Time & Perspective Quote by Carole Lombard

A wink sharp enough to draw blood: Lombard frames herself as fluent in the “man’s world” rulebook, then undercuts the whole premise with lipstick. The line performs a double act that defined her screen persona and, more broadly, the screwball era’s favorite trick - letting a woman look like she’s playing along while quietly rewriting the terms.

On its face, “a man’s code” suggests toughness, professionalism, maybe even moral clarity. Coming from a 1930s star, it also signals survival strategy. Hollywood was a factory run by men, with contracts, gossip columns, and directors who could make or break you. To “live by” that code is to claim competence on hostile terrain. Then she snaps in the punchline: a woman’s “first job” is lipstick. It’s not surrender; it’s satire. She’s exposing how even the most capable woman is still evaluated through a tiny, absurdly specific aperture of appearance. The precision of “right shade” makes the expectation feel both petty and tyrannical.

Subtext: Lombard knows femininity is treated as her real labor, no matter what else she accomplishes. Instead of pleading against it, she weaponizes it - using glamour as camouflage and comedy as critique. The joke lands because it lets the audience enjoy the sparkle while feeling, briefly, the trapdoor beneath it: in a world built for men, women are asked to excel and decorate, to be competent and consumable. Lombard’s brilliance is how she makes that contradiction sound like a throwaway line, as if it’s light. It isn’t. It’s a survival manual with a laugh track.