Marion (Psycho)

FEAR: BEING PUNISHED FOR YOUR SEXUALITY

Psycho was considered a scandalous film for being the first to show a toilet on screen, and a FLUSHING toilet, at that.

With audiences so prudish back in 1960, I wonder how they felt when the leading lady appeared in one of the first scenes in her undergarments after a midday rendezvous with her boyfriend. OOF.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho did a lot of things audiences would have found shocking for the time.

There was that toilet of course, but there were other things as well: a main character being killed off not long into the movie. The now criticized portrayal of a possibly Transgender individual..and the aforementioned midday rendezvous scene.

Marion, the character famous for being stabbed to death in the shower to the sound of screechy violins, is the leading lady played by Janet Leigh. She’s what some might consider…a morally unsound individual.

The reason she finds herself at the notorious Bates Motel to begin with is because she’s on the run after stealing company money to keep for herself and her debt-ridden boyfriend.

She’s obviously got a guilty conscious as she drives through scenic California, glancing over her shoulder frequently with a permanent scowl on her face.

When she arrives at the Bates Motel, she meets Norman Bates, played by Anthony Perkins. Norman is seemingly very sweet, if not a bit socially awkward. He’s a complete mama’s boy, always at his mysterious mother’s beck and call, although she is never seen onscreen.

What we can tell from Norman’s dialogue with her is this: she’s not cool with a new woman in her son’s life, even if she is just passing through. There’s something Oedipus-ish going on here…

Right before the shower scene, Norman is seen spying on Marion as she undresses, and he is clearly not at peace with the attraction he feels towards her.

All she’s doing is preparing to relax after a stressful day, but in his mind, she’s deliberately making herself a temptation, further straining his relationship with his mom.

Marion isn’t even a hyper-sexual or promiscuous woman in the film, she’s simply a woman who happens to embrace her sex appeal/sexuality, and we only know this because of the bedroom scene with her boyfriend.

Still, that appears to be reason enough for Norman.

Under Mrs. Bates’s influence, he kills the object of his desire, in part because he sees her as a morally unclean woman, which is something he can’t abide.

I’m left to wonder if audience members in 1960 felt the same way watching the film, even if they wouldn’t admit it.