The Eve-ing of Bathsheba in Twentieth Century Film

This paper demonstrates that Eve is not the sole biblical female figure subverted for nefarious purposes. Bathsheba, like Eve, is a sexualized and objectified figure in her story: a woman seen, desired and taken for sex by a powerful man. Like Eve in advertising, Bathsheba in film has been reimagined as more active, colluding and liberated than she is in her narrative. But, as with the postfeminist Eve, Bathsheba in three twentieth century films derives her “power” solely from her sexual appeal, which renders a man powerless; like Eve, she exhibits no solidarity with but ousts other women. In the domain of popular culture neither Eve, nor Bathsheba, even where they are granted a higher degree of visibility than in the biblical text, offers new, positive, let alone liberating possibilities.