itudes than it is a misogynist view of the behavior of women. In both films, the male who objectifies the female is punished, and the fact that the woman is punished as well does not mean that the filmmaker himself is misogynist even as it reflects the view that society is.
One of Hitchcock's continuing themes is that of the transfer of guilt and of the need for the person receiving this guilt to atone even if it is for someone else's crime. Alice in Blackmail becomes a killer by protecting herself from a rapist, and she is then punished not only through her own sense of guilt but by the actions of the blackmailer. The filmmaker clearly has sympathy for her position--she may be committing a crime by not reporting the killing of the artist, but she has real reasons for hiding a "crime" that was not her fault. Her real "crime" was in going to his studio in the first place, but even though this might be seen as a misogynistic view of how women should behave and of what happens to them when they do not, the sympathy of the film remains with the woman and not with the male who would have raped her or the society that would punish her for protecting herself.
The artist and Scottie share certain characteristics in that they each have an ideal woman and would force the woman who attracts them into that mold. Crewe, the artist, shapes his ideal woman in stone, the nude in his studio, and the real woman he brings there is seen by him as no more than clay to be shaped to whatever matches his desires. Frank, Alice's policeman boyfriend, shapes her in his own way just as much as does the artist. Ultimately, he stops her from confessing and shares in her guilt even as he seems to be making a statement about the reality of her underlying innocence. In Hitchcock, guilt and innocence are not simple matters, and neither does the material lend itself to the sort of black-and-white
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