#not dc

In case you’ve not seen it: Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is a Western musical comedy released in 1954, starring Howard Keel and Jane Powell, and is set in Oregon in 1850. The film follows Milly, a frontier orphan, who marries mountain-man Adam Pontipee after just one day of courtship… only to find herself living on the Pontipee farm at the top of a mountain, basically acting as a housekeeper for Adam and his six brothers. Milly is understandably unhappy, and resolves to find wives for the six Pontipee brothers to get them off her hands, though she finds this is quite the task.

The film has received a lot of negative attention over the years, which has earned it its falsely anti-feminist reputation, due to one particular plot point: against Milly’s advice and after listening to Adam, the brothers decide to kidnap their chosen brides. The crucial thing to note is that nowhere in the film is this action condoned - rather it is actively condemned. It is supposed to be viewed as a bad thing, and this is the main conflict of the film, as this acts as a turning point for Milly in how she treats both the brothers and the brides: whilst punishing the men responsible, Milly stops viewing the women as simple sacrificial tools to solve her problems, but instead puts them first. Throughout the course of the film, the men learn to respect women, and it is only then that they are married… ironically in a forced marriage orchestrated by the girls.

The film is largely about working within strict societal frameworks to achieve a kind of happiness which subverts the social norm: the women in the film are allowed to be sexual, without being sexualised, whilst happiness is only achieved once the men fully respect the women around them, and are even outnumbered. In many ways, it reminds me of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, in its use of purposely bizarre comedic plots and its ability to play around with gender and sexual expectations (very Olivia-coded).

It's also important to understand, on a meta level, that:

The story is loosely based on the rape of the Sabine Women in Plutarch’s Life of Romulus. This is a text that would have been very familiar to many people in the 50s, for whom Ancient Greek was part of the standard curriculum. What’s important to note here is that Plutarch’s account is not very historically sound, so is already a shaky basis; add into this the uneducated Pontipee brothers’ interpretation, led by Adam, and you’ve basically got a bunch of Old Timey Alpha Male Pseudo-intellectuals on a mission. Whilst this is played off comedically, as befitting the genre, audiences would be aware that this is not what the men should be doing – especially when Milly had previously offered perfectly good advice.

The story – as I briefly mentioned above – is about navigating sexual boundaries in a strict Protestant society. Obviously, the kidnapping in the film is bad, and it is acknowledged as such, but it is also very tongue in cheek. All throughout the film, the women are looking for ways to escape the strict rules of proper courtship to embrace their sexuality. They are interested in the Pontipee brothers, but the expectations of their families to marry one of the town-based, “approved” suitors holds them back. It is only when they are dragged across the border of the mountain passage, into the almost Bacchic-by-nature Pontipee farmstead that they are able to achieve this (the ancient historian in me also wants to mention how this also mirrors Plutarch’s mythic past). I’ll speak more about this below, but from a meta-level, the theme of societal expectations vs liberation is always at play in the film: the girls, whilst seeking liberation, also value societal norms (at least on the surface), so whilst the act of removing them from those societal rules is violent, it is not necessarily against the girls’ wishes. This motif of violence and the breaking/restoration of societal norms is seen at multiple points throughout the film: in the post-dance fight, the kidnapping, Gideon’s punch to knock some sense into Adam, and the shotgun wedding. Some commentary is also necessary about the fact that this story of sexual liberation was released in 1954 – the post-war period which saw many women returning to traditional gender roles, and others refusing.

Alright, now that’s established, here are some key points in the film where we see this feminism established.

The female protagonist, Milly, is a frontier orphan. She is introduced in the film as very self-reliant: she works as a cook, is able to do various hands-on chores including chopping wood and tending to the animals, and she is depicted as physically standing up for herself against a patron who tries to get a bit handsy with her. She is also presented as at least somewhat educated (certainly more than her husband), possessing two books (which would have been expensive commodities at the time, especially for a working frontierswoman). Whilst Adam views these as admirable qualities in a wife who can care for him and his brothers, they are also the traits which mean that Milly is well equipped to run the farm without a man’s help!

Milly is stated to have turned down a number of suitors before Adam, so it is very clearly a consensual marriage.

When it becomes clear that Adam married Milly with the intent of having her care for him and his brothers as a housekeeper, she adamantly refuses, and resolves to correct the situation. She is very strict with her standards, with the famous ‘If you’re gonna act like hogs, you can eat like ‘em!’ scene, wherein she flips the table when the men are not acting politely.

Milly and Adam have a ‘DTR’ talk before they sleep together, and confirm that they both have romantic feelings for each other.

Milly teaches the brothers how to court women properly and respectfully: she encourages them to clean up physically, and in their actions and attitudes.

When the kidnapping happens, Milly puts her foot down. Despite her previous desire to see the Pontipee brothers wed, wherein the girls were basically used as sacrifices for Milly’s own peace and convenience, Milly instead steps up and puts them first: she brings them into the house where they take the men’s places, and sends the boys to live in the barn for the entirety of winter on an Oregon mountain, including her enabler husband. She puts strict boundaries in place to protect the girls’ virtues (despite the girls’ best efforts!) and prevents the men from entering the home. In this, Milly also grows into a better feminist, supporting women, as her motivation changes from just getting the brothers out of her hair, to doing what is best for the women in her charge and care. This is also reflected in the change from her belief in Goin’ Courtin’ that ‘she can fix them’ to ‘they can fix themselves’ after the kidnapping. And they do – the Pontipee men realise that they were wrong, change their behaviour accordingly, and begin holding other men responsible (see: Gideon punching Adam).

Once on the mountain, the girls are depicted as really embracing their sexuality. In June Bride, they dance around the boys’ bedroom in their underwear, and openly wonder whose bed it is that they are sleeping in, whilst expressing their wish to have a baby “right off” – aka engage in the activities which produce babies. They are seen to peek out of the window whilst in just their underclothes, and play pranks on the boys – whilst they disapprove of the kidnapping, they are eager to embrace their liberty and autonomy. It’s also worth noting that these scenes are entirely from the female gaze – their sexuality is their own choice, and one they are not shamed for under Milly’s roof.

Milly is pregnant, and rather than sending for her enabling, misogynistic husband, she is willing to raise the baby as a single mother on a mountain in 1850s Oregon. She only allows her husband back after the baby is born, once they have a long talk, wherein he apologies, admits he was wrong, and is basically like, ‘yeah, if anyone tried that with my kid, I’d string them up!’

At the start of the film, Milly is outnumbered 7:1 by the men in the house. By the end of the film, after the birth of Baby Hannah, the women outnumber the men!

The brides are seen to cleverly utilise the patriarchy, subverting the expectations of “restoring virtue” in society via a shotgun wedding to their advantage, by falsely claiming Milly’s baby as their own, thus freeing them from the expectation of socially acceptable marriages for the ones they want: the cards are in their hands. This is particularly poignant given the violent implications of a shotgun wedding: whilst the men sought to claim them via kidnapping, this was unsuccessful until the men started drinking their Respect Women Juice by the bucketload – in contrast, the women utilise the violence of a shotgun wedding to entrap their desired partner in such a way that appeases societal expectations, whilst also achieving the desired outcome.

Throughout the film, the story sees the women able to embrace their sexualities whilst escaping societal expectations; the men learn to respect women and, crucially, hold other men responsible (did I mention Gideon punching Adam?!), whilst the female characters also grow to support one another. As even the title suggests, with seven brides and seven brothers, the end of the film sees them evenly matched, with both parties working together on the farm as a shared economic venture, as well as happily in love.

Overall, then, the film isn’t problematic and anti-feminist: the whole plot of the film is about overcoming toxic masculinity! Plus, the songs and dance scenes are brilliant, so everyone should watch it.