{
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  "path": "/2026/05/19/femininity-and-national-velvet/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-19T05:01:00.000Z",
  "site": "https://juicyecumenism.com",
  "tags": [
    "film review",
    "the feminine genius",
    "National Velvet",
    "Revere",
    "feminine genius",
    "Proverbs 31",
    "Curiositas and the Feminine Genius",
    "Femininity and National Velvet",
    "Juicy Ecumenism"
  ],
  "textContent": "This past week, I wrote on the feminine genius and what its corruption looks like. Here I present a cultural piece that displays its beauty and potential, being that we just celebrated Mother’s Day and that horse racing season is upon us. The perfect film to highlight this is 1944’s National Velvet_._\n\n_National Velvet_ , an adaptation of the 1935 Enid Bagnold novel, is the charming story of Velvet Brown (Elizabeth Taylor), who wins a horse, the Pie, that everyone thinks is useless. But with the help of a former jockey (Mickey Rooney), who is invited to stay with her family, she trains the horse to win the Grand National, England’s greatest horse race. It is also the story of the Brown family and how the women of the family, particularly the mother Araminty (Anne Revere), play a role in the redemption of Rooney’s Mi Taylor. It is in his redemption and their relationships with one another and the men in the family that we see the feminine genius on display.\n\nRevere deservedly won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the role of Mrs. Brown. National Velvet was also the breakout film for Elizabeth Taylor and only the second film for Angela Lansbury. All three actresses portray women with distinct characters, interests, and ways of displaying the feminine genius. This is important because the film doesn’t treat feminine genius as a cookie-cutter attribute. It is something innate within the feminine sex that is displayed through its many charisms of persons.\n\nThe feminine genius, as understood in Catholic teaching, are those hallmarks of womanhood that make it compatible with the masculine. While women do not display these traits in the same way, all women, as a matter of being women, possess the capacity, though it needs cultivation and nurturing. The chief hallmark of this femininity is receptivity to the other. Additional hallmarks include sensitivity to the person (a deep knowing and understanding of their needs), generosity, and maternity (not limited to biological maternity). These hallmarks are poignantly displayed by Mrs. Brown throughout the movie. It also shows her gently, unassumingly cultivating it in the characters of her three daughters.\n\nMi Taylor has been wandering the roads alone since his father’s death. He is a former jockey whose last race left him traumatized and another rider dead. He is okay with stealing and using people to get ahead. As he says, “Someday you’ll learn that greatness is only the seizing of opportunity- clutching with your bare hands…”\n\nHe meets Velvet on the road one day when she also first encounters the horse (the Pie) that she will ultimately race in the Grand National. The horse’s owner is skeptical of both the horse and Mi, but Velvet takes a liking to them both, understanding that they have greater potential than first impressions impart.\n\nAs it turns out, Mi is looking for Mrs. Brown because he found her name written in one of his father’s books. His father had been her trainer when she swam the English Channel. But Mrs. Brown withholds this information from him, knowing that, if revealed, he would depart and continue with his rambling life of petty crime. She and her daughters instead ask him to stay to help with the increase in summer business; Mr. Brown is the town butcher. It takes some gentle convincing for both Mi and Mr. Brown to accept this, but eventually they agree. The girls instantly take Mi as a member of the family. And while he is charmed and slowly changed, he spends a good portion of the movie intending to steal a large stash of coins, which turns out to be Mrs. Brown’s winnings from swimming the Channel. He also comes to help Velvet train the Pie, which she has won in the town raffle.\n\nSensing that Mi is up to no good, Mr. Brown tells his concerns to Mrs. Brown, assuming she is oblivious; she is not. But as she says, “What’s the meaning of goodness if there isn’t a little badness to overcome?”\n\nThroughout the movie, Mrs. Brown is the gentle corrective to her husband. Unlike the modern depiction of wives who outsmart their husbands, she recognizes and encourages his good qualities, and, privately, almost imperceptibly, helps him through his imprudent inclinations. And he cherishes her for it, much like the husband in Proverbs 31 who “praises” his wife.\n\nThe film too displays the capacity of the feminine genius to help others achieve greatness, not just in the life of the home.\n\nVelvet gently encourages Mi, similar to the way her mother affects her father. She helps him overcome his fear of riding. She too works to settle the Pie. She is demonstrating the receptivity and sensitivity that her mother embodies. She believes that both Mi and the horse are capable of greatness and convinces him to help enter the Pie in the Grand National.\n\nWhile not a large part of the movie, Velvet displays a firm trust in God’s work being behind her winning the Pie. She trusts that it is for a purpose and wishes to see the purpose fulfilled.\n\nWhile most of the town sees the race as unattainable, Mrs. Browm recognizes her daughter’s need to enter the race, giving Velvet her prize money to pay the entry fee. Greatness, it turns out, is not to be clutched and grasped but poured out for the sake of others. They entrust the money to Mi, who initially plans to steal it, but he can’t, the faith and love of the family that has changed him. He and Velvet enter the Pie, and Velvet rides him to victory.\n\nSo, whether you want to celebrate mothers, horse racing, or the finer points of Catholic anthropology, I highly recommend _National Velvet_.\n\n**More from IRD** :\n\nCuriositas and the Feminine Genius\n\nThe post Femininity and National Velvet appeared first on Juicy Ecumenism.",
  "title": "Femininity and National Velvet"
}