Dracula (Bela Lugosi)

Mina... but Womanly

First off, I'd like to undisputably say that Tod Browning's Dracula (1931) is the BEST adaptation of Dracula I have seen besides the original novel. It excellently builds and sustains suspense through the entire motion picture, has Bela Lugosi doing an incredible performance of the caped vampire, and had great characterization of each character that appeared on the screen. He also changed the story a bit, most notably having Renfield be the one who initially travels to Castle Dracula and also having Mina be Dr. Seward's daughter... Speaking of Mina.

Mina in the original adaptation of Dracula, the one written by Bram Stoker, is a girl who is the fiancee of Jon Harker, and she is very open-minded, brave, and demonstrates qualities that of a man, in the sense of her mental thinking. It made her out to be a well great character who stuck out among fighting men. However, in this motion picture of Dracula, Mina is still, assumably, a fiancee or wife to Jon, but she is now Dr. Seward's daughter and definitely does not have any of the manly traits she had in the novel. She is still open-minded, but she is tons more centered around being the ideal woman of the time, by consistently tending to her man, demonstrating kind manners, and being vulnerable... because men find that hot. It's quite a shift of character but one that is GREAT. Not superior, perhaps, but still a welcome change to alter the story in a unique fashion. 

Above is the scene that I'll be discussing... So, just by watching it, you can tell Mina is drastically different from the novel, which you could attempt to blame on Mina being entranced by Dracula by this point, but no, this is her character through the whole movie, just enhanced and slightly more deadly. It is immediately evident of her over the top womanly traits like place the back of her hand on her forehead, having an airy voice, and making herself open and vulnerable to Jon, so he himself will become vulnerable. There's a moment, at 1:52, where a bat enters the scene, it is Dracula, and Mina exemplifies the most stereotypically blonde female traits by looking straight, being dumb, and barely try to swerve Jon when he asks who she was speaking to. But this is GREAT for the film as it conveys an altered story where Mina wasn't crucial into the defeat of Dracula, instead of playing the perfect "damsel in distress" that many audiences, especially in the time, find very interesting. 

Van Helsing soon arrives and reveals the crucifix to Mina, frightening her away, and in a classic feminine way, Mina cries to allure over Jon, to gain his trust and protection more so, attempting to keep away Van Helsing, and indirectly God, who is trying to harm her.

Although Mina loses her usefulness in the conflict of the story in this movie, it's great because other characters now flourish, like Dracula and Renfield. This scene shows how movie directors at the time wanted to see women as, defenseless and dopey, so it'd appeal to men. It sounds disgusting but 1. It's primal nature and 2. At this time, there was not a single problem with this sort of characterization because it was commonplace and often expected of women's portrayal in both theater and film. (This was a play turned into a film, by the way) In any case, this single scene alone shows how Browning's adaptation of the most famous supernatural entity of all time how women were more liked as this type of stereotypical, submissive women character to the mass of the media, instead of a woman who has a mind and displays male characteristics.