Fury curled in
my gut when I watched Lina Wertmüller’s Swept
Away for the first time. I was so angry that my neighbors could probably feel
my irritation through the walls. The relationship between Gennarino and
Raffaella portrayed almost every terrible stereotype about women that I resent;
she was a rude, high-maintenance, unreasonable snob who constantly nagged her
husband and the help until a “stronger,” “dominant” man came into her life and taught
her the “pleasure” women get from being submissive to men. She started to
accept his abusive treatment without question until she eventually gives in to
his sexual demands and declares her love for him despite his constant sexual,
emotional, and physical abuse in the name of male superiority. Vincent Canby
from The New York Times even claimed that “Swept Away is the story of their tumultuous, slapstick courtship,
his systematic humiliation of her (as she sees it) until, suddenly, she submits
to her love for him and becomes in the process truly liberated” (Canby, par. 8),
which only reinforced my original interpretation. I thought that Raffaella was really
in love with Gennarino; the only reason, I believed, that she turned down going
back to the island with him at the end of the movie was because she wanted to
return to her rich life. I immediately wrote the film off as misogynistic
propaganda.
After reading
Ariana Farajollah’s essay on Raffaella’s possible case of Stockholm Syndrome,
though, and discussing the film in class, I realized I may have been missing an
essential part of the movie that painted Gennarino and Raffaella’s relationship
in a completely different light. Swept Away is not portraying the love between a
tamed woman and the dominant man who puts her in her place; rather, it is a
story about a cold mockery of love born from fear and abuse meant as a means of
survival, not affection. Raffaella is not in love with Gennarino, nor is he in
love with her; her affection on the island is an attempt to ensure her
own survival that immediately shows its true frailty once they return to the
mainland while Gennarino’s narcissism prevents him from actually caring about Raffaella as a human being, let alone as a true romantic partner.
Raffaella’s
transition from an outspoken and intelligent woman to a subservient slave is
one of most obvious indicators that the affection she displays for Gennarino is
actually a survival mechanism she uses to protect herself from more abuse. Raffaella
starts the movie as a woman who speaks her mind without fear; she argues with
her husband and expresses her opinion without hesitation, not afraid to open
her mouth whenever she has something to say. But when her food is suddenly
being controlled by Gennarino, and he begins to abuse her whenever she does
something he does not like, she starts obeying everything he says without
complaint. To some, Raffaella’s change in attitude may seem like the beginnings
of love, as she is willing to submit to Gennarino unlike before; but in
reality, her strange shift in behavior may be a sign of something more
calculated than pure affection. Sharie Stines, psychologist and expert in
trauma and abuse recovery, explains what she calls the “eggshell” mentality in
her article titled “Victims of Abuse”: “Victims are notorious for being
conditioned to ‘walk on eggshells’
in the relationship in order to try to prevent or minimize any future
occurrences of upsetting the abuser…They have learned to be hyper-vigilant to the feelings and reactions
of others and have stopped focusing on their own internal feelings”
(Stine, par.6). Victims of abuse learn to be as unobtrusive as possible to
avoid drawing their abuser’s focus, since less attention means that they may
escape more punishment. They learn to heavily consider every move they make and
every word they say, constantly aware of the possible consequences if they
offend or anger their abuser. This mentality is what drives the immense change
in Raffaella’s personality that we see throughout the movie. Every time
Raffaella speaks her mind or does something without his permission, Gennarino hits
her and berates her. Eventually, just as Stines points out, Raffaella learns
that in order to continue to survive on the island, she needs to avoid actions
that offend Gennarino, so she changes her behavior to match his expectations.
One such instance is when Raffaella bends to Gennarino’s wishes and kneels at
his feet, laying her head down in submission to possibly gain some of the
rabbit that he just killed. She even goes so far to put Gennarino’s hand on her
head to appeal to his demands for control rather than face more punishment,
which in this case is starvation (Wertmüller, 01:16:23). She modifies her
behavior to become what he wants her to be, growing more sexually promiscuous as an appeal to his
demands for sex, and stops fighting for her opinions to avoid the physical
abuse. Her actions, therefore, are not performed out of love or affection; they
are attempts to gain his approval and curtail his abuse by making it seem like
their relationship is something stable and healthy. When viewing her
transformation through this lens, Raffaella becomes the victim of an abuser
rather than a tamed woman who is saved by the power of male superiority, and
the validity of any love for him is cast into doubt.
Besides Raffaella’s lack of love for
him sinking any chances of any real relationship between them, Gennarino’s narcissism,
a trait he displays throughout the film, prevents him from seeing Raffaella as
an equal and independent person, let alone as someone to love. Gennarino has
several characteristics that match the definition of narcissism; he thinks
himself above women, constantly tries to control the lives of those around
them, and always needs to feel superior, which is why he gets upset when
someone supposedly undermines his “authority.” Dr. Margalis Fjelstad,
Ph.D., LMFT, who works with individuals in relationships with narcissist, wrote
an article citing the “14 Signs You're Dealing With A Narcissist,” and
unsurprisingly, Gennarino fits clearly into no less than nine of the listed symptoms; superiority and entitlement (which is
seen in Gennarino’s claims that men are always superior to women), an
exaggerated need for attention (his constant want for her to act submissive and
loving to him), a great need for control (his demands that Raffaella always
refer to him when making any decisions), a lack of responsibility (his
insistence that Raffaella is forcing him to abuse her), a focus on emotional reasoning
(his abuse is based on the state of his own fragile emotions), splitting
(Gennarino blames Raffaella for her punishments all while praising himself for
keeping her “in line”), fear (his insistence that Raffaella must prove her love
for him by returning to the mainland), and an inability to be truly vulnerable
(his belief that being too intimate with his lovers is unmanly and wrong)
(Fjelstad, pts. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13).
Given how many
of these characteristics fit Gennarino’s personality and actions perfectly, any
affection he possibly has for Raffaella is immediately brought into doubt; if Gennarino
actually has Narcissistic Personality Disorder, can he even love Raffaella in
the first place? Melissa Schenker has studied love in the home and the
workplace, and she warns people away from relationships with narcissists because,
“A narcissist acknowledges your existence when you serve a purpose. A person
who is not separate from you cannot love you because they cannot see and know
you. It’s as if you are one being — the narcissist. You, as a separate,
distinct individual cannot be appreciated” (Schenker, par. 4). Schenker writes
that narcissists cannot love someone else because they lack the ability to
think of others as independent people rather than as tools that exist to serve
the narcissist; those with NPD can think they are in love, but because they
consider others as extensions of themselves to use for whatever they want, narcissists
cannot actually care about anyone as more than an instrument for their own use.
Examining Gennarino with this lens brings every instance of “love” between
Gennarino and Raffaella into question. Gennarino, therefore, can never love
Raffaella because he lacks the ability to think of her as something other than
a tool to be used purely for his own pleasure. In class discussion, Professor
Gordon stressed the importance of the “power to join” in romantic
relationships: a constant combination of trust and working together to grow as
one, which can only be accomplished by an equality between the partners (Gordon).
Gennarino has no such respect for Raffaella, thinking her as his slave, and it only
shows that he is not in love with Raffaella at all. He only wants her as a
trophy: a tool for his own pleasure, not someone to love and cherish as his
equal in a loving relationship.
Once Raffaella
finally has the chance to examine their relationship without Gennarino around, the
lack of love in their relationship comes out. When the pair is rescued from the
island and brought back to the mainland, Raffaella is freed from constantly
being under Gennarino’s influence, and almost immediately the façade of their
relationship falls apart. Raffaella realizes that nothing about their life on
the island was healthy once she is no longer relying on Gennarino for food. She
knows that she can have a life of freedom instead of staying under the control
of a man who sexually, verbally, emotionally, and physically abuses her, so she
decides to leave him. In her essay, “An Abused Woman’s Colonization and
Declaration of Independence in SWEPT AWAY,” Ariana Farajollah perfectly sums up
Raffaella’s reason for leaving Gennarino behind: “Thus, Rafaella chooses to
desert her suitor, evidencing the notion that she never truly loved him, and
that her mind was, in fact, merely colonized by the influence of Stockholm
Syndrome” (Farajollah, par. 4). As Ariana points out, Raffaella’s brief time
away from Gennarino proved to her that what she was expressing on the island
was not love at all; it was an appeal to his demands for submission and sex in
order to avoid more punishment, and that any affection he was expressing was
not love for her, but his own twisted approval of her subservient actions. Once
she has the chance to escape him, Raffaella runs as far away as she can, flying
away in a helicopter as he shouts obscenities at her (Wertmüller, 01:59:50). She
does not have to rely on Gennarino for survival anymore, so she does not need
to pretend to love him in order and can finally leave him. If she had truly
loved him, she would have given up her life on the mainland and returned to the
island with Gennarino. Instead, she shows their relationship’s true colors as a
mockery of love born from Raffaella’s need to survive and Gennarino's narcissistic belief that she is his property top control and abuse.
If there was any
sort of actual love between Raffaella and Gennarino, Swept Away would have been a very different movie; Raffaella likely
would have gone back to the island with him instead of choosing to leave him if
she had any real feelings for him, and Gennarino would not have treated her
like a slave if he actually cared about her. Gennarino and Raffaella’s actions
prove that what they had between them was never love; it was a relationship
built on abuse and narcissism that created a twisted and damaged illusion of
affection that can never truly be called love. His narcissistic treatment of
Raffaella reveals he never loved her, and that any affection that she may have
shown in return was a farce built on her attempts at survival.
When I watched Swept Away for the first time, I thought
that Wertmüller was suggesting this kind of relationship was the norm: that women
are supposed to be subservient and can only be satisfied when dominated by a man,
who has the right to treat her as he wishes. I believed that the blasé attitude
that the film has towards abuse and rape was Wertmüller claiming that this was
the way that women should be treated when they are being “unruly” by speaking
their minds and going against men. But now, I see that Wertmüller is not suggesting
that this is the norm; rather, she is pointing out how the twisted
circumstances that bring the two together and Gennarino’s narcissistic demand
for control is what determined the kind of relationship they had. Raffaella’s
actions are not Wertmüller’s way of saying that women should fall in love with
men that abuse them; instead, she is suggesting that victims have the ability
to leave their abusers and regain their freedom, and that women do not have to
be tethered down by men that wish to control them. Swept Away should be
seen as an example of how people like Gennarino take abuse people like
Raffaella, preying on any form of weakness for their own gain and claiming
affection before taking advantage of them.
Any relationship
like Raffaella’s and Gennarino’s, as Wertmüller so glaringly shows, is doomed
from the start, and Wertmüller does not shy away from this implication. In
fact, the film seems like Wertmüller’s own call of action to humanity; if we
allow people like Gennarino to get away with their actions, and we do not help
those in Raffaella’s position regain their freedom by providing them with the
help they need, we are little more than accomplices in the recurring abuse
cycle that still plagues society. Gennarino and Raffaella’s circumstances may
be unique, but there are still men who follow the same beliefs as Gennarino and
treat women like their tools to be used, bruised, and abused at their whim. Women
still feel the need to be silent about their abuse in order to survive, whether
it is domestic or in the workplace. Wertmüller is dragging the reality of the
disease that abuse, both on the part of the victim and the abuser, back into
our consciousness. We cannot turn the other cheek now that we have seen the
truth; victims deserve the same freedom to live and love as we do, without
those that poison affection with their desire for power and control.
Works
Cited
Canby,
Vincent. “'Swept Away' Is a Wertmuller Film with Solid Appeal.” The New York Times, 18 Sept. 1975, http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9901EED7163FE034BC40
52DFBF66838E669EDE
Farajollah,
Ariana. “An Abused Woman’s Colonization and Declaration of Independence in SWEPT
AWAY by Ariana Farajollah.” Taking Giant
Steps, 7 June 2017, http://giantstepspress.blogspot.com/2017/06/an-abused-womans-colonization-and.html.
Fjelstad,
Margalis. “14 Signs You’re Dealing With A Narcissist.” Mind Body Green, https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/14-signs-of-narcissism.
Gordon,
Paul. Class Discussion. 5 Mar. 2018.
Schenker,
Melissa. “Can a Narcissist Love Me?” The
Huffington Post, 22 Sept. 2014, https://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-schenker/can-a-narcissist-love-me_b_5611788.html.
Stines,
Sharie. “Victims of Emotional Abuse.” Psych
Central Professional, 30 Aug. 2016, http://pro.psychcentral.com/recovery-expert/2016/07/victims-of-emotional-abuse/.
Swept Away. Directed by Lina Wertmüller, performances by Giancarlo Giannini, Mariangela Melato, Medusa Distribuzione, 1974. YouTube.
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