In Elia Kazan’s film, Splendor in the Grass, the effects of the repression of sexuality in

youth culture is explored through the female perspective.

The film commences with an intimate moment between Wilma Dean Loomis (Deanie)

and Bud Stamper (in front of the town’s local make out spot, the waterfall) that is halted

prematurely despite mutual attraction in order to maintain societal norms. This scene sets a

precedent for the rest of film, in which both parties want to go further with one another, but are

stopped because of societally imposed restrictions. If Deanie allows herself to go further with

Bud, she will be regarded spoiled, equivalent to rotten food, useful for nothing and to be

immediately thrown away from proper society.

These restrictions put pressure on their relationship leading to Deanie and Bud’s breakup.

Signs of Deanie’s mental instability immediately start arising after this traumatic event in her

life. Her eventual breakdown is assisted by her smothering parents who treat her as a child by

refusing to address her sexual needs: rather, ignoring it to the point where Deanie drives herself

to suicidal thoughts because she has no cathartic outlet. In an attempt to wash away Deanie’s

troubles rather than facing them, her mother prepares her a bath to soak in and moments later

insinuates that Deanie has spoiled herself. Deanie starts screaming and splashing and putting her

head under the bathwater. In this viscerally raw emotive scene, Deanie’s vulnerability is as clear

as the bath water she is in. The still bath water symbolizes the stifling repression of her basic

sexual needs by both her family and society that she can’t escape and is therefore literally and

metaphorically drowning in.

This vulnerability is further explored in the subsequent scene in which she quickly arises

from the bath water and flails onto her bed. A direct parallel to a scene earlier in the film with the

Copy of Splendor in the Grass

Histl Prob Through Film (HIST 390)