In his book Everything you Always Wanted to Know about Lacan: But Were Afraid to ask Hitchcock, Slavoj Zizek comments on the pre-established harmony between Hannay and Pamela. Zizek argues that English films of the late 1930s (of which The 39 Steps is a member) aimed to fit within the confines of the classic narrative, and consequently that their plot was only useful as a device to bring the protagonist and his female interest to a successful conclusion.

Zizek has found that English films of the late 1930’s seem bound to “Oedipal story of the couple’s initiatory journey,” a classic narrative of two people bound by fate to fall in love with one another. The couples of these films are bound by fate or, in the case of The 39 Steps, a pair of steel handcuffs and mature together through a series of ordeals towards the “fundamental motif of the bourgeois ideology of marriage.” This fundamental motif is played out in The 39 Steps as Pamela and Hannay are first bound together against their will and then, as they overcome obstacles together, become closer to each other. Just as Hitchcock has given us the stereotype of masculinity and painted a picture of the strong, dominant man, so has he shown us the classical ideal of two unwilling people coming together through a period of uncertainly and trials.

Slavoj Zizek’s comments on the stereotype of the relationship between Pamela and Hannay strike a chord next to the classical portrayal of Hannay as a dominant male. In appropriate fashion, the classic man has fallen into the classic, stereotypical “bourgeois ideology of marriage.”

From page 247-248

TECHNICAL NOTE ON SAME-SEX UNMARRIED PARTNER DATA FROM THE 1990 AND 2000 CENSUSES

...In 1990, the edit and allocation procedures did not allow same-sex “spouse” combinations to occur, thus resulting in the allocation of one of these two items in order to achieve editing consistency among the responses.

 

...Processing steps were changed for Census 2000 for households that contained same-sex “spouses.” If the person with the “spouse” category was the same sex as the householder and if neither person had their sex previously allocated, a relationship response of “spouse” was allocated as an “unmarried partner” response.

...Two principal factors affected our decision to take this approach for Census 2000.

1.      Marriage Act (H.R. 3396) passed by the 104th Congress. This act instructs all federal agencies only to recognize opposite-sex marriages for the purposes of enacting any agency programs. In order for Census Bureau data to be consistent with this act and the data requirements of other federal agencies, same-sex spouse responses were invalidated. The legislation defines marriage and spouse as follows:

 “In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word ’marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ’spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or wife.” In order for the Census Bureau to be consistent with this act and the data requirements of other federal agencies, same-sex “spouse” responses were invalidated.

2.      The second factor took into consideration that couples in long term same-sex relationships may consider themselves as “married partners” and thus respond as such on the census form.  In addition, at the time of writing the editing program for Census 2000, there were several challenges in the courts concerning the legality of same-sex marriages. Clearly, we could not ignore the fact that same-sex spouse responses were going to be recorded during Census 2000. In light of these social and legal aspects and the lack of a key variable in the statistical allocation routine (marital status) the assignment of same-sex “married” couples to the same-sex “unmarried partner” category was the procedure chosen for the editing process. We were adverse to a randomized allocation of these responses after people had clearly marked a close relationship preference on the census form.

As a result of these changes in the processing routine, estimates of same-sex unmarried partners are not comparable between the 1990 and 2000 census.

 

            John C. Spurlock writes a comprehensive and astute assessment of David Shumway’s book Modern Love: Romance, Intimacy, and the Marriage Crisis.  Spurlock synthesizes Shumway’s study of modern relationships and the development of romantic love over past few centuries.  Shumway, a professor of English and Literary and Cultural Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, analyzes the transformation of the discourse of romance and the narrative form of romantic love.  He relies on “historical work on the family, sexuality, courtship, and marriage… show[ing] that an important shift in the understanding and uses of romance appears in the late 18^th and early 19^th century.”  He asserts that novels were the main “carriers of romantic discourse” in the 19^th century and that as a shift to the increase of personal expectations from marriage occurred, so did the rate of divorce, which led to the so-called marriage crisis.  Shumway studies the marriage crisis through the frames of intimacy and romance.  Throughout the twentieth century, the discourse of romance, love, marriage, and intimacy continued to change and the idea of love repeatedly reinvented itself.  These shifts in discourse were reflected through the literature and culture of the time.  Advice writers became prevalent and the new connotations of love and romance were depicted in the development of the screwball comedy.  In the way that literature was a carrier of romantic discourse in the late 18^th and 19^th centuries, film also became such a carrier in the 20^th century.  As the marriage crisis became a more serious issue due to the transformation of the idea of modern love and the increasing divorce rate, these advice writers and films that addressed marriage and romance began to play larger roles in society.  Shumway explores the challenges associated with achieving the 20^th century ideal of intimacy by observing popular and timely films such as Annie Hall (1977) and When Harry Met Sally (1989).  These films provide insight into the culturally accepted definitions of such ideals as intimacy, romance, and love, while also revealing the subtexts associated with these ideals.  This article does a remarkable job of synthesizing a convoluted and complex body of literature, but it is still not as sufficient or comprehensive as Shumway’s actual text.  In terms of the article’s relevancy to Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, the article does not address Annie Hall in detail, but it does demonstrate how such a film can both reflect and generate cultural ideals including love, intimacy, and romance, which is arguably the most important role of the film.