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Women portrayal in movies
Women's roles in classic films
Portrayal of women in movies
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Mildred Pierce and His Girl Friday: Portrait of Working Women in the Pre- and Post-World War Period
His Girl Friday and Mildred Pierce are two films from the 1940's that deal with the position of women within the workforce in the time prior to America's involvement in the war, and after the tide turned in the Allies' favor respectively. This has a great deal to do with the ways in which these women--Hildy and Mildred--are portrayed. The two films are of drastically different genres and plots, and this in addition to the social milieu in the two drastically different times that they were made shows the changes in attitudes towards women in the workforce over the course of the war. His Girl Friday is a screwball romantic comedy that creates a fantasy world and a fantasy woman who navigates this world with great ease. She finds love at every turn, and succeeds in earning her heart's desire, which is both a career and a man who loves her, who, with every underhanded trick, proves the power of love. Mildred Pierce on the other hand, was made in a combination of the film noir and melodramatic styles, showing a woman's struggles for both success and love, and within the diagetic space of the film, she is constantly frustrated.
Mildred, at the beginning of the film's timeline, has the life that Hildy Johnson, throughout His Girl Friday, claims that she wants--a nice suburban existence with a nice family and a nice house with a metaphorical white picket fence. But a darker picture quickly reveals itself, and this life is not as perfect as it seems. To support herself and her family, Mildred begins to work for a living, soon realizing that with her ambition and intelligence, she can prosper. She wants to give her daughters the life ...
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...ountry that shouts freedom from oppression from the rooftops must be insidious when it comes to restricting those freedoms. Mildred Pierce is a fable that gives a picture of what women's lives would be like if they did not let men do their wage earning, if they did not embrace their traditional role, if they did not learn their lesson and stay at home. Mildred had no choice but to search out employment, relying on only herself to support her family, like many women in the war-time period. But she did not keep to her place. She did more than just earn a living, she prospered, and to let that image remain with American women could have been disastrous to the American economy. She could not be allowed to succeed, because she was trying to play too many roles, to achieve in every aspect of her life, and that, according to the American way, from a woman, is not allowed.
Clinton, Catherine. The Other Civil War, American Women in the Nineteenth Century: Hill and Wang, New York 1986
In Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire, Williams uses the suicide of Blanche's husband to illuminate Blanche's insecurities and immoral behavior. When something terrible happens to someone, it often reveals who he or she truly is. Blanche falls victim to this behavior, and she fails to face her demons. This displays how the play links a character’s illogical choices and their inner struggles.
The role of women in American history has evolved a great deal over the past few centuries. In less than a hundred years, the role of women has moved from housewife to highly paid corporate executive to political leader. As events in history have shaped the present world, one can find hidden in such moments, pivotal points that catapult destiny into an unforeseen direction. This paper will examine one such pivotal moment, fashioned from the fictitious character known as ‘Rosie the Riveter’ who represented the powerful working class women during World War II and how her personification has helped shape the future lives of women.
Weiner, Lynn Y. From Working Girl to Working Mother: The Female Labor Force in the United States, 1820-1980. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 1985.
Young Goodman Brown is a story written by a well known Dark Romanticism writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne is known for his unique symbolism and dark writing.Part of Nathaniel Hawthorne's influence in writing Dark Romanticism is Hawthorns embarrassment of his family and the ways of his ancestor.While on one's journey towards faith and religion, they have to face it themselves and understand what they are doing. In Young Goodman Brown there was many symbolisms including Goodman Brown's wife, the snake staff,the forest and Faiths pink ribbon
Hartmann, Susan M. The Home Front and Beyond: American women in the 1940s. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1982
Sherna B. Gluck, Rosie the Riveter Revisited: Women, the War, and Social Change, (Boston, Twayne Publishers) p. 137
Mary Wollstonecraft was as revolutionary in her writings as Thomas Paine. They were both very effective writers and conveyed the messages of their ideas quite well even though both only had only the most basic education. Wollstonecraft was a woman writing about women's rights at a time when these rights were simply non-existent and this made her different from Paine because she was breaking new ground, thus making her unique. Throughout her lifetime, Wollstonecraft wrote about the misconception that women did not need an education, but were only meant to be submissive to man. Women were treated like a decoration that had no real function except to amuse and beguile. Wollstonecraft was the true leader in women's rights, advocating a partnership in relationships and marriage rather than a dictatorship. She was firm in her conviction that education would give women the ability to take a more active role in life itself.
“The story of the war will never be fully or fairly written if the Achievements of women in it are untold.” Frank Moore Women of the War, 1867. When we hear the names, Paul Revere, Benjamin Franklin or George Washington, we can immediately identify these men as noble leaders and celebrated heroes who made extraordinary contributions during the fragile infancy of our country. These men and many others unselfishly risked their lives to fight for a united nation in both the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. However, do the names Philis Wheatley, Jenny Hodges or Sybil Ludington inspire the same recognition and admiration for their unprecedented sacrifices for the same “cause”?
In the 1890s, American women emerged as a major force for social reform. Millions joined civic organizations and extended their roles from domestic duties to concerns about their communities and environments. These years, between 1890 and 1920, were a time of many social changes that later became known as the Progressive Era. In this time era, millions of Americans organized associations to come up with solutions to the many problems that society was facing, and many of these problems were staring American women right in the face.
The film titled, “The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter”, looks at the roles of women during and after World War II within the U.S. The film interviews five women who had experienced the World War II effects in the U.S, two who were Caucasian and three who were African American. These five women, who were among the millions of women recruited into skilled male-oriented jobs during World War II, shared insight into how women were treated, viewed and mainly controlled. Along with the interviews are clips from U.S. government propaganda films, news reports from the media, March of Time films, and newspaper stories, all depicting how women are to take "the men’s" places to keep up with industrial production, while reassured that their duties were fulfilling the patriotic and feminine role. After the war the government and media had changed their message as women were to resume the role of the housewife, maid and mother to stay out of the way of returning soldiers. Thus the patriotic and feminine role was nothing but a mystified tactic the government used to maintain the American economic structure during the world war period. It is the contention of this paper to explore how several groups of women were treated as mindless individuals that could be controlled and disposed of through the government arranging social institutions, media manipulation and propaganda, and assumptions behind women’s tendencies which forced “Rosie the Riveter” to become a male dominated concept.
A Streetcar Named Desire is an intricate web of complex themes and conflicted characters. Set in the pivotal years immediately following World War II, Tennessee Williams infuses Blanche and Stanley with the symbols of opposing class and differing attitudes towards sex and love, then steps back as the power struggle between them ensues. Yet there are no clear cut lines of good vs. evil, no character is neither completely good nor bad, because the main characters, (especially Blanche), are so torn by conflicting and contradictory desires and needs. As such, the play has no clear victor, everyone loses something, and this fact is what gives the play its tragic cast. In a larger sense, Blanche and Stanley, individual characters as well as symbols for opposing classes, historical periods, and ways of life, struggle and find a new balance of power, not because of ideological rights and wrongs, but as a matter of historical inevitability. Interestingly, Williams finalizes the resolution of this struggle on the most base level possible. In Scene Ten, Stanley subdues Blanche, and all that she stands for, in the same way men have been subduing women for centuries. Yet, though shocking, this is not out of keeping with the themes of the play for, in all matters of power, force is its ultimate manifestation. And Blanche is not completely unwilling, she has her own desires that draw her to Stanley, like a moth to the light, a light she avoids, even hates, yet yearns for.
In Aunt Hetty on Matrimony and The Working Girls of New York Fanny Fern depicted a story of sadness and morose conditions that women had to deal with in order to have a parallel recognition to that o...
The characters in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, most notably Blanche, demonstrates the quality of “being misplaced” and “being torn away from out chosen image of what and who we are” throughout the entirety of the play.
In Nathaniel Hawthorne 's short story "Young Goodman Brown”, the abundant use of symbolism, mystery and suspense captures the reader’s attention almost immediately. From the beginning and throughout the entirety of the story, Hawthorne leads the reader into asking themselves the questions, "What is all of the symbolism, mysticism, characters, and scenery actually representing?" Hawthorne masterfully uses this symbolism to show Goodman Brown’s unconscious struggle with his personal religious faith and his faith in humankind.