Lecture 5: Classic White Women

Lecture 5:Classic White Women Professor Michael Green Blonde Venus (1932) Directed by Josef Von Sternberg

Previous Lecture • The Good Neighbor Policy and Hollywood Censorship • Hollywood’s Imagined Latin America • Dolores del Rio and Racialized Sexuality • Writing about Film Lesson #3

This Lecture • Feminist Film Theories • “Is the Gaze Male?” • Race and the Female Star in the 1930s” • Writing about Film: The Thesis

Feminist Film Theories Lecture 5: Part I Gone with the Wind (1939) Directed by Victor Fleming

Feminist Film Criticism Feminist film criticism, rather than responding to established theories, emerged from the daily ongoing concerns of women re-evaluating the culture in which they had been socialized and educated. In other words, feminist film criticism did not evolve on a purely intellectual level, but grew out of the female desire for social and cultural change. 5

A Sociological Approach • Feminist criticism began by taking a sociological approach, in which critics assessed texts according to how well roles for women represented them as autonomous and independent. Stella Dallas (1937) Directed by King Vidor

Analyzing Signs • Feminist theorists moved from a sociological approach to analyzing film form using semiotics, or the study of signs. • Signs are made up of signifiers – the form which the sign takes – and signified – the concepts they represent. • Semiotics studies how meaning is constructed, interpreted and understood through signs we create, including cinematic words and images.

Psychoanalysis • The next wave of feminist criticism, influenced by psychoanalysis, studied how meaning is produced in films, rather than just analyzing the content. • These critics argued that Oedipal processes were central to how cinematic texts are produced.

Definition: Psychoanalysis A theory of the psychology of human behavior, a method of research and a system of psychotherapy, originally developed by Sigmund Freud, which concentrates on how the unconscious affects human motivation. Sigmund Freud 9

Definition: Oedipus Complex “In Oedipus Rex, the Aeschylus play, Oedipus unknowingly kills his father and sleeps with his mother. Freud believes that this dramatizes a primal human desire because the process of a child’s socialization revolves around the development of an unconscious libidinal attachment to the mother, alongside a jealous rivalry with the father.” Aidan Arrowsmith, Critical concepts 10

Psychoanalytical Theory Psychoanalytical theory has had a huge impact upon literary and film studies as a mode of interpretation, a theory about the formation of the subject (a theory of identity and language), an apparatus through which to understand the workings of ideology in society and culture. Important theorists include Jacques Lacan and Laura Mulvey. 11

Theory of the Gaze “‘The gaze’ is a technical term which was originally used in film theory in the 1970s but which is now more broadly used by media theorists to refer both to the ways in which viewers look at images of people in any visual medium and to the gaze of those depicted in visual texts. The term 'the male gaze' has become something of a feminist cliché for referring to the voyeuristic way in which men look at women.” Daniel Chandler, Notes on the Gaze 12

Origin of “The Gaze” The concept of “The Gaze” derives from an article called “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” (1975) by Laura Mulvey, a feminist film theorist. It is one of the most widely cited and anthologized articles in film theory. 13

“Visual Pleasure in the Narrative Cinema” • Feminist critic Laura Mulvey’s theory revolves around the pleasure involved in looking at other people’s bodies as (particularly, erotic) objects. In the darkness of the cinema auditorium we may look without being seen either by those on screen or by other members of the audience.

“Visual Pleasure” (continued) • Drawing on psychoanalytical theory, Mulvey argues that cinema facilitates for the viewer both the voyeuristic process of objectification of female characters and also the narcissistic process of identification with an ‘ideal ego’ seen on the screen. • She declares that in patriarchal society ‘pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female’.

A Few More Points • The gaze implies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze’. • Mulvey argues that in order to 'suspend one's disbelief' and to become drawn into a conventional narrative when watching a film one must accept the viewpoint of the camera as though it were one’s own.

“Is the Gaze Male?” Lecture 5: Part II I’m no Angel (1933) Directed by Wesley Ruggles

Using the Theory • In “Is the Gaze Male?” E. Ann Kaplan using psychoanalysis, traditionally a male domain, and Mulvey’s “Gaze” theory to make arguments about women in film. • She uses the theories to understand the way in which women have been socialized in patriarchy. • She sees this as a jumping off point for changing the way women are represented in film and changing their lives in society.

Patriarchal Ideology “Psychoanalysis [is] a crucial tool for explaining the needs, desires and male-female positioning that are reflected in film. The signs in the Hollywood film convey the patriarchal ideology that underlies our social structures and that constructs women in very specific ways - ways that reflect patriarchal needs, the patriarchal unconscious.” E. Ann Kaplan, “Is the Gaze Male?” 19

The Function of Melodrama One of the ways in which women have been socialized into patriarchy is their representation in film. Kaplan argues that melodrama functions to expose the constraints and limitations that the family places on women and at the same time gets women to accept those constraints as normal and inevitable. 20

Genre Exclusion Historically, melodrama tends to be the only genre in which women are central. Women are generally excluded from the central roles in Hollywood genres. Oedipal issues drive melodrama which features such themes as Illicit love relationships, mother/child relationships and husband/wife relationships. Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Stella Dallas. 21

Gender Roles in Society “Our culture is deeply committed to myths of demarcated sex differences, called “masculine” and “feminine,” which revolve first on a complex gaze apparatus and second on dominance-submission patterns. This positioning of the two sex genders in representation clearly privileges the male; however, women have recently been permitted to step into the masculine role as long as the man steps into her position.” E. Ann Kaplan, “Is the Gaze Male?” 22

Role Reversal Tomb Raider (2001) Directed by Simon West 23

Conclusion Ultimately Kaplan uses psychoanalytic theory to argue how women take pleasure from the objectification of the gaze how they have been positioned as silent, absent and marginal. She concludes that it is this very exclusion from male culture and language that has left them room to affect change both in representation and society. 24

Race and the Female Star of the 1930s Lecture 5: Part III Blonde Venus (1932) Directed by Josef von Sternberg

Subversive Feminism James Snead argues that 1930s female stars such as Shirley Temple and Mae West pursued an agenda within their films of outwitting the male-dominated world, thereby trying to somewhat equalize the gender power balance – at least in terms of cinematic representation. He argues that they accomplish this within the preferred patriarchal roles of women as both child-like and sexual beings. 26

Sex and Race Snead argues that Mae West achieves much of her sex-goddess stature – her mythification – with the complicity, and even encouragement, of black women. He claims that the filmmakers represent black women as swarthy and elemental, then compare them with West’s white and ethereal beauty in order to elevate it. Scenes of black maids dressing white women often served to set up this contrast. 27

Black Maids/White Women “The scenes of the maids adorning West with various articles of clothing . . . are classical instances of the ‘black maids dressing or grooming white woman’ sequences, which reach their pinnacle six years later in the famous dressing scene between Vivien Leigh and Hattie McDaniel in Gone with the Wind.” James Snead, “Angel, Venus, Jezebel: Race and the Female Star in Three Thirties Films” Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Gone with the Wind. 28

A Degree of Racial Solidarity Snead points out that though blacks do not ultimately share in the benefits of the mythification, they still share a sense of female solidarity that crosses racial lines. He says that West’s films are about consolidating women’s power in spite of a limited social context, These films don’t seen women – black or white – as inferior to men, and are thus revolutionary. 29

Blonde Venus In Blonde Venus, Marlene Dietrich’s character represents a normal white housewife and mother, who is accidentally propelled by purest accident into a life of “extreme degradation and extreme elevation.” Her journey will both subvert and confirm established 1930s codes of “properly” representing race and gender. 30

Beauty and Whiteness Snead argues that film’s visual style represents Dietrich as a blonde goddess who who is able to transcend the concerns of ordinary men and women. He says that even the title emphasizes the connection between beauty (“Venus”) and whiteness (“blonde”). 31

Overcoming Darkness Even though Helen enters realms of metaphorical and actual darkness, her blonde beauty becomes the sign of internal heroism that allows her to overcome darkness. 32

Unifying Racial and Sexual Opposites “Yet this heroism, as we shall see, comes from her ability to integrate into her “female blondness” the categories of blackness and maleness. She becomes an Odyssean hero whose range of experience extends to the widest possible extremes – in this case, the heroine can even unify domains of racial and sexual opposites.” James Snead, “Angel, Venus, Jezebel: Race and the Female Star in Three Thirties Films” 33

“Hot Voodoo” Number One extreme is dramatized in the “Hot Voodoo” number. Helen reveals her feminine whiteness from within a gorillas suit. She breaks taboos and threatens patriarchy and whiteness by absorbing blackness. Snead argues that this figure of the “Africanized Blonde” becomes the main symbol for the fallen Helen. Pause the lecture and watch clip #1 from Blonde Venus. 34

Blonde Venus and Black Maids Dietrich’s character in the movie also follows the 1930s trend of the white woman having black maids. The maids are desexualized and provide symbolic contrast to the white woman. One maid is played by Hattie McDaniel, who Snead says often played dual movie roles as aesthetic foil and maternal surrogate for the mythified white woman. Pause the lecture and watch clip #2 from Blonde Venus. 35

Disguised Inequalities As in I’m No Angel, the black and the white women work together to undermine the structure of male laws and punishments. Their solidarity, however, disguises the real inequalities between the women and the black sidekicks disappear once Helen completes her symbolic journey through “blackness” and “squalor, and arrives on top again at the Paris club. 36

Usurping Masculinity “[In the Paris club] the “Blonde Venus” has now usurped, not merely black vigor, but male privilege. Here, mythification elevates Dietrich over white men as well as black women, while borrowing crucial characteristics of each. Her masculinized appearance stands out from a background consisting solely of elegantly feminine dancers.” James Snead, “Angel, Venus, Jezebel: Race and the Female Star in Three Thirties Films” 37

Blonde Venus as Goddess “Dietrich has, in fact, come full circle. In the course of becoming “well-rounded,” she has assimilated and overcome the realms of white motherhood, black womanhood, black manhood (by adopting the tall, dark, primitive trappings of the gorilla), and white manhood. Truly only a goddess could exhibit such ubiquity and potency with such apparent ease.” James Snead, “Angel, Venus, Jezebel: Race and the Female Star in Three Thirties Films” 38

Conflicting Ideological Agenda Despite her subversive adventures, Helen goes home in the end, re-establishing the convention of the nuclear family and the “normal” role of the white woman. The social misbehavior and usurping of blackness and masculinity is put into the context of an undesirable nightmare. The Blonde Venus disappears as do the threats to whiteness and patriarchy. Pause the lecture and watch clip #3 from Blonde Venus. 39

Writing About Film : The Thesis Pandora’s Box (1929) Directed by G.W. Pabst Lecture 5: Part IV

Summary of Interpretive Writing • An interpretive claim presents an argument about a film’s meaning and significance. • These kind of claims address a film’s themes and abstract ideas, its social relevance, its historical context, and its influence, among other topics. • But they do more than identify themes; they go further, making an argument about what a film does with those themes.

The Thesis Statement • A thesis statement is the central claim of your paper - an assertion or argument that you try to prove through evidence. You must support the thesis statement in every paragraph and section of your paper.

Developing a Thesis In developing a thesis, start by asking yourself questions, such as: How is the film intriguing or disturbing? What makes the film noteworthy? Does the film use filmmaking techniques in an original or pronounced way? How is the film situated historically? What is the film’s affect on specific audiences? Such questions will help you come up with your thesis. 43

Purpose of Your Thesis Though the thesis is technically your opinion, it is not evaluative the way a film review is. In a critical essay, your thesis is designed to help others understand: how the film functions how meaning is constructed and perpetuated How the film produces social and cultural effects The film’s relationship to the film industry How the film is historical 44

Thesis Example #1 • In this paper, I argue that Blonde Venus (1932) presents a traditional representation of gender roles, using narrative and visual elements to perpetuate an ideology of patriarchy and naturalize the idea of women as dependent mothers and homemakers.

Thesis Example #2 Despite the fact that Blonde Venus represents traditional gender stereotypes, the movie is both progressive and subversive in representing women. In this paper, I will argue that Blonde Venus, through narrative and visual style, challenges patriarchy by criticizing the traditional social roles of women as mothers and homemakers. 46

Supporting your Thesis • Once you have your thesis laid out, you need to start thinking about how you are going to support it using evidence - both from the movie or movies you are analyzing and from outside sources. • You can sum up the structure of an argumentative essay with the acronym TREE: Thesissupported by Reasons, which rest upon Evidence and Examples.

End of Lecture 5 Next Lecture: Ethnic Assimilation Hollywood-Style

Lecture 5: Classic White Women