Movie Analysis: "Wild at Heart"

          Wild at Heart (1990) is the love story of Sailor (Nicolas Cage) and Lula (Laura Dern), a young couple from the fringes of society who will stop at nothing to be together.  Lula’s mother does not approve of their relationship and uses her mob connections to try to kill Sailor.  When he kills the hit man in self-defense, he is sent to prison.  Upon his release, he and Lula set out on a cross-country road trip to stay together and escape Lula’s mother and her hired hit men.  Sailor and Lula are young, beautiful, and extremely in love.  Lula is girlish, excitable, and completely devoted to Sailor, while Sailor is a bad boy who truly loves her, though he rarely makes a display of his feelings.

            In the scene where Sailor is released from prison, Lula picks him up in her convertible, bringing him his favorite snakeskin jacket and telling him her plans to take him to a motel and a concert.  At the motel, they have sex, after which she cooingly tells him “Geeze Louise, Sailor, baby, you are the best.”  Afterward, Lula dresses and reminisces about her mother trying to give her a talk about sex at the age of 15.  As Sailor lounges in bed handling business matters on the phone, he rather insensitively remarks the he thought her father’s business partner had raped her at age 13, after which the film describes the traumatic event through flashback.

This scene introduces key aspects of Lula’s character, most importantly the incredibly spontaneous sexuality she embodies.  Lula is completely comfortable with herself, putting on a low-cut, tight, short black dress to pick up her boyfriend from prison. After their reunion sex, she affirms Sailor’s masculinity by telling him he is “the best” in bed.  More broadly, this suggests women should dress well for their partner and avow his sexuality/masculinity through comments on his sexual prowess.  This type of behavior is an example of the Feminine Courting Strategies found in Kim’s (2007) article, stating that women willingly objectify themselves to attract men and stroke men’s egos as well.  Though Sailor is likely having sex for the first time in years, he remains cool and emotionally detached, handling business concerns instead of basking in the post-coital glow.  Sailor’s behavior is encompassed in the male courting strategies, which says men are the protectors and providers of women (Kim 2007).  Additionally, by introducing Lula’s explosive sexuality and immediately following it with discussion of her rape, the film links these concepts, perhaps judgmentally implying that her extreme sexuality may be the result of sexual abuse at a young age.  This is part of Kim’s (2007) Good Girls code, which includes notions of a woman’s value being linked to her sexual history.

             In the next scene, Sailor and Lula go dancing at a punk show.  They mostly dance together, but then another man grabs Lula when she gets lost in a crush of people.  She looks scared and uncomfortable as she looks to Sailor for help.  Sailor cuts off the band and coolly approaches the offender, saying, “Are you gonna provide me with an opportunity to prove my love for my girl, or are you gonna save yourself some trouble?  Step up like a gentleman and apologize to her.”  The other man is defiant and insulting, so Sailor beats him up until the man apologizes to Lula, after which she laughs off the event and continues to be her carefree self. 

This scene introduces others aspect of Lula’s character, especially her helplessness and reliance on Sailor.  While she could have told the man she was not interested or walked away, she does neither, suggesting it is the duty of a man in a relationship to protect his woman from other men.  This is another example of Kim’s (2007) Feminine Courting Strategies, which states that women look helpless in order to gain the attention of a man.  Sailor’s behavior in this scene reinforces this, as he asserts his dominance through physical violence.  Lula acts submissive, according to Holz Ivory’s coding scheme for submission (2009), which includes behaviors such as acting indecisive and showing fear.  Sailor fits into the dominant coding scheme in the study, using physical violence to assert himself.  His chivalry allows Lula to persist in her carefree sexuality, of which he is the protector.  Lula, in turn, reinforces this behavior by fawning over Sailor and demanding he take her home for sex, both of which are Kim’s (2007) Masculine and Feminine Courting strategies, respectively.

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            In another scene, Sailor leaves Lula at home while he’s working.  Feeling ill, she lounges around the house.  At one point, an acquaintance named Bobby Peru stops into the house and asks to use the bathroom.  Lula uncomfortably shields her body (as she is wearing a lacy negligee) as the man comments on her breasts and becomes increasingly threatening.  He reaches out to touch her, and when she backs away, he accuses her of not jumping back fast enough, which he takes as evidence that she is interested in a sexual encounter.  "It means you want Bobby Peru," he says.  When she shoves him away, he grabs her and shakes her violently, threatening to tear her heart out if she doesn't ask him to have sex with her.  Meanwhile, he begins to molest her—to which she responds sexually—and finally whispers in a helpless, unconscious way for him to have sex with her.  He then abruptly leaves, jeeringly laughing at her and leaving her to break down in tears of shame, calling out for Sailor.

            This scene is another example of Lula’s helplessness without Sailor.  The depiction is somewhat problematic because it suggests Lula is unable to control her sexuality and falls prey to any man who can exploit it.  Sailor is the protector of her, as a woman and as a sexual being.  Lula occasionally does assert herself and try to say no, but she ultimately follows orders, shows fear, and cries according to Holz Ivory’s submission coding scheme (2009).

            Wild at Heart is a complicated film to analyze because it is a carefully considered art film presented as trashy romance.  Director David Lynch is extremely well regarded in the film community, and he would be unlikely to uphold the female and male roles the film displays on a surface level when asked.  In many ways, Wild at Heart is a pulp fiction Romeo & Juliet, with some regarding it as a devastating romance and others seeing it as a satire of young love.  The cartoonish characterizations and overwrought plot lines are constantly drawing the viewer out of the story world, making it apparent that the whole film is ridiculous.  The viewer is not immediately certain what to take at face value.  Lynch is certainly aware that these roles and stereotypes do exist for men and women in our culture, and he draws attention to the inherent ridiculousness of them, but doesn’t go as far to subvert ideas of female objectification and male dominance.

Golin, S., Montgomery, M., Sighvatsson, S. (Producers) & Lynch, D. (Director). (1990). Wild at Heart [Motion picture]. United States: The Samuel Goldwyn Company.

Holz Ivory, A., Gibson, R., & Ivory, J. D. (2009). Gendered relationships on television: 

Portrayals of same-sex and heterosexual couples. Mass Communication & Society, 12 (2).

Kim, J. L., C. L., Collins., Zybergold, B. A., Schooler, D., & Tolman, D. L. (2007). From sex to sexuality: Exposing the heterosexual scripts on primetime network televition. Journal of Sex Research, 44 (2).