Columbia’s B noir, My Name is Julia Ross, was an exhibit in gaslighting with curious timing. After all, the Patrick Hamilton play from which the term derives came out just seven years prior, with the British film adaptation releasing in 1940, while the more famous American adaptation starring Ingrid Bergman released in 1944, just one year before My Name is Julia Ross.
Was this simply another result of Hollywood industrial competition? Was My Name is Julia Ross to Gaslight what Shark Tale was to to Finding Nemo? Or worse, could it have been more akin to a pre-Sharknadian Asylum film such as Snakes on a Train or Transmorphers?
Hollywood’s Egyptian theater also made the connection, screening both films as a double feature back in 2011. But is My Name is Julia Ross a ripoff? Can any one film alone own a concept, in this case that of female oppression? Of course not.
She went to sleep as a secretary… and woke up as a madman’s bride!
One of those rare movie taglines in competition for voice of a generation
My Name is Julia Ross includes the potent symbolism of a barred window, but the novel The Awakening did it first with a caged bird in 1899. Wait no, the short story The Yellow Wallpaper did it seven years before that. Where does that leave us?
Nicholas Bell refers to gaslight as a film subgenre. Regardless of whether you’re keen on categorization or not, it’s key to remember that similar ideas alone do not constitute plagiarism. This may seem obvious but remember when some folks were claiming The Hunger Games was a ripoff of Battle Royale, as if coliseums weren’t literally ancient?
I know I sound crazy but that’s what they want everyone to think…
Julia Ross sums up the subgenre rather concisely
So where do we draw the line between evolutionary synthesis and plagiarism? I’m not attempting to map that taxonomy right now. But in a collective effort to weed out toxicity among enthusiasts, maybe we’d do well to be a little more cautious with our ripoff pitchforks.
With that said, let’s celebrate the woman herself, Julia Ross.
SPOILERS AHEAD
I have no ties and no young man. I’m absolutely alone.
Julia Ross gleefully responding to a job interview question
Forget saving cats; nothing beats proclamations of loneliness for eliciting empathy.
What’s most impressive about Julia Ross is her constant will to resist her psychological tormentors. You expect her to start believing the lies she’s being consistently told by everyone surrounding her, but she doesn’t cave. From the very beginning she is determined to escape her captors using every trick she can come up with.
You know I’ve made a resolution. The next time I apply for a job, I’ll ask for the references.
Julia Ross dropping wisdom for the ages
The end admittedly weakens our feminist adventure. Julia is described the job of a wife before taking a tongue-in-cheek literal five seconds to decide whether or not to marry her man, a far cry from the bitter sweet “absolutely alone” woman we met at the start.