What was it like to work on a Broadway show during the 1930s? 42nd Street-directed by Lloyd Bacon and choreographed by Busby Berkeley-is a musical about a musical that provides a glimpse into the competitive world of acting and stage directing. The creation of sound in 1929 allowed movie studios to start producing musicals for film audiences. This movie not only gives historians information about Broadway, but it also shows the changing roles of men and women during the late 1920s and early 1930s. This movie shows the growing power of American women, the continuing stereotypes of women, and the start of the sexualization of women in film. The main actors and actresses in this movie are Warner Baxter as Julian Marsh, Bebe Daniels as Dorothy …show more content…
Brock, and Ruby Keeler as Peggy Sawyer. The character of Dorothy Brock represents the new, powerful woman that had been imagined in the 1920s.
The women of the 1920s wanted the personal and sexual freedom that they never been allowed . Dorothy Brock represents the ideal woman during this time. She has sexual freedom; she is married to a rich man, but is having an affair behind his back. Dorothy is working and has the ability to spend her money as she pleases. A point of conflict between Dorothy and her lover, Pat, is that she is supporting him. This is a character that goes against the traditional values of the mostly Christian culture. Dorothy Brock is also a forceful woman. When her husband, Abner, embarrasses her in front of guests, she throws him out of the hotel room. However, even though Dorothy Brock is a progressive character, her story ends pretty conventionally. She decides to marry Pat and live a modest life performing in vaudeville circuits. This is a typical attitude of women in the 20s. Even though they valued independence, there was always the underlying ideal that independent wildness was a phase that ended when a woman found a man to settle down …show more content…
with. The character that reinforces the negative stereotypes of women is Peggy Sawyer. She is a naïve, young woman auditioning for her first stage show. Throughout the entire movie, she is weak and has no independent agency. Every major event that happens to her in this movie is caused by someone helping her. Billy helps Peggy when she is lost, Andy brings her back into the chorus line when they are one short, Pat helps her recover when she faints, and Ann tells Julian to pick Peggy for the lead when Dorothy is injured. There are also many times in this movie that she appears weak and helpless. When Andy brings her back into the chorus line, she is napping off-stage. Peggy faints when the nonstop rehearsal become too demanding for her frail, womanly body. When Julian is coaching her through Dorothy’s part, she whines that she can’t do it and Julian is forced to get her to pull herself together. These examples showed the men in the audience that they need to take care of the weak helpless women in their lives. Even though some women can be independent like Dorothy, a majority of them are fragile like Peggy. Peggy, like Dorothy, gets her happy ending when she falls in love with Billy, the Broadway juvenile. 42nd Street also shows the growing sexualization of women.
With women’s new found sexual independence came film’s focus on women’s sexuality. Even though the Motion Picture Production Code was created in 1927 and the Hays Office opened in 1930 for the purposes of self-censorship, it wasn’t strictly enforced until 1934 . The production code itself allowed more of a woman’s body to be seen than a man’s. The movie’s focus is on the beautiful chorus girls who wear shorts and dance around. During the casting scene, Julian Marsh wants to see the women’s legs so he can decide if they are beautiful enough to be in the chorus. In fact, one of the promotional posters for this movie highlights the legs of the chorus
girls The visuals during the “I’m Young and Healthy” song are particularly sexualizing of women. The various shots in this scene use women’s half naked bodies to create dazzling visuals. One instance is the tracking shot that goes between the women’s legs and ends with the happy young man who is singing to his love. The costuming of the men and women are very different in this scene: the chorus line women are in bikini-type outfits while the men are fully clothed in tuxedos. The name of the musical that is being produced in 42nd Street is titled “Pretty Ladies”. The sexualization of women would only get worse throughout film’s history and it is saddening to see where and when it started. The 1920s and the 1930s were a transitional period for America. Americans saw the rise and fall of industry, an economic depression, and the beginnings of another World War. Americans flocked to the theater to escape the harrowing reality they were confronted with. The films that they saw also presented them with a world that was slowly changing and also holding onto many ideals of the past. The musical 42nd Street, showed the growing independence of women, the stereotypes that these women were still forced into and the increasing sexualization and objectification of women’s bodies. These themes would continue to appear in subtle or dramatic ways across various films across the years, even to the present
Theater is acting, and each actor that was involved in this production was fantastic. Page Ogle who played Dolly did a very good job being a sweet talking, yet manipulative woman in the 1890s. I would have critiqued her on just one thing, slow down!
In Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Mulvey states that, “Traditionally, the woman displayed has functioned on two levels: as erotic object for the characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the auditorium, with a shifting tension between the looks on either side of the screen.” (Mulvey 40). A woman’s role in the narrative is bound to her sexuality or the way she
Led by Laura Mulvey, feminist film critics have discussed the difficulty presented to female spectators by the controlling male gaze and narrative generally found in mainstream film, creating for female spectators a position that forces them into limited choices: "bisexual" identification with active male characters; identification with the passive, often victimized, female characters; or on occasion, identification with a "masculinized" active female character, who is generally punished for her unhealthy behavior. Before discussing recent improvements, it is important to note that a group of Classic Hollywood films regularly offered female spectators positive, female characters who were active in controlling narrative, gazing and desiring: the screwball comedy.
In Mildred Pierce, Joan plays Mildred, a female protagonist. Bert, the inactive husband, was jobless and Mildred had to support the family. She left the abuses of the patriarchal authority, opened her own restaurant and became a strong woman who was financially independent. Monte, who ended up leaching on her wealth, is also considered the ‘wrong man’. Waldman calls this the ‘wrong man’ solution: the only thing wrong with the heroine’s former situation of confinement is that she fell victim to the ‘wrong man’. The ‘right man’ will correct the problem’. (Williams, 1988) Joan had 4 marriages, in which the first 3 of them ended in divorce. In one of her marriages, her husband had become comfortable with her being the breadwinner of the family. His incompetence and temperate character soon got on her nerves. Mildred’s rejection of patriarchy, taking over the role as a father, showed the independence of women during post-war
The production code of the day did not allow the characters do be described as crazy or sexual. The production code expressly forbade it. Even scripts had to be read before the movie could be filmed. Once the movie was done, censors viewed it before they allowed it to be released for the general public. Furthermore, you can forget about seeing anything close to a naked woman or a sexual scene on the screen.
The major idea I want to write about has to do with the way Mrs. Hale stands behind Mrs. Wright even though it seems like everyone else especially (the men) would rather lock her up and throw away the key. We see this right away when she gets on the County Attorney for putting down Mrs. Wright’s house keeping. I find this to be wonderfully symbolic in that most women of this time usually allowed the men to say whatever they wanted about their sex, never standing up for themselves or each other
The period between the early 1940s to mid-1960s or so, alternatively, the period between when the musical Oklahoma! (1943) was produced till the time when Hair (1968) was produced, is usually referred to as the Golden Age of the American musical (Kantor, 2010). It is during this period, that most of the noted titles such as “Carousel”, “South Pacific” etc. were produced by the. The 1940s and early 1950s were dominated thoroughly by MGM musicals, while the late 1950s and 1960s belonged to Broadway. Initially, the musicals of this era had simple plots, unchallenging themes, with romantic or comedic characters and lots of singing and dancing.
Westford, Massachusetts: The Murray Printing Company. Company, 1978 Kulik, Sheila F. Home Page. 17 Feb. 2000 http://www.feminist.com/femfilm.html. Rosenberg, Jan. “Feminism in Film.”
...he ideals that women of the time were held to. Instead of focusing on the power women felt after winning the vote she demonstrated how helpless some women still felt in their lives. She painted a clear picture of the struggles a woman would feel being trapped in the position of being happy all the time. How feelings like that can lead to emptiness, alcoholism, and suicide attempts. Dorothy Parker was a woman before her time and left us even today revealing in the ideas and statements she made.
Masculinity, physical strength and a modern outlook were her personality traits as she grew, becoming the “Butch to [her father’s] Nelly” (269) and his opposite in several aspects. A conscious effort was made on her part to set her own pace from what her father expected of her. He was a strong, influential figure within her life. Expressing emotions towards her father was strictly not allowed in the home.
Williams, Linda. "Film Bodies: Genre, Gender and Excess." Braudy and Cohen (1991 / 2004): 727-41. Print.
McKay, Nellie. "Black Theater and Drama in the 1920s: Years of Growing Pains." The Massachusetts Review 28.4 (1987): 615-626. JSTOR. Web. 31 Mar. 2014
middle of paper ... ... Greenberg, H. R. & Greenberg, H. R. "Rescrewed: Pretty Woman's Co-opted Feminism. " Journal of Popular Film and Television 195605th ser. 19.1 (1991): 1-8.
Throughout the whole film you can really see how the women stand their ground and act towards men in the film, such as the girls Polly, Carol, and Trixie when they are discussing how to start Barney Hopkins film, men didn’t really listen to women’s advice but in that particularly scene Barney did listen. Carol one of the main characters, shows independence and strength and when Brad's older brother J. Lawrence professes his love to her but then gets rejected in the result of him not allowing Polly and Brad to have his consent on their marriage, Carol simply says “No” because, how is it right for them to get married but not her friend and his brother due to the fact that Polly is a showgirl as well as Carol. J. Lawrence shows how men were biased in the Great Depression and throughout the years to come, it also relates back to the title of the film “Gold Diggers” which was how Lawrence perceived women who were involved in the show business or not married. Trixie another show girl exemplified how gold diggers were during this era and she portrays a gold digger by taking advantage of Peabody the family’s lawyer and having him pay for her expenses and whatever she may want, although she does like him you can't really
...f women & individuality, the sense of fashion, and the passion in a sexual act distinct it from being sexually objectifying. Similarly, this type of film also needs a higher cognitive skill that could reason and reflect upon the tricky features in the entire picture.