Plot:
A disillusioned Princess escapes the drudgery of her uneventful duties leaving the life she has known for the unknown. She escapes her duties and meets up with a secretive newspaper journalist on the hunt for the story of his life after discovering her true identity. After spending time together in fun and escape, the reality of their love strongly shows, but she is reminded of her duties and leaves his embrace to return to her previous life in the palace. She later discovers his identity and loves her lover more for his not disclosing her identity to the world and furthering her shame. It left me thoughtful and wishing that a marriage might take place after all.
Comment:
The movie Roman Holiday was shown in 1953. In this movie, Princess Ann has delicate face, slender figure, as well as elegant behavior. Moreover, she is innocent, kind and lovely. The whole image accurately conjuncts with man’s fantasy about woman.
However, this princess was a tame one. The title of film is “Roman Holiday”, which implies the whole story- the princess runs away from the palace, meets the journalist, fall in love with him and finally goes back to her own position- is more like a holiday for the lovely princess, rather than rebellion. She can escape from her position for a little while, gets rest and have romance, but she has no reason to abandon her crown. She is tied on her throne and not allowed to pursuit true love. The poor girl does not have right to speak even she is on the top of the patriarchal society.
At the later period of the first wave of feminism movement (1850s- 1960), a justified concern of civil and legal equality had almost been achieved, but there are problems specific to women in their reproductive and social roles. For instance, Ann, as a noble princess, still cannot belong to herself. And these problems are revealed in the second wave of movement.
(Reference)
Walters, Margaret. Feminism. Oxford, GB: OUP Oxford, 2005. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 16 April 2016.