doi: 10.1111/tsq.

12155 The Sociological Quarterly ISSN 0038-0253

TRANSMISSION OF IDEOLOGY THROUGH

FILM: The Cinematic Construction of
Gendered Domination in Mr. Deeds Goes to
Town
J. Greg Getz*
University of Houston-Downtown

Contemporary applications of behavioral and social science to the understanding of how

cinematic narratives influence viewers tend to be bifurcated. Cognitive film/media theorists and
psychologists emphasize microlevel processes at the expense of the macrolevel. Sociological
approaches emphasize macrolevel analysis at the expense of the microlevel. Bridging these two
levels is the mesolevel concept of identification elaborated to apply to stereotypic role
relationships; that is, schemas or associative networks linking thoughts, memories, emotions, and
behaviors. Here assumptions of Social Cognitive Theory and Transactional Analysis are employed
to contextualize a discussion of how cinematic narrative can operate to construct an ideologically
hegemonic narrative reinforcing the legitimation of gendered domination at the sociocultural
(macro)level of analysis.

Keywords: sociology of culture; social psychology; theory

INTRODUCTION
The process whereby social inequality is created and perpetuated is a central concern of
sociology. Domination of one group by another has been described macroscopically
within multiple domains of stratification such as political, economic, racial/ethnic, age,
and gender. Sociologists are predisposed to note that empirical indicators of group
domination are evident in studies of social institutions such as family, education, reli-
gion, criminal justice, and mass media. Further, it can be argued that social institutions
often operate actively, if not intentionally, as agents contributing to the construction of
ideological hegemony reinforcing the process of group domination. What about cin-
ema? How might movies operate to reinforce domination generally in the culture? This
article will explore that question within the exemplary domain of gender. Rather than
presume that the mere portrayal of female subordination within cinematic narrative
automatically accomplishes its own reinforcement, this article will theorize the process
as a mechanism operating across the micro (biopsycho), meso (psychosocial), and
macro (sociocultural) levels of analysis—with emphasis placed on the mediating meso-
level. Discussion of this process will draw upon compatibilities that exist among several
*Direct all correspondence to J. Greg Getz, Department of Social Sciences, University of Houston-
Downtown, Houston, TX 77002; e-mail: getzg@uhd.edu

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extant theoretical paradigms predictive of causal linkages between cognitive processes

and social behavior: (1) Social Cognitive Theory (Goffman 1974; Bandura 1977, 1986);
(2) Associative Network/Schema Theory (Berkowitz 1993; Carlston 2010); and (3)
Transactional Analysis (Berne 1961, 1964, 1972; Harris 1973; Steiner 1974; Stewart and
Joines 1987). Epistemological assumptions common to these explanatory paradigms
will be applied to address the process by which film viewers “identify” with elements of
a cinematic narrative—in this case Frank Capra’s (1936) Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.

CINEMATIC REINFORCMENT OF GENDERED DOMINATION

Films often function ideologically to reinforce the social subordination of women—not
because such subordination is the filmmaker’s conscious intent, but because any por-
trayed conventional role structure that is not negatively interpreted within the film is
implicitly legitimized. The transmission of gender role structure through film is a spe-
cific example of such a legitimating process since only rarely is gender role structure
purposefully presented as ideologically problematic. I shall undertake three tasks here.
The first is to explicate at an abstract level a cinematic, interpretative paradigm
rooted in an elaborate extension of behaviorist psychology (specifically, Social Cognitive
Theory) that suggests that characters in a narrative are symbolic representations of
social categories to which they belong, and that rewards and punishments experienced
by these characters correspond to ideological messages interpretable as endorsing or
challenging the status quo with regard to any sociologically relevant domain (political,
economic, racial/ethnic, gender, etc.). The second task is to demonstrate that consistent
with the aforementioned social cognitive model of ideology transmission, is the possi-
bility of a thicker description (Geertz 1973) based on a social psychological explication
of male and female protagonists’ interpersonal dynamics from the perspective of Trans-
actional Analysis (TA) (Berne, 1961, 1964, 1972). Originally developed by Berne as a
social psychiatric therapy, the assumptions of this approach can be regarded as nested
within Bandura’s broader, transdisciplinary framework. Specifically, both perspectives
regard persons as social agents systematically seeking socially defined rewards (in Social
Cognitive Theory) or strokes (in the TA approach). Third, and concurrently, Frank Cap-
ra’s film, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), will be employed to exemplify the potential of
Social Cognitive Theory and of TA for the explication of a film’s ideological salience
regarding the portrayal of gender roles. In the case of TA it will be argued that the struc-
ture of the narrative as it embodies transactional “life scripts” and “games” constitutes a
mechanism or technology (De Lauretis 1987) whereby women are systematically subor-
dinated, thus, reinforcing the apparent legitimacy of patriarchal domination. Life scripts
and games from a TA perspective are essentially examples of interpretive schemas/heu-
ristics or associative networks noted above as elements of Social Cognitive Theory.
All films transmit, explicitly or implicitly, assumptions regarding the nature of role
relations in society. Role relationships are institutionalized social constructions; they are
components of social structure sometimes related to, but not determined by biological
characteristics. Any institutionalized aspect of social life can be conceived as

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ideologically defined insofar as the legitimization of that definition is produced through

a socialization process biased in favor of some group’s vested interest. Gender role rela-
tionships exemplify such institutionalized social constructions. Hence, all representa-
tions of gender roles are ideological statements insofar as they imply the legitimate
subordination of one subgroup relative to others.
Culturally grounded relationships between men and women are structured in ways
discernable through the social scientific analysis of film narrative. Films generate mes-
sages by interpreting social life. The form of film narrative often projects an ideological
message by organizing social relationships in specific ways. Social relationships between
characters on the screen represent dramatic structures that embody social values. These
dramatic structures can be analyzed with the conceptual tools provided by various theo-
retical perspectives in order to explicate the epistemological assumptions underlying
portrayed social interaction. It should not be assumed that the characters in a film are
case studies in a clinical sense, nor will they be treated as such here. However, their
modes of interacting do represent semiotic systems that reveal cultural values. As a sym-
bolic system, a film implicates a viewer in ways that often depend on the coincidence of
several cognitive subsystems. Films can influence viewers by manipulating certain
beliefs, attitudes, values, norms, or emotions. Often, film narrative presents an imagi-
nary resolution of a value contradiction or cultural double bind implied in a given social
situation. Thus, films often can be construed as both mythic and ideological in nature.
As symbolic systems, films employ communicative patterns that are amenable to
various interpretive models. These patterns do not arise in an ideological vacuum, but
are social constructions that frequently function as ideological reinforcers of various
social institutional arrangements (Bordwell 1989). I wish to explore the social psycho-
logical structure of the relationship between protagonists in a film, and then discuss the
implications of that structure for society when the structure constitutes a covert or
glossed ideological message. To exemplify how this glossing can occur, I shall discuss the
gender role ideology inherent in Frank Capra’s comedy, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936).
A work of Capra’s is a fitting exemplar because his films, particularly those made in
the 1930s, were extremely popular and reflected a national scene in which the relation
of the individual to social institutions was a public, politicized concern. Also, Capra was
one of the few directors during the era of studio mogul–dominated film production
whose box office reliability afforded him complete aesthetic control of his films. Thus,
the Capra comedies have certain stylistic and thematic similarities, which render them
treatable as a group. Finally, and important for the present analysis, the explicit
theme(s) of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (hereafter referred to as Mr. Deeds), most likely, are
not intended to include gender roles. That is, Capra’s motivating concern, within the
driving context of making economically successful films, is to construct a romantic
comedy and to offer a message about the Depression-era viability of traditional, small
town, populist, American political and economic values—not a message about gender
roles (Carney 1986; Smoodin 2004). It is partly the implicit, nonpoliticized nature of
the gender roles message that generates its rhetorical power. This is so because the
implicit ideological statement, disguised as a value neutral medium or carrier gets

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slipped past the conscious scrutiny of the viewer. I do not mean to imply that Capra
was consciously encoding an ideological statement about gender roles in Mr. Deeds or
in his other films; in fact, I suspect that he was not. Critically, one could argue that dur-
ing the Great Depression women’s participation in the labor force was a contentious
political issue of which Capra could not possibly have been unaware (Evans 1989).
However, the point of significance is that the conscious intent of Capra (or any partici-
pant in the process of film production) is largely irrelevant to the objective analysis of
ideological structure in a film. Knowledge of a director’s conscious intent might provide
a clue to embedded meaning; but this is not to say that the director achieved his aim or
that he did not subconsciously include other ideological messages.

SOCIAL COGNITIVE THEORY: THE PARADIGM AND ITS EPISTEMOLOGICAL

RELEVANCE FOR ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVE
According to the Social Cognitive perspective, a person is neither wholly agentic nor
wholly determined with regard to their thoughts and actions. Instead, the person is con-
ceptualized as a goal-directed, self-regulating system existing in a symbolic social envi-
ronment characterized by “triadic reciprocality” meaning that personal characteristics,
environmental characteristics, and behavior operate interactively through time as deter-
minants of each other. This orientation toward a social construction of the self is com-
patible with symbolic interactionist social psychology and with Mead’s (1934) three
phase model of self-development entailing imitation, play, and game stages, the latter
resulting in a capacity to take the role of the “generalized other.” Breaking with a radical
behaviorist perspective, Bandura’s (1977, 1986) transdisciplinary, social cognitive
approach notes that persons learn not only as a result of directly experiencing rewards
and/or punishments subsequent to behavior, but also more significantly they learn
vicariously to model the actions of others by observing how the behavior of those others
is rewarded or punished in the social world. Persons learn, beginning in early childhood,
to apprehend socially constructed, stereotypic patterns that connect thoughts, memo-
ries, emotions, and behaviors. Depending on the disciplinary background of the
researcher these patterns may be referred to as heuristics, stereotypes, schemas, or asso-
ciative networks. Much experimental research suggests that particular thoughts, memo-
ries, emotions, and behaviors are neurologically linked into associative networks such
that the priming or cueing of any particular element evokes the other elements (Berko-
witz 1993). Researchers in the field of implicit cognition tend to regard the activation of
schemas or stereotypes through priming or cueing as a preconscious or unconscious
process (Carlston 2010:33–61). Over the past few decades scholars in the developing
subfield of cognitive film theory regard this process of schema/stereotype, or associative
network evocation as functioning to guide the film viewer’s interpretive engagement
with and reaction to the film’s narrative. Human cognitive predispositions evolved to
facilitate social interaction get repurposed for film viewers as they engage with the film
emotionally and cognitively (Tan 1990).

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Another key assumption of Bandura’s social cognitive perspective is that vicariously

learned behavior can be and often is covertly rehearsed (in fantasy) prior to actual per-
formance. Both vicarious learning of schemas/interpretive heuristics and covert
rehearsal of behaviors are important for understanding how viewers identify with char-
acters and/or other elements of a film.
An analysis of one film cannot serve as conclusive evidence that film, as medium, rein-
forces the patriarchal domination of women—even if that film is representative of a genre,
historical period, or both. Nevertheless, such an analysis can be employed to induce or
reveal conceptual models of the process whereby domination is legitimated within a film’s
narrative structure. Ideally, such a model could be expressed abstractly enough to reveal its
applicability to the problem of the filmic legitimation of ideology in general. For example,
the reinforcement of gender role ideology by film should be regarded as a special instance
of the process whereby mass media operate to help reproduce individuals’ cognitive maps
of the social world that articulate with the traditional/conventional value matrix of the
culture—assuming there exists such a traditional/conventional value matrix.
Behaviorist psychology as incorporated into Social Cognitive Theory by Bandura
(1977, 1986) is, perhaps, the most widely employed paradigm implicitly offering a
mechanism to explain how filmic narrative functions to socialize or acculturate its audi-
ence. Vicariously learned responses can be reproduced in the future because the behav-
iors can be rehearsed in fantasy. That is, humans can engage in covert rehearsal of
actions learned vicariously. These axioms have important implications for the study of
film as a socializing agent.
Analysts of myth embodied in folk and fairy tales and public interest groups have
long presumed that audience values and behaviors (especially for children) are influ-
enced by narratives to which they are exposed. Such influence occurs because audience
members vicariously experience the rewards and punishments imposed upon primary
characters within the narrative (Zipes 1988). A related presumption is that audience
members identify with characters in the narrative. Further, it is assumed that audience
members are sensitive (emotionally if not cognitively) to the possibility that particular
characters within a narrative are exemplars of a code for the groups to which they
belong such as social class, age, race, ethnicity, or gender.
Figure 1 presents an explanatory framework addressing conditions under which ide-
ology inherent in a film’s narrative structure is legitimated or delegitimated within the
film and potentially within the mind of the viewer. Two interacting independent varia-
bles are employed: (1) the extent to which the film’s portrayed role structure is culturally
normative and (2) the extent to which the film’s portrayed role incumbents are
rewarded or punished within the film’s narrative.
This explanatory model is necessarily incomplete because it confronts only charac-
teristics of the filmic text while neglecting the issue of audience characteristics. For
example, the extent to which social consensus is high regarding the normativity of a par-
ticular portrayed role structure might serve as a moderator of the relation between the
level of reward/punishment of role incumbents and the degree of legitimation or de-
legitimation of a conventional ideological structure for audience members.

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FIGURE 1. Cinematic Legitimation of Ideological Structure as a Function of Portrayed Role

Structure (PRS) Normativity and Reward/Punishment of Role Incumbents.

Characteristics of the audience might qualify the accuracy of the model in predicting
legitimation of conventional ideology in the minds of viewers. Integration of actual
audience reception into an empirically testable model of ideology transmission through
film is advisable, but beyond the scope of the current endeavor.

LEGITIMATION OF CONVENTIONAL GENDER ROLE IDEOLOGY IN MR.

DEEDS GOES TO TOWN: PUNISHMENT OF THE ROLE-REVERSED FEMALE
Independently of the interpretive approach employing TA, the gender role structure of
Mr. Deeds can be assessed with regard to reward and punishment differentially accrued
by the male and female protagonists as gender role incumbents. Deeds, a small-town
resident from Vermont inherits a fortune from a deceased New York relative. Dishonest
lawyers bring him to the big city intending to trick him into signing over power of
attorney so their embezzlement can continue undetected. Deeds quickly develops a love
interest named “Mary.” Unbeknownst to him she is actually Louise “Babe” Bennett, a
prize–winning newspaper reporter. She is a role-reversed female in the sense that she
inhabits an occupational world then occupied predominantly by men. Among the
reporters at her New York newspaper she is the only woman. Further, her editor clearly
respects her professional skill set more than that of the other reporters whom he berates
for not getting information on Deeds. In other words, the portrayed gender role struc-
ture is counter normative because she exhibits stereotypical male traits of professional
competence, self-confidence, and achievement motivation. It would seem that her high
status among peers should constitute a reward. However, within the narrative context of
the film Mary/Babe is actually punished until she quits her job and publicly confesses
her duplicity. As indicated in Figure 1 when a filmically portrayed role structure is
counter-normative the role-reversed incumbents must be punished within the narrative
in order for a conventional ideological structure to be legitimated. Thus, Mr. Deeds (and
other films of the 1930s and 1940s portraying “strong” female protagonists implying
female empowerment) is actually ideologically conservative (DiBattista 2001).

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Mary/Babe’s punishment is initially private but becomes public highlighting its

ideological significance. When Deeds discovers that she has deceived him regarding her
identity in order to write stories making him look foolish, he withdraws into noncom-
municative depression, refusing to see her.
Crooked attorneys have had him arrested on charges that he is incompetent to
administer the large fortune that he is in the process of giving away to poor farmers dur-
ing the Great Depression. His subsequent sanity hearing, at which he refuses to defend
himself, becomes the occasion for Mary/Babe’s announcement that she has resigned
from the newspaper, her confession of duplicity in defense of Deeds’s mental compe-
tence, and her acknowledgment that she loves him in response to Cedar’s accusation:
“she’s obviously in love with him.” The point here is that this pattern of a narrative’s
mapping of rewards and punishments onto characters whose role portrayals are norma-
tive or counternormative is an example of actions that adult viewers have likely already
vicariously learned and covertly rehearsed. Such patterns embody stereotypic schemas/
associative networks evoked by the narrative and ideologically reinforced. Such rein-
forcement is facilitated by the film’s simultaneous evocation of viewers’ emotions that
activate the process of identification.

IDENTIFICATION
One concept often involved in the theorization of how films influence viewers is that of
“identification.” Employment of this notion uncritically is consistent with the charge
that much theorizing of cinema’s influence on viewers remains stuck at the micro(bio-
psycho) level of analysis.
For example, Metz (1982) made a distinction between primary and secondary iden-
tification. The former involves the diegetic effect that refers to the film viewer’s illusion
that he is present, via the camera’s eye, in the fictional world of the narrative. Secondary
identification entails the viewer’s empathetic connection with a character in the narra-
tive leading the viewer to imagine being in the character’s situation. This does not mean
that the viewer believes himself to be the character with whom he identifies (Tan 1996).
It means that the viewer experiences an emotion consistent with the viewer’s illusion
that he understands the character’s social situation.
Recently an even more micro mechanism explaining identification has been offered
by those who suggest a neurological hypothesis. In this case, film viewer empathy is
evoked because of the cinematic activation of mirror neurons. Such neurons are so-
named because they are active “both when subjects perform an action and when they
observe that same action being performed” by someone else (Smith 2014:37–41).
My argument here is that the process of identification functions not only at this
micro (neuropsychological) level but also at a meso(psychosocial) level such that view-
ers identify not only with one or more of a narrative’s individual characters but also
with stereotypic schemas embodying relationships among characters. Viewers empa-
thize not only with characters’ situations but also with TA rackets, games, and life scripts
of a set of characters as discussed below. That is, nested within this Social Cognitive

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Theory framework is another approach that engages the issue of audience emotional
identification in a more theoretically complex way. Within this framework emotions
usually regarded as negative or punishing actually are sought as desired outcomes (pay-
offs) consistent with viewers’ life scripts and favored transactional rackets and games.

TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS: THE PARADIGM AND ITS EPISTEMOLOGICAL

RELEVANCE FOR ANALYSIS OF NARRATIVE
In dealing with portrayed interactions between persons, it is advantageous to have a
mesolevel analytic approach that addresses not only the psychologies of individual char-
acters but one that addresses the nature of relationships between the characters. One
appropriate methodology in this regard might involve techniques of Transactional Anal-
ysis (TA) as originated by Berne (1964) and further developed by others (Harris 1973;
Steiner 1974; Stewart and Joines 1987). While TA was initially conceived as a psycho-
therapeutic methodology, its conceptual apparatus can be utilized productively to
describe the relationships between men and women as depicted in the narrative struc-
tures of particular films. Additionally, the dramaturgical analogies and metaphors
employed by TA are common to both social science and the conventional criticism of
film, which has tended to be an extrapolation of literary analysis.
The analysis of portrayed gender roles through the TA paradigm is useful for other
reasons. First, almost all films portray relationships between men and women—even if
such relationships are not of primary importance to the plot. Even films that largely
exclude one gender make an ideological statement through that very exclusion; for
example, certain war films and westerns in which women are either absent or inconse-
quential to the lives of the male characters. Second, descriptive results should be replica-
ble by anyone versed in TA technique. This technique does not require esoteric expertise
as a clinician but is intended to be understood and applied by laypersons to the
improvement of their own lives. This does not mean that TA’s conceptual apparatus is
simplistic requiring little effort to master, notwithstanding the embracing of TA by the
popular psychology literature of the 1970s (Stewart and Joines 1987). Third, the episte-
mological assumptions can be made clear. It can be shown that TA synthesizes elements
of the psychoanalytic and behaviorist perspectives. For example, axiomatic to TA is the
assumption that persons from birth onward experience physical stimulus hunger which
sublimates into recognition hunger, followed by structure hunger. Satisfaction of any of
these hungers is accomplished by the reception of social strokes. The rationale for the
clinical utility of TA rests upon the assumption that as adults, persons often continue to
employ interpersonal stroke-accruing strategies that they learned (usually from parents)
as young children. Unfortunately, such strategies are often dysfunctional in that they are
covertly intended to manipulate another into a series of ulterior, scripted transactions,
that is, TA “rackets” or “games.” Berne (1972:23) states that:

Games are sets of ulterior transactions, repetitive in nature, with a well-defined psy-
chological payoff. Since an ulterior transaction means that the agent pretends to be

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doing one thing while he is really doing something else, all games involve a con. But
a con only works if there is a weakness it can hook into, a handle or “gimmick” to
get hold of in the respondent, such as fear, greed, sentimentality, or irritability. After
the “mark” is hooked, the player pulls some sort of switch in order to get his payoff.
The switch is followed by a moment of confusion or cross-up while the mark tries
to figure out what has happened to him. Then both players collect their payoffs.

“Payoffs” amount to feelings or emotions aroused in the game players that they sys-
tematically but unconsciously seek as a substitute for adult friendship or intimacy
(defined as honest, nonexploitative, game-free interaction). Berne’s (1972:24) most rig-
orous definition of a game requires six formulaic elements: Con 1 Gimmick 5
Response ! Switch ! Crossup ! Payoff. The game playing actor offers a social stimu-
lus (Con) to the respondent that has an ulterior, psychological motive targeting a weak-
ness or receptivity (Gimmick) in the respondent. The respondent’s accepting of the bait
leads to a Response entailing a shift in role (Switch) on the part of the actor. This causes
a moment of confusion (Crossup) for both players followed by the experiencing of the
negative emotion (Payoff) that they are unconsciously seeking. Series of transactions
involving fewer than these six elements are technically designated rackets as opposed to
games (Berne 1972; Stewart and Joines 1987). The switch or shift in role noted above
means that actor and respondent change roles in the context of a Drama Triangle
involving three roles: Persecutor, Victim, and Rescuer. This will be illustrated below
with regard to Mr. Deeds.
TA assumes that people alternately manifest themselves in one of three ego states—
Parent, Adult, or Child. An ego state is a coherent system of emotions, memories,
thoughts, and behaviors that are correlated with each other as a result of their status as a
network. Certain feelings give rise to a set of coherent thoughts and behavior patterns
resembling those of a person’s actual parental figures as perceived by the child from
infancy onward. They manifest themselves as the Parent ego state (P). Note the similarity
here to the logic of Associative Network/Schema Theory discussed above. P has at least
two subvariants known as the Controlling Parent and the Nurturing Parent. The Adult
ego state is oriented toward an objective appraisal of reality in the present. The Adult is
rational and ideally unencumbered by directives from the Parent or Child. The Child
ego state encompasses emotions, thoughts, and behavior patterns fixated in early child-
hood. Subvariants of the Child are Adapted Child, the Natural Child, and the Rebellious
Child. People tend to develop personal scripts for particular social situations and for
their lives in general. These life scripts are structured by the differential preference indi-
viduals have for the three ego states (Berne 1972; Steiner 1974) and for particular rackets
or games. Child, Adult, and Parent ego states are not simply new names for the Freudian
notions of id, ego, and superego. Although Child and Parent influences on a person’s
patterned thoughts, emotions, memories, and behaviors often operate unconsciously,
unlike id and superego functions, they are accessible to conscious recognition, analysis,
and goal-directed modification. This is consistent with Social Cognitive Theory’s con-
ceptualization of the person as a goal-directed, self-regulating system.

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The social activity of any two people constitutes a series of transactions, which can
continue as long as the communication between ego states is complementary; that is,
when response to a transactional stimulus “is appropriate and expected. . .” (Berne
1964:29). Diagrammatically (Figure 2), complementarity or consonance is termed a
“parallel” transaction, that is, (1–1)2, (5–5)2, (9–9)2, (2–4), (4–2), (3–7), (7–3), (6–8),
(8–6) (Berne 1964:32). All other possible transactions result in “crossed” lines indicating
a refusal on the part of one interactant to meet the response expectations of the other.
Space precludes detailed exemplification of this paradigm. Berne (1967) provides multi-
ple examples, as do Harris (1973) and Steiner (1974). A crossed transaction ultimately
results in the cessation of interaction unless one interactant changes his ego state to
complement the stimulus/response of the other.
I argue here that the male and female leads in Mr. Deeds usually adopt either the
Parent or Child ego state when interacting with each other. In other words, the interac-
tion between these characters is not usually Adult to Adult. Their interaction seems to
reflect life scripts adopted in childhood but activated in the immediate social environ-
ment that compels their specific actions.

FIGURE 2. Transactional Analytic Relationships Relative to Ego State Structure: Parent, Adult,
and Child.

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The TA paradigm can be employed to describe various forms of social activity,

which Berne designates as procedures, rituals, pastimes, rackets, and games. Important
for our purposes is the value judgment (accepted here) that pastimes, rackets, and
games are substitutes for the most fulfilling mode of interaction—intimacy. Pastimes
are “semi-ritualistic, simple, complimentary transactions arranged around a single field
of material (e.g., sports or cars or children) whose primary object is to structure an
interval of time” (Berne 1964:41). Rackets and games are complementary transactions
in which interactants have ulterior, usually subconscious, motives geared to receiving a
psychic “payoff.” Rackets and games are distinguished from the other forms of social
activity in that they entail hidden agendas and usually result in psychic harm for the
interactants. Paradoxically, that harm (usually a negative emotion) constitutes a
“stroke” even though it is not a manifestation of Adult–Adult intimacy. TA presumes
that as adults we carry within us and continually employ heuristic, cognitive schemas
and life scripts adopted in childhood that result in psychic harm (negative emotions)
for those with whom we interact and for ourselves because even negative strokes are
preferable to no strokes.
I suggest that often Capra heroes are conducting games in which their psychic pay-
offs amount to feeling betrayal by women in whom they have seemingly placed their
trust. The heroes seem na€ıve, but they are subconsciously setting themselves up to be
exploited. For example, in Mr. Deeds, the na€ıve “innocence” of the hero is belied by his
sophisticated insight into all social matters not involving the heroine.
This brief exposition of the TA approach to social interaction does not do justice to
its depth; it is meant to provide only a rough framework in which to cast our analysis of
gender role relations in the film chosen for discussion. I contend that the TA paradigm is
one that can be used to codify those role models presented to the film viewer. Relation-
ships between men and women in many popular films are not constructed from Adult–
Adult transactions but are usually Parent–Child, Child–Parent, Adult–Child, or Child–
Adult in nature. This can be demonstrated through an analysis of individual cross gender
transactions within a film. Consideration of all such transactions within a film can allow
inferences to be made about the life scripts of its central characters.
In the beginning of Mr. Deeds, slick New York attorneys journey to Mandrake
Falls, Vermont to inform Longfellow Deeds of his inheritance of 20 million dollars.
Upon their meeting at his home, the attorneys confirm that he is the 28-year-old son
of Dr. Joseph and Mary Deeds and that he is unmarried because (as his motherly
housekeeper suggests) “he’s got a lot of foolish notions about saving a lady in distress.”
The attorney responds, “I suppose we all have dreams like that when we’re young.”
Thus, at the outset, Capra uses the technique of foreshadowing to encode Deeds as a
Christ figure signaling his messianic motive, his future betrayal, and symbolic martyr-
dom. And it is suggested that his relationships with women are programmed or con-
trolled by his Child ego state. As a youngster he adopted a life script that casts him as
a rescuer.
In the context of romantic involvement, Deeds must save a lady in distress. One
rainy evening after the lawyers bring him to New York to administer the estate, he meets

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Mary who faints on the sidewalk from hunger and exhaustion after a long day of job
hunting. He is captivated, gathers her up, and takes her to dinner during which he asks,
“you were a lady in distress weren’t you?”
Deeds’s “love” for Mary is clearly linked to her status as someone who fits a require-
ment of his life script. Her name is the same as his mother’s. He later tells her that he
has not married because his mother and father were “a great couple,” and that he
thought he “might have the same kind of luck.” Later in the film she reads a love poem
from him in which he refers to her as an “angel too lovely to woo.” The Oedipal impli-
cations here can be interpreted within the TA paradigm as a life script directive compel-
ling Deeds to seek a spouse similar to his mother.
Deeds’s meeting with, and attraction for, Mary is not the only context in which
his life script directive to be a rescuer is manifested. As noted above, Mary is actually
Louise “Babe” Bennett, a Pulitzer Prize–winning newspaper reporter assigned to get
a story on the new multimillionaire her collapse in the rain was a trick. Having
gained his confidence and affection, she meets him nightly and writes a series of sto-
ries about him. Dubbing him the “Cinderella Man,” she recounts his eccentric
exploits so as to make him appear foolish. After Deeds discovers Mary/Babe’s duplic-
ity and true motives, he (temporarily) rejects her; his compulsion to rescue then
shifts to the economic arena. He devises and finances a welfare program to aid poor
farmers; becoming their savior, their shepherd, reiterating his earlier coding as a
Christ figure. At this point, cathexis shifts to his Parent ego state which continues the
rescue script.
Deeds is attempting to live out a mythic theme he selected as a child. As indicated
above, this theme appears in several of the film’s narrative threads, though our concern is
with its implications for Deeds’s gender role relations. The attempt to live out mythic
themes is frequently observed in the clients of TA therapists. As Steiner (1974:87–88) puts it:

The youngster who finds himself unable to make sense of the pressures under
which he lives needs to synthesize his decision in terms of a consciously under-
stood model. This model is usually based on a person in fiction, mythology,
comic books, movies, television, or possibly real life. The mythical person
embodies a solution to the dilemma in which the youngster finds herself. . . .
Incidents . . . in which the (life) script’s mythical character becomes a con-
sciously understood identity, are commonplace phenomena in scripts.

With regard to gender roles specifically, Steiner (1974:84) suggests:

(one) important set of injunctions and attributions which affect children from
the earliest day on causing premature script decisions is the gender-linked pro-
gramming called sex roles.

Why Deeds has a consciously understood identity encompassing the role of rescuer
is not of concern here. Again, it is not claimed that this analysis is a case study of a real

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person. The concern is to show that he adopts a non-Adult programmed stance toward
the woman who is his romantic interest.
Beginning with the attorney’s remark (cited above) about having “dreams like that
when we’re young,” Deeds is identified as a child. In explaining to his associates how
easy it will be to get Deeds’s power of attorney, lawyer Cedar remarks, “he’s as na€ıve as a
child.” Near the end of the film the lawyer refers to Deeds’s courtroom defense of his
plan to aid the poor as “childish ravings,” while Deeds has defended the sensibility of
his plan in terms of its logical obviousness to a “10-year-old child.” Thus, rather than
juxtaposing himself against the imagery of a child, Deeds identifies himself with that
imagery but inverts its value connotation. The lawyer invokes the negative image of the
irrational, ill-tempered child while Deeds invokes the positively oriented wisdom-in-
innocence child.
Throughout the film, humor is generated through the portrayal of a grown man as
childlike in his innocence. Deeds chases fire engines as part of his rescue script. In his
New York mansion, he slides down the banister and plays around with an echo in the
cavernous entry hall. His temperamental nature is expressed through a tendency to
punch people in the nose or “knock their heads together” when he is victimized by their
bad manners, mockery, or dishonesty. Like a gangly youth, he is physically clumsy. With
Mary/Babe on the roof of a skyscraper overlooking Times Square, he remarks, “you can
almost spit on it can’t you?” Mary/Babe, reflecting the contempt she is beginning to feel
for her own urban values, says, “Why don’t you try?” He does and the wind blows it
back onto his overcoat. Later, after expressing his love for her and essentially proposing
marriage, he falls over a trash can and then runs away. Clumsiness is, thus, a coding for
childlike nonsophistication in her presence.
The Child is also reflected in Deeds’s demeanor, and in the tone of his voice. There
is an innocent, matter-of-fact quality to the tone and the substance of Deeds’s remarks.
He takes others literally. Even when making a remark revealing a mature adult insight
or when calling his exploiters to account, he has the stern demeanor of an indignant
child imitating a remonstrating parent. From a TA perspective, this suggests that Deeds’s
innocence is really a front or come-on designed to create a social situation in which he
has the moral justification to play a game such as Now-I’ve-Got-You-You-Son-of a
Bitch (Berne 1964:84–86), and to punish the offending party either physically or
psychologically.
One final observation supporting this suggestion that Deeds’s actions are Child ego
state–scripted involves the casting of Gary Cooper as Deeds. Cooper’s general appeal
and uniqueness as a star are partly bound up with the man/child persona which he proj-
ects in many of his films. He is tough and aggressive in macho conflicts with
other males; but with women, he usually displays modesty, gentleness, and boyish
“aw-shucks-Ma’am” innocence. In Mr. Deeds, this dialectic is pushed to an extreme
such that Cooper almost becomes a caricature of himself.
Much of the humor in Mr. Deeds is achieved by juxtaposing the hard-nosed action
of the Adult or Parent ego states with the persona of the Child. For example, Deeds flab-
bergasts the opera board by refusing to finance the civic opera unless it is reorganized to

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avoid a deficit; he is immune to the other board members’ attempts to manipulate him
through flattery and subtle intimidation. This same scene is interrupted by Deeds’s exu-
berant rush to the window at the sound of a fire truck siren. Again, I am not suggesting
that Capra planned these juxtapositions in order to create a particular gender role struc-
ture. He brilliantly uses this device to make the film funny and to provide it with a
rhythm that is unmistakably Capra’s.
However, the humor in such juxtaposition functions to distract the viewer from a
consideration of the inconsistency implicit in the man/child dialectic. A TA approach
leads one to take inconsistency (incongruity in TA parlance) seriously and to explore its
social psychological significance. I have pointed to several facets of the film as indica-
tions that Deeds’s relationship with Mary/Babe is scripted by his Child ego state. One is
the overtly expressed lady-in-distress theme. Another is the coding of Deeds as rescuer
in general, through his identification as Christ figure (son of Joseph and Mary Deeds),
son of a physician, volunteer fireman, and benefactor to the poor. A fourth is the incon-
gruity of the man/child dialectic.
Although Deeds’s demeanor is consistently childlike, his thought processes are not.
When confronted by various people who are after his money, he thwarts them with a
deductive finesse that belies his “innocence.” For example, in his confrontation with the
opera board, it is revealed that the opera has accrued a deficit of $180,000. From this, he
deduces that the opera has been mismanaged and suggests:

. . . we must give the wrong kind of shows . . . maybe you charge too
much . . . maybe you’re selling bad merchandise.

He is unmoved by the board members’ patronization of him and refuses to accept their
definition of the situation that the opera is an “artistic institution” and should not be
conducted for profit.
Another example is found in his interaction with crooked lawyers. One confronts
him claiming that Deeds’s deceased benefactor had a common law wife and child who
are entitled to one-third of the estate—about seven million dollars; but then he adds:

We didn’t expect that much. I’m sure I can get her to settle quietly for one
million.

Deeds proceeds physically to throw him out noting:

. . . there’s something fishy about a person who would settle for a million dollars
when they get seven million. I’m surprised that Mr. Cedar [the deceased bene-
factor’s lawyer], who’s supposed to be a smart man, didn’t see through that.

This shrewd sensitivity to the hidden agendas of others also is revealed in Deeds’s
interactions with Cedar who is constantly pestering Deeds to sign over his power of
attorney. At one point Deeds remarks:

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Besides wanting to be my lawyer, you want to handle my investments, too. . .

Outside of your regular fee, how much extra would it cost?

Cedar responds:

Why no extra charge . . . that’s an added service a firm like [ours] usually donates.

Deeds replies:

There was a fellow named Winslow here a while ago . . . wanted to handle my
business for nothing, too. [I don’t understand] why these people all want to
work for nothing. It isn’t natural. I guess I better think about it some more.

And later, Cedar patronizingly tells Deeds:

Being an attorney for you will be a very simple affair.

Deeds replies:

You’re not my attorney yet, Mr. Cedar, not till I find out what’s on your mind.
Suppose you get the books straightened out quick so I can have a look at them.

Thus, regarding economic matters, Deeds is hardly a gullible pushover. Why, then, is
he so gullible with regard to the manipulation of Mary/Babe? He never questions their
chance meeting or her motives, even though he has been hounded since his arrival in
New York by people who want his money. After the derogatory newspaper stories begin
to appear, it does not occur to him that she was the only observer of all events recounted
in the stories. From the perspective of TA, this inconsistency suggests that his gullibility
is scripted by his Parent or Child ego state. He has a script injunction against being taken
advantage of economically. But he is compelled to be gullible with Mary/Babe in order
to further another element of his life script—his betrayal and symbolic martyrdom.
Deeds is actually conducting a transactional “racket.” A racket is an emotion that is
habitually activated by someone as his/her payoff in a preferred game (Berne 1972:137–
41). Specific emotions become rackets when one learns to exploit them in the context of
a game. Such feelings, which are often substitutes for Adult sexual feelings, are collected
and then cashed in. We learn from his housekeeper and when Mary/Babe asks him, that
Deeds does not spend time with women. Instead, he is collecting feelings of indignation,
that is, anger aroused by something unjust. Prior to Deeds’s sanity hearing, the viewer is
reminded twice about Deeds’s coding as a Christ figure via allusions to crucifixion.
When Mary/Babe is beginning to feel ambivalent about her duplicity with Deeds, she
articulates to her roommate, Mabel Dawson:

that guy’s either the dumbest, stupidest or the most imbecilic idiot in the world or
else he’s the grandest thing alive. I can’t make him out. . . . I’m crucifying him.

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Mabel responds:
People have been crucified before.

Mary/Babe:
Why? Why do we have to do it?

Mabel says:
You started out to be a successful newspaper woman, didn’t ya?
Thus, Deeds’s betrayal by Mary/Babe is explicitly tied to her achievement motivation as
an occupationally role-reversed female. Later in the film when Mary/Babe attempts to
visit the incarcerated Deeds prior to his sanity hearing, she is denied entry. Interacting
with Cornelius Cobb, Deeds’s buffer from the press and public, Cobb tells her:

He doesn’t want any lawyers. He’s sunk so low he doesn’t want help from anybody.
You can take a bow for that. As swell a guy as ever hit town, and you crucified
him for a couple of stinking headlines. You’ve done your bit. Stay out of his way.

If Deeds is now playing a variation of Now-I’ve-Got-You-You-Son-of a Bitch, as was

suggested earlier, one would expect him to pull a switch on the offending party convert-
ing him or her from Persecutor into Victim in the context of the TA Drama Triangle.
This is exactly what happens relative to his relationship with Mary/Babe. Upon discover-
ing her true identity and purpose, he refuses to speak with her despite her attempts to
apologize. Though dejected and morose, he continues to embrace the role of rescuer by
organizing his welfare program for farmers; but, at the behest of the crooked lawyers he
is arrested, accused of being mentally incompetent to handle his money, and placed in a
mental institution until his sanity hearing. Prior to his discovery of Mary/Babe’s
betrayal, he would have fought vigorously. But at this point, he sinks into a depression,
refusing to defend himself or to speak at all, even at his sanity hearing. As indicated pre-
viously, this is part of Mary/Babe’s punishment for being a role-reversed female. From
the perspective of the Drama Triangle (Karpman 1968) she moves from the role of Per-
secutor to Victim while Deeds moves from Victim to Persecutor.
Deeds sits at his sanity hearing in a state of apathetic indifference, refusing to speak
as witness after witness is called to describe his eccentric behavior. This assault culmi-
nates with the testimony of a self-satisfied Germanic psychiatrist who labels him a
manic/depressive. Throughout, Mary/Babe is in a state of anguish. Deeds clings to his
symbolic martyrdom even when she rises in the public forum of the courtroom in an
act of contrition and self-humiliation. She emotionally defends him, testifies to his
goodness, and admits her own utilitarian motive in making him appear foolish—a
month’s vacation with pay.
It is Deeds’s passive mode of punishing Mary/Babe that leads to the inference that
his game is under the direction of his Child ego state. A Parental punishment would

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entail an active verbal condemnation, remonstrating Mary/Babe for morally repugnant

behavior. Instead, Deeds chooses to sulk in silence, as would an inarticulate child. Since
the payoff of this game is justified moral indignation, however, the cathexis of the Parent
ego state is also indicated (Berne 1967:86). Thus, I suggest that the martyr sequence of
Deed’s rescue script is under the direction of a Parent-programmed Child ego state.
The resolution of dramatic conflict is, from a TA perspective, classically “scripty.”
Deeds has remained unmoved, even though the courtroom is filled with his farmer sup-
porters in addition to Mary/Babe, her editor, and Cobb. Finally, in response to badger-
ing by lawyer Cedar who is attempting to undermine her credibility, Mary/Babe
fervently admits her love for Deeds. Upon hearing this Deeds’s apathy melts away, his
face and body become animated and he regains his motivation to speak. He articulately
defends himself vanquishing each of his courtroom foes in turn and winning admira-
tion of the judge and moral vindication. The film ends in a close up of Deeds and
Mary/Babe kissing awkwardly.
Thus, Deeds emerges a winner and moves from the role of Persecutor to Rescuer in
the context of the TA Drama Triangle. Mary/Babe’s protestation of love may constitute
a “spellbreaker” (Berne 1972) freeing him from bondage to the life script; or it may
merely signal the end of that stage of the script’s development. For our purposes it is
only important to note that the rapid transformation in his demeanor and attitude indi-
cates scripted, racket or game-playing behavior.
Thus far, we have focused only upon Deeds’s motives with regard to Mary/Babe. The
complete analysis of a relationship, however, necessitates consideration of the motives of
both parties, since in TA rackets or games all participants have hidden agendas.
Initially, Babe’s transactions with Deeds are “angular” (Berne 1967:33–34) in nature.
At the psychological level, her Adult is attempting to hook Deeds’s Child ego state.
Given her goal of becoming close to him in order to elicit information and monitor his
actions, this duplicity is rational; she has the attributes of a professional con artist. At
their first meeting, she is unaware of his life script directive to rescue. Hence, it cannot
be inferred at this point in the narrative that she is also playing a TA game complimen-
tary to that of Deeds. Nor is it clear what might be the nature of her life script.
Most of what we know about her suggests that her actions are Adult controlled. She
is intelligent and has achievement motivation. She is a dedicated professional in an
occupation (newspaper reporter) traditionally the province of males. We are informed
that she has received a Pulitzer Prize. Thus, we know she is highly competent—more
competent than all of her male colleagues on a New York newspaper staff. She has the
professional respect of Mac, her editor, who remonstrates the other reporters for not
producing stories on Deeds, but takes Babe aside requesting that she work on it. She has
high self-esteem and relates to Mac as a professional equal rather than as a subordinate.
In contrast to Deeds, Babe’s early attitude toward him reflects affective neutrality.
Her affection for him grows more slowly as a function of interaction with him. Simulta-
neously, she begins to question the jaded values of the big city which have motivated
her behavior. These observations signify the self-reflective functioning of the Adult ego
state.

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There are indications, however, that Babe’s Parent is eventually conned by Deeds’s
Child. While taking a walk, she tells him that she’s also from a small town, that her
father played in the town band, and that he reminds her of her father (I would suggest,
of her father’s Child ego state) toward whom she may have played a nurturing role; no
mention is made of Babe’s mother. Also, Babe has no romantic interest. At the paper
she is “one of the boys.” Shortly thereafter, she reads the love poem he wrote referring
to her as an “angel too lovely to woo.” This juxtaposition with her previous remark
about her father serves to code her as a Parent to Deeds’s Child. Babe’s voice and
demeanor are never childlike as are Deeds’s. Her parental, protective fury emerges in the
courtroom where she rises in his defense.
Thus, what began as a consciously manipulative “angular” transaction on Babe’s
part, becomes a duplex transaction with motives complimentary to those of Deeds.
From a TA framework, their relationship ends as a Parent–Child transaction.
The lack of sensuality in their relationship is notable. Only in the film’s final scene
do they kiss. Prior to that, Deeds’s courting of Mary/Babe is entirely verbal; they
embrace only once on her doorstep. This is remarkable for people seemingly in their
late twenties, unless one infers that their relationship is not sensually motivated in the
first place, or unless it is seen as a manifestation of incest taboo.
In summary, we have shown that from a TA perspective, the psychological dynamics
of the relationship between Deeds and Mary/Babe indicate something other than an
Adult–Adult transaction. Both have hidden agendas which, while not finally malevolent,
preclude the experience of true intimacy between them. However, both of them are
attractive, appealing individuals. Cooper’s persona combined with Capra’s comedic
genius make Deeds a seductive force within the film’s text. His charisma serves to gener-
ate credibility not only for his explicit, populist, political–economic ideology, but also
for the gender role ideology implicitly lurking in his relationship with Mary/Babe.
Generally, persistent audience reception of Parent–Child coding of gender roles rein-
forces the patriarchal subordination of women characteristic of American culture. Films
reflect cultural values, but they also reinforce them insofar as the narrative structure of
films does not make those values politically problematic. In the Capra comedies, the
manifest message involves the viability of traditional, small-town American values in an
industrial society that is becoming increasingly oligarchic and corrupt. The patriarchal
subordination of women, however, is not linked to this manifest message in the filmic
text. Instead, portrayal of patriarchal gender role structure as “normal,” that is, unprob-
lematic, in the text functions as a vehicle by which the manifest message is delivered.
But the vehicle, itself, is a message. It is not value neutral. In Mr. Deeds, Mary/Babe is a
tough newspaper reporter who wants money and engages in the deceit and abuse of
Deeds in order to get it—under the guise of professionalism. On the social psychologi-
cal level of analysis, the narrative structure suggests that her Parent was being set up to
be exploited by Deeds’s Child. Deeds’s transactional racket is to experience righteous
indignation in her suffering with guilt. For the film to make a covert sociological state-
ment, however, Mary/Babe’s retribution is best portrayed in a public setting. Her guilt
must be accompanied by shame. It is appropriate, therefore, that her self-repudiating

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confession occurs in a courtroom full of people. She becomes a moral martyr (Parental)
to complement Deeds’s emotional (Child) martyrdom. This public and self-accepted
humiliation of the role-reversed female whose actions are inconsistent with patriarchal
domination is not portrayed as ideologically problematic. Thus, the viewer is not led to
question consciously those values directly associated with gender roles; instead, the nor-
mative structure of the film functions to obscure or gloss over those values. Such covert
legitimation is more likely to influence the viewer compared with the overt legitimation
found in films whose producers purposefully politicize a hegemonic value structure. As
noted by Pratkanis and Aronson (2001), persuasive communications constituting prop-
aganda are most effective when their delivery evokes “peripheral” (i.e., schema-driven,
emotional) information processing mode rather than “central” (i.e., cognitive analytic)
processing mode. Although all films encode value assumptions, not all films are equally
effective in legitimating those values for the audience. Politicization is one variable spec-
ifying conditions under which what is legitimated within the text of the film is subse-
quently legitimated within the mind of the viewer.

CONCLUSION
Employing a Social Cognitive theoretical perspective the reward/punishment structure
of the protagonists in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) was analyzed. It was concluded
that with regard to the issue of female subordination, this is an ideologically conserva-
tive film because the only gender role-reversed female character is punished for her
role-violating behavior. However, upon quitting her job and publically confessing both
her exploitative manipulation of Deeds and her love for him, she is rewarded by his
reanimated acceptance of her. That is, when the portrayed gender role structure is
counter-normative, the female role incumbent is punished in the form of rejection by
the male protagonist and by public shaming in a judicial setting. When the gender role
structure transforms to normative the female lead is rewarded; thus, legitimating the
conventional, ideological subordination of women.
Employing the compatible assumptions of Social Cognitive Theory and Associative
Network/Schema Theory, the claim was addressed that films influence viewers because
viewers “identify” with characters in the narrative. While such microlevel identification
may occur and may be facilitated by the viewer’s experience of empathy with a charac-
ter’s perceived situation; it was concluded that a higher order, meso modality of identifi-
cation is in play—namely identification with a stereotypic schema defining a social
relationship. Viewers experiencing a filmic narrative evocative of schemas that they have
already deeply internalized are less likely to question the ideological legitimacy of narra-
tive elements—in this case the element of female subordination.
The logic of TA was then utilized to discuss the nature of the male and female protag-
onists’ relationship. Evidence from the narrative was presented to support the claim that
Deeds’s life script mandated that he be a messianic rescuer and that he undergo symbolic
crucifixion at the hands of his female persecutor, only to be resurrected from his state of
deep despair by her spell-breaking protestation of love for him. One could argue that

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Deeds began the narrative playing the TA game Kick Me and then switched to Now-I’ve-
Got-You-You-Bitch consistent with the TA notion that games involve rackets wherein
players have the ulterior motive of experiencing an emotion such as anger or righteous
indignation as their payoff—often a substitute for Adult–Adult intimacy. Thus, psycho-
logically unhealthy relationships portrayed in cinematic narrative can be read as meta-
phors for pathologically structured culture reinforcing gendered domination.
How does the cinematic portrayal of gender role behavior as “gamey” facilitate
women’s acquiescence to domination? One answer emerges via the observation that
film viewers are most likely to identify with characters whose ulterior life scripts and
preferred games resonate with their own. Because game playing is ubiquitous in our
everyday lives, film viewers easily, subconsciously recognize TA racket and game por-
trayal in films. Interpretive schemas activated by a film’s narrative mirror viewers’ inter-
personal social experiences. Consistent with both cognitive dissonance theory and the
Weberian notion of “elective affinity,” film viewers are most likely to embrace cinematic
narratives that are consonant, that is, logically compatible with their own ideas,
thoughts, emotions, memories, or behaviors already firmly lodged in heuristic interpre-
tive schemas.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to Professor Brenda Wineapple, Department of English, Union College,
and to Professor Richard Hawkins, Department of Sociology, Southern Methodist Uni-
versity, for their instructive comments on an early draft of this article.

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