Women As Domestic Objects In David Butler's Calamity Jane
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David Butler’s comedic western musical Calamity Jane (1953) tells the story of a young naïve tomboy, Calamity Jane (played by Doris Day), whose mouth gets her to travel from her country hometown of Deadwood to the city of Chicago in search of the famous actress Adelaide Adams (played by Gale Robins). While in Chicago Calamity meets Katie Brown (played by Allyn Ann McLerie) and thinks she is Adelaide, who in reality is Adelaide’s maid/ assistant. Calamity brings this Adelaide look a like back to Deadwood where the truth of her identity is blown. Now Calamity is faced with the competition of gaining attention of the Deadwood male population, particularly Lieutenant Danny Gilmartin (played by Philip Carey) who falls in love with Katie. Calamity moves Katie in with her and Katie shows Calamity what it takes to be a real woman. Now that Calamity traded in her britches for a ball gown, her rival, Wild Bill Hickok (played by Howard Keel), finally sees Calamity as the woman she has always been. Katie betrays Calamity and kisses…show more content… These articles review three key scenes, when Calamity first meets who she thinks is Adelaide Adams but is actually Katie Brown, when Calam and Katie move in with each other and I look at is the ball scene when Calam dresses up in a pink dress and catches the eyes of all the men. Karen Jones starts out her article, Lady Wildcats and Wild Women: Hunting, Gender and the Politics of Show(wo)manship in the Nineteenth Century American West with the traditional view of men and women back in the frontier time which is when Calamity Jane is taking place. Men are hunters who wear pants and dirty clothing while women wear dresses and perfume. When Calam and Katie meet for the first time Katie mistaken Calam for a man purely based on how she is dressed and how she