The relationship between women and film has been problematic at best since its inception and continues to be a subject of controversy. Early American cinema actually had an equal ratio of men and women in the production process. Before Hollywood, film was an experiment; a distraction for the poor from their labor-intensive lives. The movie industry was not seen as a sustainable business or an art form. Perhaps because of this, women were "allowed" to be a part of its development.
This soon changed with the beginning of Hollywood in the 1920s. Men came in and saw the financial potential of making movies and a mass global audience was found. Women now became subjects of the camera lens rather than the producers.
A popular archetype of Hollywood films of the 20s and 30s was "the vamp," a woman of power over men, one who men should fear because she is sexually free and able to use men to drain them of their social and business status for their own benefit. Many films of the era used this type of character and for a short period it seemed like women were becoming more independent and free from "male domination."
This newfound power was short-lived as the Hayes Production Code of 1934 sought to end this freedom of artistic expression in Hollywood and the portrayal of women as powerful and free from conformity.
My project will be a visual essay contrasting the portrayal of women in Hollywood cinema; pre-Code and post-Code. I will use numerous scenes from these movies to show how women were once able to be portrayed as powerful and how Hollywood was forced to diminish their roles to being subordinate to men. I will also use many film historian's writings to contextualize this regressive Production Code and ultimately question who these films were being censored for, considering the fact that the mass audience of the time actually enjoyed seeing women portrayed in this powerful way and were not offended by it.
I believe this form of censorship has had a direct effect on the still problematic portrayal of women in pop culture today and I plan on making this connection through other forms of media including advertisements, television and hopefully a few others.
UPDATED:
My project has remained on the
same path, I’ve just found more sources to work off of like Mulvey’s theory of “possessive
spectatorship.” The female stars of Pre-Code Hollywood appeared on the screen
as flirtatious and seductive women who could stand on their own without the
need of a man to lean on. In many of these films, men are simply the key to the
doors of power these women need to use to get the higher social and economic status
they desire.
These films show that women were not content with settling down in
the suburbs, with a breadwinning husband, while they stay at home to raise a
few children. The women of Pre-Code Hollywood wanted everything men wanted. In
Mulvey’s “Death 24x a Second,” she describes the movie spectator’s desire to
possess the stars on screen. Celebrity magazines became popular publications
immediately after the inception of the star system. These magazines contained
film stills from the movies their favorite celebrities starred in. A photograph
with a celebrity subject allows the spectator to possess their desired star in
a single moment, the star is trapped in an icon-like stasis.
This scopophilic
desire to control the beautiful and powerful female stars was disrupted during
the Pre-Code period. The men could gaze upon, but could not control these
women. The woman’s desire for greater social and economic status kept her from
the static lifestyle the possessive male characters of these films wanted to
thrust upon her.
I’ve
found many new films to contribute to my visual essay; including Female (1933), The Animal Kingdom (1932), A
Free Soul (1931), and Red-Headed
Woman (1932) to name a few. Just to give you an idea of how these films
support my thesis; in Female role-reversals
are at the forefront of the film’s world in which Ruth Chatterton plays a
high-powered CEO of a car company who has a no non-sense business attitude and
uses her attractive male secretaries for her sexual desires.
Print
sources like Jeanine Basinger’s A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to
Women, 1930-60, Jennifer Tang’s The Forgotten Women of Pre-Code,
and Donna Nowak’s Ladies They Talk About
are a few published works I will use to support my analysis of these films and
their cultural impact.
No comments:
Post a Comment