Cinema Therapy — Charlyne Gelt, Ph.D.

Lady and the Tramp

The Story:
This romantic musical comedy-drama, Disney's first animated feature filmed in the CinemaScope widescreen process, is based on Happy Dan, The Whistling Dog by Ward Greene. It is set in a charming Midwestern town in 1909 and tells the story of Lady, a perfectly pampered female Cocker Spaniel (a Christmas present that Jim Dear gave to his wife Darling) and her romance with a mutt from the wrong side of the tracks, Tramp.

Lady's home ground is a refined, upper-middle-class family where she enjoys a safe, comfortable life with Jim Dear and Darling. She is friends with two neighborhood dogs, Jock, a terrier, and Trusty, a bloodhound, and she's content until she meets the street-smart mutt with a heart of gold, Tramp, who is friendly and carefree but homeless. Tramp watches over and protects his fellow strays, Peg and Bull, and they dine on scraps from Tony's Italian restaurant. Tramp dreams of living with a family so that he won't get captured by dogcatchers. When Lady and Tramp first meet, it is a natural fit, and they fall in love and embark on many romantic adventures together.

One day, Lady tells her neighborhood pals, Jock and Trusty, that her owner, Darling, has been cooler with her lately, which make her sad. Jock and trusty tell her that Darling's change in attitude is because she is expecting a baby. Lady mentions this to Tramp who, being very opinionated, warns her that "when the baby moves in, the dog moves out." However, when the baby arrives and is introduced to Lady, Lady is fond of the baby until the day Jim Dear and Darling leave Lady with Aunt Sarah whose two trouble-making Siamese cats, Si and Am, deliberately make a mess and then trick Aunt Sarah into thinking that Lady attacked them. In anger, Aunt Sarah takes Lady to a pet shop to get her muzzled. Terrified, Lady, bolts out of the store and gets chased by a trio of stray dogs. Tramp finds a raccoon at the zoo who removes the muzzle from Lady.

Tramp, now smitten with Lady, shows her his "footloose and collar-free" life. They have a romantic candlelit dinner at Tony's. Though Lady falls in love with Tramp in return, she tells him she must return home to watch over the new baby. Tramp starts to escort Lady home, but gets distracted and runs off to have some fun chasing hens around a barnyard. Lady, left unprotected, gets caught by the dog catcher and is put in the dog pound where she learns that Tramp previously had many girlfriends. After Aunt Sarah arrives to claim Lady, she chains her in the backyard as punishment for running away.

Neighbor dogs Jock and Trusty try to comfort Lady, and Tramp comes by to apologize, but Lady is angry and confronts him about his carefree behavior, his girlfriends, and his failure to protect her on her way home. After Tramp leaves, a rat sneaks into the house causing Lady to bark frantically. Hearing Lady, Tramp rushes back and corners the rat in the nursery. Lady breaks free and rushes inside to help Tramp who kills the rat. In the ensuing bedlam, he knocks over the baby's crib. When Aunt Sarah finds both dogs in the nursery, she pushes Tramp in a closet, locks Lady in the basement, and calls the pound to take Tramp away.

When Jim Dear and Darling return home they see the dogcatcher departing with Tramp. When they release Lady from the basement, Lady leads them to the dead rat to explain Tramp's behavior. Meanwhile, in trying to save Tramp, Jock and Trusty chase after the dog catcher's wagon which scares the horses pulling the wagon and causes it to crash with Trusty pinned underneath one of the wheels, motionless. Jim Dear arrives on the scene with Lady. Lady reunites with Tramp and Tramp gets adopted into the family, making his dream come true. Tramp and Lady start their own family and are visited by Jock and Trusty who had simply suffered a broken leg in the accident with the dog-catcher's wagon. They are all united in love and friendship.

Psychological Implications
Lady and The Tramp is a timeless love story which offers humor, roller coaster adventures, and a happy ending. The characters embody a transformative journey to redeem the disowned aspects of the self, from life crises, fear and naivety to fullness and maturity. Like Beauty and The Beast, the movie also probes the unseen "shadow" forces and invisible wounds behind relationships. Often as clinicians we see a woman with a proper upbringing (like Lady) fall for an aloof, unruly, rebellious, hot-headed "bad boy" (like Tramp). And, just as with so many women, Lady in the movie is magnetically drawn to the opinionated, autocratic, mercurial personality like Tramp. He is everything that she is not: footloose and carefree, undependable, unfaithful, and distractible vagrant who hungers for connection and belonging. She is a sweet-tempered and devoted "nice girl". In the human world, sometimes even the most capable, intelligent, and articulate women ― wounded to the core in childhood ― unconsciously fall into this kind of arrangement with men who repeat earlier pain (as Tramp did when he ran off after a chicken instead of walking Lady home, which left her vulnerable to capture by the dog catcher). However, in Lady and the Tramp, their love saves the day and both Lady and Tramp are able to heal, to transform, and grow.

Sometimes, in real life love is not that easy. The opposing personalities of Lady and Tramp are a good illustration of the concept of "shadow." In Jungian terms, shadow means those characteristics which are unseen or are internalized as character flaws. One may have no awareness of these hidden aspects of the self. They remain the undiscovered, split-off aspects of the personality that simply never get to play in the light of day, leaving one vulnerable to the influence, power, authority and domination of others in relationships. The effect is the lens that infuses and defines many adult relationship attractions. Lady is sweet-tempered and devoted, a nice girl, whose unacknowledged anger and hurt, recognizes itself in the mirror of the other. Knowing oneself is the obvious answer. Lady was finally able to acknowledge her anger and hurt over being muzzled for barking (speaking out), and then being unfairly punished and put on a leash. She was able to confront Tramp for not protecting her, and they were able to "make up."

Their relationship shows viewers the often unrecognized "shadow" part of each. Tramp needed danger around him, against which his laid-back nature could bounce. Tramp is an abandoned, scruffy vagabond leader of the pack, who protects other homeless dogs from being captured by the pound, but is overly casual about protecting his lady love. In the end, Lady's ego becomes strengthened and bridges their differences, bringing a sense of wholeness, connection, and belonging. Though polar opposites, in the world of the emotions, Lady and Tramp are psychologically mated.

Charlyne Gelt, Ph.D. (PSY22909) is a clinical psychologist who practices in Encino. She leads Women's Empowerment Groups that help women learn the tools to move beyond self-destructive relationship patterns. She may be reached at 818.501.4123 or cgelt@earthlink.net. Her website is www.drgelt.com. Her office address is 16055 Ventura Blvd. #1129 Encino, CA 91436.