama that Stanley brings, and is just as messed up as him in her own way. While the film's ending was changed so that Stella appears to have enough of Stanley and walk out of their apartment, it's still left open enough whether she means it.
- Take the scene after the poker game — the "Hey, Stella!" sequence. Stella goes back to Stanley after he hit her. Is Stella a Love Martyr? Or is she the one with the power here? In the film at least, Stella looks like she could be enjoying making Stanley beg for her to come back — thus making this a sort of Masochism Tango.
- While being violently raped at the end of an already awful Trauma Conga Line certainly didn't help Blanche's sanity, some have wondered if that was what was the final straw, or if it was Stella's reaction that finally pushed her over the edge. It's clear she told Stella what happened, showing that after the rape, she was at least lucid enough to understand what happened to her and to tell someone else, but by the ending scene (which is a couple weeks later), she's obviously lost her mind. It could be inferred that her own sister not believing her (or choosing not to believe her), and siding with her rapist over her, is what finally broke Blanche entirely.
- Blanche's actions towards her husband in the play. Was she just a blatant homophobe, as befitting the standards of the day? Or was that a manifestation of her own insecurities about her looks? As there were still so many misconceptions about homosexuality (it was still considered a mental illness as late as the 1970s), did Blanche believe she had somehow failed as a wife if her husband was more attracted to men than her, and that was her lashing out? Or perhaps both?
- Is Mitch a Nice Guy, or a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing? While he's justifiably angry that Blanche lied to him, he has a line about "taking what [he's] been missing out on" that is easily interpreted (and is often staged as) him attempting to sexually assault her, because she's just a slut who deserves it, now.
Award Snub: Despite being lauded as one of the most powerful performances of all time, Marlon Brando's performance as Stanley was not awarded an Academy Award (and the film did sweep the other three acting categories, with Vivien Leigh, Karl Malden, and Kim Hunter all winning in their categories). Downplayed in that the Best Actor recipient that year was Humphrey Bogart, taking home the only Oscar in his legendary career for The African Queen, and that Brando would deservedly win Best Actor for On the Waterfront just three years later.
Best Known for the Fanservice: The film version is known for Marlon Brando in a tight wet t-shirt and something about mental illness.
Cant Unhear It:
- Marlon Brando is the only Stanley for most.
- Vivien Leigh as Blanche too. Adaptation Displacement is partly at play here, as the role was played by Jessica Tandy in the original production (but Vivien played it in the British run).
Draco in Leather Pants: The role of Stanley, a truculent, wife-beating rapist, is what propelled Marlon Brando into sex symbol status. He does have sympathetic qualities, mind you, but plenty of bad ones to equal them.
Fan-Preferred Cut Content: The four minutes originally censored by the Hays Code were restored in 1993 - including more sexual tension between Blanche and Stanley in their first meeting, and Stella giving Stanley a look of pure lust before she walks down the stairs to him. Many commented that they made a surprising difference to the film.
Harsher in Hindsight: Seeing Blanche suffer Sanity Slippage is hard to watch with the knowledge that Vivien Leigh struggled with bipolar disorder later in life. And that the exhaustion involved both in playing Blanche on the stage and reprising the role for the film took a toll on the actress's mental health. Partly because of this, she only made three more films afterwards. In fact, given how the critics fixated on her approaching forty (she was only 38 when the film was released) and her struggles with mental illness, her playing Blanche seems almost like Leaning on the Fourth Wall.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: Stanley and Blanche's cordial first meeting - since Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh reportedly became quite good friends during filming.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Stanley talks about the Napoleonic Code. Marlon Brando would later play Napoleon in Désirée.
Intended Audience Reaction: Some critics at the time scoffed at Vivien Leigh's classically trained acting style clashing with the method acting of the other cast members in the film. However, while Elia Kazan did have to coach her a little on updating her style, Blanche's personality is in general a Large Ham who is eternally putting on a performance because she's so detached from reality - so her mannerisms are a deliberate choice from the actress.
Jerkass Woobie: Blanche. She's very harsh towards Stanley (who she sees as a 'Polack' and an 'ape'), and she isn't particularly nice in general, but once you find out about her past, it's very hard not to feel sorry for her...
Memetic Mutation:
- Hey SSTTTEEELLLAAA!!!!
- It's entirely because of Brando that undershirts are now known as wifebeaters.
Misaimed Fandom: An example filled with Fridge Horror but there are those who hold up the play and Stanley especially as being a paragon of masculinity, pointing to his willingness to "do what must be done" whether at work or at home to maintain his idea of the status quo as ideals to be replicated. Which, considering Stanley spends most of the play in a state of hyper-aggression, beats his wife and rapes his sister-in-law while his wife is giving birth to their child, before sending his victim to a mental institution, is decidedly not the point of the character or the play.
Moral Event Horizon:
- Stanley's MEH is generally considered to be raping Blanche, but you could also argue that he crosses it when he tells Mitch about Blanche's exploits (thereby ruining their relationship), or when he presents Blanche with his 'birthday present'... a bus ticket back to Laurel.
- Blanche could have been seen a lot more sympathetic had she not drove her husband to suicide for his homosexuality or becoming a statutory rapist afterwards though she at least sees the error in those actions.
Nightmare Fuel:
- The depiction of Blanche's descent into insanity.
- Some extra Fridge Horror here: during the poker night, Stanley loses self-control and ends up hitting Stella. Considering how quickly she forgives him and how calm she is about it, it seems that it's a common occurrence, and studies show that parents who are domestic abusers tend to have kids that will grow up to be domestic abusers. If you believe the Alternate Character Interpretation above that Stella could enjoy making Stanley beg for her to come back, it makes their relationship even creepier.
- The scene leading up to Blanche's rape at the hands of Stanley and the actual implied rape.
Once Original, Now Common: Vivien Leigh wore make-up to look slightly older and more wrinkled than she was (she was only late thirties), and critics were astonished that an actress would do such a thing for the sake of a character. They praised her for her bravery and lack of vanity. Nowadays it's such a non-issue that we even have a trope for it.
Parody Displacement: Thanks to The Simpsons episode "A Streetcar Named Marge", an increasing number of people believe that A Streetcar Named Desire is a musical. The joke was that such a serious drama was being adapted into a light-hearted musical, with some of the most dramatic lines being read in an upbeat tone. Furthermore, the title "Oh, Streetcar!" is a parody of Oh! Calcutta!, which is an actual musical theater production. Also, Marge was initially going to star in the actual play, but the writers couldn't obtain the rights from the estate of Tennessee Williams, so they instead made her star in a musical version.
Ron the Death Eater: Blanche, while not necessarily being a good person, is often considered to be a lot worse by some who accuse her of just deliberately stringing Mitch along despite his ultimate rejection obviously hitting her hard, and that being the mid-1940s meant she couldn't tell him about her sexual history if she wanted any kind of relationship with him, and ignoring the fact that signs of her mental instability are present from the very beginning and only become increasingly obvious.
Signature Line:
- "STELLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
- "I don't want realism. I want magic!"
- "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."
Signature Scene: Stanley begging Stella to come back.
Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Blanche might be the protagonist of the play, but to modern audiences, many of her actions (particularly sleeping with her own students and being homophobic enough to drive her own husband to suicide) are considered outright heinous. See Values Dissonance below.
Values Dissonance:
- Blanche herself, who is seen as an Asshole Victim nowadays for manipulating her sister, constantly living in denial even in the face of the truth, an absolute inability to do anything useful, mooching off both Stanley and Mitch, abusing her under-aged students and getting kicked out of her position as a teacher for it, calling her husband "disgusting" after finding out he was gay, telling lies to everyone she comes across (and especially her long line of lovers). There was a case where, during a modern revival of the play, people cheered as Blanche was raped.
- On the other hand, Blanche is clearly mentally ill and needs legitimate professional help, yet she has the misfortune to live in a time where "help" offered to people like her was sometimes a lobotomy, and her only family in the world is in an abusive marriage with a man who wants to break her into even smaller pieces than she's already in, and send those pieces packing. (And her sister sides with her husband after he rapes her, and sends her to an asylum rather than leave him.)
- Aside from that, most characters treat her promiscuity as just as bad as, if not worse than, her mental instability. In today's post-sexual revolution society, women are not quite as morally condemned for having lots of partners as in her time. (Although sleeping with an underage student is seen as worse today than back then.) Her homophobia would also be seen as even worse, especially since she drove her husband to suicide over it.
Values Resonance: One of the many layers of the play is Blanche and Stanley are pretty symbolic of an "Old South vs. New South" dynamic. Blanche was a faded relic of the bygone Antebellum South (she is, after all, played by Scarlett O'Hara herself,) while Stanley was a modern, industrial, blue-collar immigrant, symbolic of where the South was going. An important discussion when the play was written in 1947, since the South was still rebuilding after the war. However, that same "Old Guard vs. New Blood" debate is showing up all over again, with the newest generation of Southerners being much more diverse and progressive, and frequently at odds with the more conservative previous generation, believing that clinging to the Good Old Ways just isn't working anymore.
- Whether or not it was deliberately done to invoke this, Blanche's line, "A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart?" carries a lot of resonance for those who are, well, not straight. ^note
What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: The story's biggest bit of symbolism is that Blanche represents the 'old south' and Stanley represents the new working class south.
The Woobie:
- Stella when you see her shabby apartment and her twisted relationship with Stanley. Out of the three protagonists, she is easily the most sympathetic.
- Mitch as well since his mother is dying and he gets strung along by a rather manipulative flirt.

YMMV / A Streetcar Named Desire

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