Tea and Sympathy: A Foucauldian Analysis Anonymous College

Vincente Minnelli’s 1956 production Tea and Sympathy evaluates the intricacies of accepted gender normativity in 1950’s America, providing a groundwork for understanding how human behavior is classified based on sex. The film further examines the use of the confession as a way of simultaneously police oneself to the norm while receiving personal fulfillment. In his seminal work The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Foucault verbalizes this when he says: “The obligation to confess is now relayed through so many different points, is so deeply ingrained in us, that we no longer perceive it as the effect of a power that constrains us; on the contrary, it seems to us that truth, lodged in our most secret nature, ‘demands’ only to surface” (60) . Minnelli’s final scene of Tea and Sympathy can be used as tool for analyzing both the film as a whole as well Foucault’s ideas on confession. In the concluding scene, the personal liberation of discourse is exemplified through Laura’s unsent ‘confessional’ letter and her desire to confess her feelings to both her husband and Tom. This confession is motivated by societal norms regarding adultery, and thereby shape her feelings of immorality and provide her with catharsis. Thus, the...