Monkey Shines: Mann's Females

An alternate title to Monkey Shines could have been Man and His Females. Perhaps with a deliberate pun on 'man,' seeing as how our protagonist is named Allan Mann.

We are first introduced to Mr. Mann in an idyllic moment: he rises in the beautiful morning sun, smiles at his beautiful girlfriend's beautiful curves, he stretches his beautiful body, then goes for a run and is hit by a truck.

Suddenly this perfect man who had dominated the world is rendered totally impotent. All he can move is his head. He depends upon a machine to move about, but this machine is limited. For everything else, he has only women.

Female 1 - Linda: Linda is his girlfriend. She seemed to be totally his, totally in love. She was his as long as he had power, vitality, a future, and offered her security. She is a purely primitive female. She exchanges her now impotent male for the very doctor that repaired (ineptly, it turns out) her ex-boyfriend's spine. Strike number one against Allan's masculinity. One testicle gone.

Female 2 - Dorothy: Dorothy is the obsessive mother. Where Linda saw in Allan's impotence something disagreeable, Dorothy sees an opportunity. Many years ago she, like most mothers, lost her little boy to the independence of adulthood. Now Allan is like a child again. He could well need her to feed him, to bathe him, to do everything for him. And to feel needed, like she has her baby who depends on her again, she will do everything. This is emphasized in how her first act when she has Allan alone is to watch old childhood videos of Allan. She's exploiting his weakness and rendering him utterly weak. Strike number two against Allan's masculinity. There goes his other testicle. He's totally emasculated.

Female 3 - Maryanne: Maryanne is a lazy harpy. She is not cut out to be a nurse, yet she assumes caring for a quadriplegic will be an easy task while she gets to live in the luxury of this man's house and live off the luxury of his mother's money. Allan is at Maryanne's mercy and since he's emasculated is totally dominated by her.

Female 4 - Ella: Ella the monkey is the final straw. She is a feminine power so potent that Allan risks entirely being subsumed by her. His mind begins to be linked up with hers. He begins to have mood swings. All the while it appears he's in charge, in fact this is the passive dominance of Ella. By the end she's turned the tables. She effectively removes all the previous females to become the dominant female of Allan's life. However she cannot cope with Allan becoming a whole man again. It is ultimately Allan's recovery of power (sheer motor skills) that triumphs over Ella.

Female 5 - Melanie: Melanie is the female that offers Allan the potentiality of his masculinity. Because she regards him as a masculine power, she imbues him with the subjectivity of a male force; and in doing so gives him the power to regard her as a subjective female force. She restores his testicles as it were when she sleeps with him. And he returns the favour when his recovery of motor skills allows him to remove Ella. The film ends with Allan restored to his masculinity, albeit humbled, more the equal than the possessor of his female mate--and yes, the film does encourage us to see humans in this scientific manner.

There is no denying that Monkey Shines is, despite the description above, a tragedy. While there is a traditional comedy ending of the male and female protagonists together, promising marital bliss, the truly major female of the film has been savagely betrayed and even more savagely murdered by her insecure male. The tragedy is, of course, that it could not have ended happily for Allan and Ella; it was destiny.