TOPIC+Female+Body+in+Performance

The Female Body in Performance
//America's Involvement in and Emergence out of WWII (1942-'49): The effects on the image of women in American performance//

// Contemporary Feminist Theory // // In front of the camera (Bombshells, Pin-ups, and the Girl Back Home) // // Musical Theater/Theater Cinema // // Wartime performance (The USO show) //

Follow our page from top to bottom, and join in our discovery of the female body in performance. We're examining specifically the era surrounding America's involvement in WWII - and how this period of time shook the American perception of the female body. Through the many different interpretations and artistic media we have from this time period (including theatre, film, wartime music, and photography), we have evidence of this time in history being extremely significant in challenging a conceived binary in regards to women. Seeking freedom from construction solely based of off a male gaze, women and their bodies of this time start to color with shades of grey a spectrum that had been historically black and white. Beginning with information from two integral theorists looking back on this era, we will frame the definition of the traditional gender binary and how women of the 1940s performed their bodies in order to break open that binary.

= =
 * Feminist Theory **


 * Laura Mulvey**:


 * According to film and feminist theorist, Laura Mulvey explains in her article Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema that the patriarchal society has an unconscious that controls the way in which the world is interpreted, particularly the world of film. Relating to psychoanalysis, Mulvey labels the patriarchal society as one that runs on “phallocentrism”. The irony in phallocentrism is that it cannot exist without the other, the other being its counterpart: the woman or the castrated woman. Sticking closely to Freud’s ideas of “penis envy” and “castration anxiety” Mulvey makes it clear that in the patriarchal unconscious, a woman exists only in relation to man, she is the male other, she states that, “she can exist only in relation to castration and cannot transcend it" (7). The responsibility of the woman in this society is to exist only as bearer of meaning and not the maker of meaning, allowing men to subject her to her image and use her image to live out fantasies.**


 * Relating back to Freud, Mulvey defines “scopophilia”, which by definition means, “taking other people as objects, subjecting them to a controlling gaze and curious gaze” or “the pleasure in looking at another person as an erotic object” (8). Scopophilia works the greatest in the cinema setting because of the control given to the audience; the person onscreen does not have the ability to make the audience stop watching them. In addition, the theatre itself provides as a perfect setting for the voyeuristic audience. The dark seating in the auditorium enables the power of an even more pleasurable controlling gaze because of the assumption that no one is watching you, instead those around you are fixated on the people existing onscreen.**


 * Women have an obligation to fulfill their role as “the image” and men therefore fulfill their role as “bearer of look.” As objects, Mulvey says that, “women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness. Women displayed as sexual object is the leit-motif of erotic spectacle: from pin-ups to strip-tease…she holds the look…and signifies male desire” (11). Men, as the bearers of the look cannot handle sexual objectification and therefore instead, they project themselves onscreen and identify with the male character/like. This is because the male like is a better version of the male spectator; he has more control of the woman than he does.**


 * The male unconscious has to find a way to deal with or even escape castration anxiety. Mulvey offers several ways in which the male unconscious chooses to do so. First, by “investigating the woman, demystifying her mystery," second, the male unconscious can turn the other into an object or a “fetish so that it becomes reassuring rather than dangerous” (13). The first can also be called voyeurism, whereas the second can be called “fetishistic scopophilia” which according to Mulvey, “builds up the physical beauty of the object, transforming it into something satisfying in itself.” An example of this is in film, the male gaze is made to believe that the way they are viewing the woman onscreen is natural. The editing manipulates the male gaze into believing that the way they are viewing the woman onscreen is exactly how they would be viewing her as if she were standing right in front of him. The camera technology sutures the male into the scene through the use of “invisible editing.” A good example of such editing is the perfect combination of close-ups of the woman in order to make her look perfect.**


 * Judith Butler:**


 * Feminist theorist, Judith Butler in her article, Performative Acts and Gender Construction: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory, explains that there is a difference between sex and gender. Sex deals with the biological context whereas gender “is instituted through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and enactments of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self.” Butler explains that gender is a performance and that due to the biological factors of sex, there are certain beliefs about the ways in which a woman should behave in society.**


 * Butler refers to Simon de Beauvoir and the idea that gender “is an historical situation rather than a natural fact,” and that “the body is understood to be an active process of embodying certain cultural and historical possibilities” (519). Butler states that this means that gender does not exist until one situates oneself into the context of whatever gender one wants to become. In other words, “to be a woman is to have //become// a woman, to compel the body to conform to an historical idea of ‘woman,’ to induce the body to become a cultural sign” (522). Butler explains that what Beauvoir means by “historical situation” is that the body feels it necessary to adhere to certain social norms and expectations. The reproduction of gender throughout time can be something on a “large political scale, as when women first enter a profession or gain certain rights” (524) or it can be a smaller gender reenactment where, “gendered identity takes place through the various ways in which bodies are acted in relationship to the deeply entrenched or sedimented expectations of gendered experience” (523). Meaning, that overtime these beliefs of what is acceptable in society of certain genders is embedded in us and therefore assumed natural.**


 * Butler claims that in acting out gender; one is quite theatrical, stating “the acts by which gender is constituted bear similarities to performative acts within theatrical contexts." While referring to Merleau-Ponty, Butler argues that the “body is not self-identical” instead, one is constantly acting out what one perceives to be one’s body (521).**


 * Butler examines the individual existing in feminist theory and the idea that “personal is political.” For Butler the acts of individuals throughout history affect the gendering of woman for generations to come. She explains, “my situation does not cease to be mine just because it is the situation of someone else, and my acts, individual as they are, nevertheless reproduce the situation of my gender”(523).**


 * Another individualistic trait Butler brings to the table is that of a woman separating herself from man. Butler explains that, “in a culture in which the false universal of ‘man’ has for the most part been presupposed as coextensive with humanness itself, feminist theory has sought with success to bring female specificity into visibility and to rewrite the history of culture in terms which acknowledge the presence…and the oppression of woman” (523).**

During the war, women were encouraged to join the workforce to accomplish their “citizen duties” while men were away at war. They were not, however, welcomed nicely. Immediately upon women entering the workforce issues arose. In attempts to solve these issues, President Roosevelt appointed a Woman’s Advisory Committee (WAC) and in addition to this committee was the War Manpower Commission (WMC). Women were completely capable and willing to join the already existing WMC however, the addition of this committee was due to purely to the refusal of a member to allow a woman to enter any meeting. The WAC was created to keep woman at bay or to put woman ‘off in the corner’ (Chafe 152). This was made especially clear when month after month women would travel to Washington to express their concerns regarding inequality and they were continually ignored. They even went so far as to not allow the women who were apart of the WAC to not be allowed into their own meetings. In other words, women’s rights were being decided for them by a committee they were supposedly apart of, which really consisted of men making decisions and laws (153-154).

Mulvey discusses the woman as “bearing the look” whereas man, “makes meaning”. This idea is clearly demonstrated in the way women were treated in the workforce during WWII. Women were asked to step in for men, performing their jobs. According to William Chafe in his book titled //The American Woman//, “contracts [for women’s positions] specified that woman’s membership in a union and their seniority, should last only for the duration of the war” (157). Chafe also clearly defines the mentality of authority during the time stating, “from a humanitarian point of view, too many women should not stay in the labor force. The home is the basic American institution” (176). In order to fill the position of “the bearer of look” women needed to make sure that the only reason they were being welcome was for the country in support of //men//. In other words, she was of secondary necessity. Chafe states: “a legal brief presented by the United Electical Workers (UEW) to the [National War Labor Board] (NWLB) in 1945 suggested that many unions supported equal pay less out of a commitment to justice for women workers than out of concern for preserving a high wage for the returning veteran. If females replaced males at a lower rate of pay…the soldier coming back from war would find his job reclassified as women’s work with a woman’s wage” (157-158). This fact shows the belief that women were overstepping their boundaries; they were thought to be going beyond the “bearer of look” role and attempting to step into the “maker of meaning” role. In addition, by entering into the workforce women were threatening the patriarchal ideal and society, as Mulvey states she, “symbolizes the castration threat by her real absence of a penis.” To support this notion, it was very clear that men did not want women to enter into the workforce not only because, “the primary responsibility of wives and mothers was to care for the household and rear children” (159) but also because of the threat women posed to the legitimacy of the patriarchal workforce. Women were believed to not be able to handle the workforce when they asked for assistance in doing domestic work in addition to their jobs outside the home. There was a scare that the tendency of women to fight for their equality would encourage others to do the same and the domestic responsibilities would be left behind (159). Authority figures even went as far to say that women were causing juvenile delinquency due to their aspirations of being apart of the workforce (176). The increase of women interested in the workforce and those involved in it created a need for childcare centers, this was believed to be apart of the “childhood delinquency” epidemic. Chafe states, “the establishment of child care centers…required a willingness to provide married women with a special form of subsidy to enable them to participate more freely in the job market” (159). This clearly relates back to the threat Mulvey mentions, the threat that women could have more involvement in patriarchal society than what was intended.

Sources:

Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” //Theatre Journal// 40.4 (1988): 519-531. Print.

Chafe, William. //The American Woman: Her Changing Social, Economic, and Political Roles, 1920-1970//. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.

Mulvey, Laura. "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." //screen// (1975): 6-18. Print.

=// Rosie The // Riveter = =//Construction of the Female through Wartime Propaganda and Advertisement// =  “Rosie the Riveter” is the name of a fictional character who came to symbolize the millions of real women who filled America’s factories, munitions plants, and shipyards during World War II. In later years, Rosie also became an iconic American image in the fight to broaden women’s civil rights. After the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the full involvement of the U.S. in World War II, the male work force was depleted to fill the ranks of the U.S. military. This came precisely at a time when America’s need for factory output and munitions soared. The U.S. government, with the help of advertising agencies such as J. Walter Thompson, mounted extensive campaigns to encourage women to join the work force. Magazines and posters played a key role in the effort to recruit women for the wartime workforce. //Saturday Evening Post// cover artist, Norman Rockwell, is generally credited with creating one of the popular “Rosie the Riveter” images used to encourage women to become wartime workers. Rockwell’s “Rosie,” //shown at right//, appeared on the cover of the May 29th,1943 edition of //The Saturday Evening Post//. The //Post// was then one of the nation’s most popular magazines, with a circulation of about 3 million copies each week. In addition to Rockwell’s Rosie, however, another image would become the more commonly known “Rosie the Riveter” image, //shown on the left.//

**Westinghouse Posters** In 1942, Pittsburgh artist J. Howard Miller was hired by the Westinghouse Company’s War Production Coordinating Committee to create a series of posters for the war effort. One of these posters became the famous “We Can Do It!” image — an image that in later years would also become “Rosie the Riveter,” though not intended at its creation. Miller based his “We Can Do It!” poster on a United Press photograph taken of Michigan factory worker Geraldine Doyle. Its intent was to help recruit women to join the work force. At the time of the poster’s release the name “Rosie” was not associated with the image. The poster – one of many in Miller’s Westinghouse series – was not initially seen much beyond one Midwest Westinghouse factory where it was displayed for two weeks in February 1942. It was only later, around the 1970s and 1980s, that the Miller poster was rediscovered and became famous as “Rosie The Riveter.” But both images of Rosie – Rockwell’s and Miller’s – were used to help enlist women in the WWII workforce. In later years, and in fact up to present times, these images have became iconic symbols of women’s rights struggles, and are occasionally adapted for other political campaigns as well. But it was during the World War II years that “Rosie the Riveter” got her start.

Rosie the Riveter appears to have come first in song, not in art. In 1942, a song titled “Rosie the Riveter” was written by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb and was issued by Paramount Music Corporation of New York. The song was released in early 1943 and was played on the radio and broadcast nationally. It was also performed by various artists with popular band leaders of that day. The song became quite popular, particularly one version recorded by the Four Vagabonds, an African-American group — a version that caught on and rose on the //Hit Parade// While other girls attend their fav’rite cocktail bar Sipping Martinis, munching caviar There’s a girl who’s really putting them to shame Rosie is her name All the day long whether rain or shine She’s a part of the assembly line She’s making history, working for victory Rosie the Riveter Keeps a sharp lookout for sabotage Sitting up there on the fuselage male will do** Rosie the Riveter Rosie’s got a boyfriend, Charlie Charlie, he’s a Marine Rosie is protecting Charlie Working overtime on the riveting machine When they gave her a production “E” She was as proud as a girl could be There’s something true about Red, white, and blue about Rosie the Riveter Everyone stops to admire the scene Rosie at work on the B-Nineteen She’s never twittery, nervous or jittery Rosie the Riveter What if she’s smeared full of oil and grease Doing her bit for the old Lendlease She keeps the gang around They love to hang around Rosie the Riveter Rosie buys a lot of war bonds That girl really has sense Wishes she could purchase more bonds Putting all her cash into national defense Senator Jones who is “in the know” Shouted these words on the radio Berlin will hear about Moscow will cheer about Rosie the Riveter! Paramount Music Corporation, NY, 1942. [|Listen to song at NPR] ||  **Real Life Rosies** In June 1943, about two weeks after Rockwell’s //Saturday Evening Post// cover appeared on newsstands, the press picked up the story of a woman worker named Rose Bonavita-Hickey. She and partner Jennie Florio, drilled 900 holes and placed a record 3,345 rivets in a torpedo-bombing Avenger aircraft at the former General Motors Eastern Aircraft Division in North Tarrytown, New York. Hickey’s feat was recognized with a personal letter from President Roosevelt, and became identified as one of many real-life “Rosie the Riveters.” Other women workers doing riveting — as well as others generally who were filling heavy-industry “men’s” jobs all across the nation - e.g., “Wendy-the-welders,” etc. – also gained media attention during the war years. Sybil Lewis, an African-American riveter who worked for Lockheed Aircraft in Los Angeles, would later provide this description of women riveters: “The women worked in pairs. I was the riveter and this big, strong, white girl from a cotton farm in Arkansas worked as the bucker. The riveter used a gun to shoot rivets through the metal and fasten it together. The bucker used a bucking bar on the other side of the metal to smooth out the rivets. Bucking was harder than shooting rivets; it required more muscle. Riveting required more skill.” In early August 1943, //Life// magazine featured a full cover photograph of a woman steelworker, along with an inside photo-story spread of other “Rosie” steelworkers, some quite dramatic. The photographs were taken by Margaret Bourke-White, the famous //Life// photojournalist who was the first female war correspondent and the first woman to be allowed to work in combat zones during World War II.
 * First, The Song **
 * =  ** “Rosie the Riveter” **
 * That little frail can do more than a

Bourke-White had spent much of WWII in the thick of things overseas, but also managed to do domestic stories such as the “Women in Steel” spread, which included at least a dozen photographs displayed in //Life’s// August 9, 1943 edition. These photos captured women at work in the American steel industry, including some taken at Tubular Alloy Steel Corp. of Gary, Indiana and Carnegie-Illinois Steel Company. Some of the photos showed the women wielding torches and working on heavy plate and structural steel with sparks flying, with others working in midst of giant steel caldrons that carried the molten steel. A display of these and other Rosie photographs, culled from the //Life// magazine archive, can be seen at [|“The Many Faces of Rosie The Riveter, 1941-1945].”

Need More Women ** The government, meanwhile, continued to call for more women in the workforce. They needed women to work in all kinds of jobs, not just those in munitions plants or military-related factory work. By September 1943, the Magazine War Guide was asking magazine publishers to participate in a “Women at Work Cover Promotion.” They wanted publishers and others to push all kinds of employment as vital “war jobs.” Everyday “civilian jobs” were vital, too, not just the factory jobs. The slogan for this promotion was: “The More Women at Work the Sooner We Win.” Norman Rockwell’s portrayal of American ‘liberty girl’ in her ‘jack-of-all-trades’ mode, capable of doing many kinds of civilian jobs to help the War effort – September 4, 1943, Saturday Evening Post. The //Saturday Evening Post// used Norman Rockwell again to produce a cover for this campaign – a cover that appeared on its September 4th, 1943 issue. It was entitled “Rosie To The Rescue.” **For this cover, Rockwell created a “liberty girl” dressed in patriotic clothes but cast as a jack-of-all-trades composite, capable of doing any number of civilian jobs – nu****rse, mechanic, telephone operator, milkman, farmer, etc. This “liberty girl” image did not resonate the same way that Rosie did, but Rockwell and the publishers were still doing their part for the War effort.** Rockwell and //The Saturday Evening Post// were only part of a much bigger campaign to move women into the workplace. Motion pictures, newspapers, radio, museums, employee publications, and in-store displays were all involved. Some 125 million advertisements were produced as posters and full-page magazine ads.

In fact, the government was quite direct about the propaganda campaign it needed to mount. According to the Basic Program Plan for Womanpower in the Office of War Information, for example: “These jobs will have to be glorified as a patriotic war service if American women are to be persuaded to take them and stick to them. Their importance to a nation engaged in total war must be convincingly presented.”

During the WWII years, the government’s war-related “get-women-to-work” campaigning opened the door to women in the workforce, setting off a key change for women’s civil rights and altering the demographics of the workforce in later years. At the end of December 1941, there were about 13 million women at work. Rosie the Riveter and other campaigns helped to increase that number grow to 15 million in early 1943. By 1944, there were 20 million women in the workforce, with 6 million of those working in factories. Although many of the jobs held by women during WWII were initially returned to men after the war ended, the workforce would never be the same again. Sybil Lewis, who worked as a Lockheed riveter during those years stated: “You came out to California, put on your pants, and took your lunch pail to a man’s job. This was the **beginning of women’s feeling that they could do something more.**” Inez Sauer, who worked as a Boeing tool clerk in the war years, put it this way:
 * Opening The Door **
 * “My mother warned me when I took the job that I would never be the same. She said, ‘You will never want to go back to being a housewife.’ At that time I didn’t think it would change a thing. But she was right, it definitely did. . . . at Boeing I found a freedom and an independence that I had never known. After the war I could never go back to playing bridge again, being a club woman . . . when I knew there were things you could use your mind for. The war changed my life completely. I guess you could say, at thirty-one, I finally grew up.”**
 * Women discovered a new sense of pride, dignity and independence in their work and their lives.** Many realized their work was just as valuable as men’s, though for years, and to this day, an earnings disparity still exists. During the war years, however, a number of women workers joined unions, gaining major new benefits from labor representation. Black and Hispanic women also gained entry to major industrial plants, factory and other jobs throughout the country. But the fight for equal rights in the workplace and equal pay for women was just beginning, and would be fought over many years following WWII.



Rosie in Performance of Art & Body - Film and Figurine ** America’s working women were praised during the war, but when the war ended they were encouraged to return to homemaking.

As the women’s rights movement emerged in the 1970s, Rosie the Riveter imagery was called upon for use in campaigning and popular literature. By the 1980s, the historical importance of the WWII “Rosie workers” began to be revisited in books and film. One documentary film entitled //, [|The Life and Times of Rosie the Riveter]//, was made by Connie Field, who originally got the idea for the film after attending a California Rosie-the-Riveter reunion. The film, released in September 1981, is based on extensive research and some 700 interviews. It profiles five females who were working in low-paying jobs before the war and become wartime workers. The five “Rosies” recall their WW II-era experiences working in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and San Francisco. Their stories are interwoven with archival recruitment films, stills, posters, ads, and music from the period. The film’s views contrast with some of the popular legends and mythology surrounding the Rosies of WW II, including the fact that many Rosies were denied opportunities to continue working once the war ended. The film is regarded as one of the best accounts of women working in heavy industry in World War II, and also of home-front life during those years. In the film’s first year, some 1 million viewers saw it, a very high number for a documentary. It has also won various film festival prizes and was dubbed into six languages. In 1996, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

Earlier accounts of Rosie through film appeared in the 1940s. Some promotional films were produced as well. Hollywood actor Walter Pidgeon, working for the government War Bond effort, made a short film promoting the war effort in which he recruited a real “Rosie the Riveter” worker named Rose Will Monroe whom he met while touring Ford Motor’s Willow Run aircraft factory. The short film was shown in theaters between featured films to encourage viewers to buy War Bonds. Unrelated to the War Bond effort, a Hollywood movie called //Rosie the Riveter// was also made in 1944; it was a B-grade romantic wartime comedy made by Republic studios with Jane Frazee as Rosie Warren who worked in an airplane factory.

‘When America marched off to war, the women marched into the factories,’ says this 1984 movie promo. ‘From then on...nothing was ever the same again.’ In 1984, Goldie Hawn’s Hollywood film, //Swing Shift,// made with Warner Brothers, also built its storyline around the Rosie workers of World War II. That film also starred Christine Lahti, Kurt Russell, Fred Ward and Ed Harris. //Swing Shift// focuses more on the personal relationships of its WW II-era female workers played by Hawn and Lahti while their husbands are away in the war. This film, however, also fairly portrayed what happened to women workers at the war’s end as male workers returned and the female workers were no longer needed. In the 1990s, Rosie the Riveter imagery and stories continued to pop up in various venues. //Smithsonian// magazine did a story on WWII era Rosie poster art in its March 1994 edition, putting the J. Howard Miller “We Can Do It” Rosie on the cover. In November 1998, the U.S. Postal Service authorized a new first-class postage stamp honoring the WW II-era working women, also using the “We-Can-Do-It!” Rosie.

And by this time, too, there was all manner of Rosie-the-Riveter paraphernalia available – from T-shirts to Rosie action figures and bobble head dolls. The Rosie action figure, for example, is a five-inch, all-plastic toy replica with moveable arms, legs and head. It also comes with a lunch box and a “riveting action” rivet gun. One of the toy’s merchants – having a little fun with his promotion – offered the following play scenarios: “…You can use her [Rosie] to beckon your Barbies out of their mansions and into the factories to do their part for the US of A. …Or, you can ignore her historical significance and pit her against your WWF [World Wrestling Federation] action figures in a cage match battle extreme!” Back in the real world, however, thousands of older Rosies who had actually worked in the wartime production frenzy, were getting up in years, and many were recalling their experiences in their wartime jobs. Some were having reunions, while others began communicating with one another. In 1998, the “American Rosie the Riveter Association” was formed in Warm Springs, Gerogia and is today headquarterd in Birmingham, Alabama. By 2004 this organization had 1,400-members. In California, meanwhile, something else was afoot: a National Park (follows below the Rockwell sidebar).

Works Cited: Doyle, Jack. "Rosie The Riveter, 1942-1945." //The Pop History Dig//. N.p., 23 August 2009. Web. 3 May 2010. A 1944 magazine ad for Tangee lipstick read that, to a degree, **" . . . we’re still the weaker sex . . . It’s up to us to appear as alluring and lovely as possible . . . Whether you’re in or out of uniform, you’ll want to be completely appealing and feminine – you’ll want delightful satin-smooth lips and all the glamour of a silky, petal-smooth complexion."**

Looking good was essential for stateside women during the Second World War In early 1940, marketing stressed the importance of women’s appearance and their obligation of bringing beauty into family life. **The ongoing theme ‘beauty is duty’ prevailed.**

The war, bringing on many civilian shortages, substitution became a way of life stateside, affecting daily life. Even though, powder, eye makeup and lipsticks were considered necessary for persevering wartime spirits, some ingredients were no longer available. Eighteen line of goods affecting style were in short supply, from castor oil and zinc to acetone.

One of these items, zinc oxide used in face powder was also needed in large quantities in tire plants. The soldiers needed tires for their jeeps, thereby forcing beauty suppliers to search for substitutions. The talc in face powder was imported from Italy and since we were at war with Italy, they shipped no more. The substitution for talc came from India and Manchuria which were countries thousands of miles away. Shipment was scarce. India was also a primary origin for titanium and titanium dioxide can replace zinc oxide which was also being seized by the paint and paper companies who used it for a zinc substitute.

Gums in the goo for women’s hair setting lotion and henna in most hair tints and dyes, instituted in the Near East. Nail polish, nail polish removers and hair-waving lotions all consisted of substantial industrial chemical ingredients. Shipments could not be depended on and all the above were in short supply.

Military and civilian provisions included the same manpower, facilities and fibers. The government wanted to conserve materials to prevent shortages and also keep morale up, without harming standing industries. The War Production Board of the federal government established a series of regulations constituting many industries including cosmetics, lingerie and apparel. Private citizens had to adjust any new clothing to the conditions with very few exceptions.

Anything using vast amounts of cloth or thought unnecessary were not allowed, such as: Dolman, balloon and leg-of-mutton sleeves, aprons, overskirts, decorative trim, patch pockets and petticoats. Cited: Cox, Kim. "World War II American Fashion ." //Kim Kox, Author//. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 May 2010. <[].>.

Pre-War and Post-War 1940s Fashion Trends
A shift in dress happened from during WWII to after the war ended. The styles of this time signified the darkness of this particular time in history. One of the most significant examples of wartime fashion are the uniforms worn by military members and their brides. The groom would usually wear his service uniform and the bride would wear something that today’s time would consider a simple office skirt suit.

Fashion Attitudes During Wartime
Before the war, frivolous and glamorous style was out. Additionally, clothing rations limited the types of materials available for making and/or obtaining clothes. For instance, there was only a limited supply of wool during this time, starting in 1942. Instead, artificial fibers such as viscose and rayon were used. These materials were derived from wood pulp. The colors of clothing during this time were of plain and solemn colors. Most outfits were of a solid color such as ivory (for women’s wedding suits), black, navy, or other dark colors.

Quite a bit of mending was happening during the war to make clothes last as long as they could. Additionally, the British government had made it unlawful to participate in the practice of using excess buttons, decorative trimmings, and extra stitching (i.e. what would be used for folds, pleats, gathers, etc.) on clothing Practicality was of great essence during this time. Clothing was meant just to cover the body, and it was designed for the busy men and women involved in fighting or working during this time. Perhaps one could liken World War II fashion to that of a perpetual funeral. Even wedding clothing was quite drab during this decade. The only difference was that women’s wedding suits were usually white or ivory-colored.

The 1940s saw two distinctive styles in women's clothing. From the beginning of World War II in 1939 till the dawn of the New Look in 1947, women's dresses were knee-length and featured padded shoulders – one of the few adornments in clothing that was otherwise simple, thanks to wartime rationing. Sportswear became more common and women used a lot of ingenuity in mixing separates to make a wardrobe seem more diverse than it was. Homemade accessories and elaborate curls allowed women to show their flair without expense or waste. Hats, especially made from fabrics recycled from older pieces, went wild. Silhouettes were austere, but even in suits or factory overalls, curls and bright lipstick kept the look feminine. With jackets shorter, the peplum became hugely popular, helping to narrow the hips while showing off a trim waist. Clothes were simple and practical, but women still managed to look attractive even during the hardest days of the war. With the war over and materials available again, the Paris couturiers, who had been sidelined during the occupation of France, once again took the fashion helm. Christian Dior pioneered the New Look, which featured a nipped waist, longer lengths and fuller skirts, with yards and yards of fabric used and a more classically feminine image created. The women who had come to love the simplicity of the wartime styles protested, but this time, Paris won.

Evening Wear
For a young, unmarried woman, time off work was time for fun, even with few men around. Evening dresses were still long, but not nearly as elaborate as in former decades, even for the wealthiest members of society. Formal gowns were rarely worn at the height of the war. Even the [|Oscars] shunned formal attire, with attendees wearing cocktail dresses and even [|suits] instead. When women went dancing, the preference again was for the knee-length rayon dresses worn during the day. These dresses were best for swing and jitterbug dancing, exuberant dances popular because they allowed everyone to let off steam in an uncertain time. The stocking shortage meant that women wore leg makeup, and some did indeed paint lines down their legs to look like seams, as is often shown in films. Women compensated for the simple dresses and lack of stockings with bakelite jewelry and fake flowers in their hair, adding color and verve to a dark time. 

Influence of Wartime London Fashion Designers
In the year 1942, a group known as the Incorporated Society of Fashion Designers created over 30 different new utility clothing designs. This particular group most likely was the one that made the most out of the simplistic clothing style trend of this time. For the women, the suits that this company made were not as broad-shoulders as others (but were still squared). The jackets and skirts of these suits were more contoured to the shape of a woman’s body, and looked more feminine than other box-cut patterned women’s suits of the time. The London clothing fashion design group made the most of the wartime limitations. For instance, they learned how to make a woman’s suit blazer (suit jacket) look eloquent event with three buttons. These suits were more affordable by those who were more affluent. A very popular suit that women wore during the war was named the “siren suit”, after the act of civilians hiding in an air raid shelter to protect themselves. These suits were made from a tartan cloth.

World War II Accessories
Women during World War II typically wore head scarves, turbans, wedged-heal shoes (versus high heels), and the kangaroo cloak. Safety for women while working in the factory was just as important as style during this time. The kangaroo cloak was a very signature piece of wartime clothing/accessory. It had huge pockets for stuffing household items into while running for shelter after the siren would go off. The shoes that women wore during these times contained cork. This was largely in part as a result of the shortage of leather. Clogs were worn quite a bit during these times as well. Both of these types of shoes were very comfortable to walk in, especially the cork-soled ones. Hand knitted winter gloves and scarves were also very popular during these times. Additionally, the “Make Do and Mend” motto of these times included created shorts out of sheets (or pillow cases), coats out of warm blankets, and wedding dresses out of nightgowns. Industrial cloth, parachute silk, and parachute nylon were some of the household materials that clothing was made of. Furthermore, handbags were made from milk tops. Ankle socks were worn more often than pantyhose, which were rare.

After the War
Although the classic 1940s look is the wartime style, from the curls and hats down to the ankle-strap shoes, the postwar look held sway through the [|1950s]. Women's fashion would not regain that much comfort and practicality until the clothing revolution of the 1960s. However, what the women of the 1940s had forged was not forgotten. Trousers never went completely out of fashion again. Women, having had a taste of the working life, fought hard to stay in the workplace.

Cited: "1940s Fashions Including Prices." //The People History//. N.p., 2009. Web. 3 May 2010. . Stratford, SJ. "Love to Know." //Women's Fashion 1940's//. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 May 2010. .

//Silhouette// In the first half of the decade, a trim waist and hips were contrasted with a broad chest and women's shoulder pads became a must. Hair was curled or rolled and shoulder-length or slightly longer. After the New Look debuted in 1947, shoulders sloped, waists cinched, and hips spread as far as they liked. C//ommon Designs// //Fabrics Available// Natural fibers (linen, cotton, wool, and silk), rayon, acetate, and nylon. Light- to medium-weight fabrics used, with light and sheer materials for nightwear. Nylon was seen as net overlays on formals and as the sole material in some sheer day dresses. //Popular Colors and Prints// Most daywear was in conservative colors, though some morning dresses had bright or bold floral or abstract figured prints. Evening saw more soft shades, and also classic navy and black. Casual clothes were sometimes boldly colored, with a lean towards western motifs. //Trims and Detailing// Little trimming appeared on clothing during this era, excepting some evening wear. Instead, fancy covered buttons, extra tailoring details, or fabric contrasts provided variety. One standard was two large hip pockets at either side of the waist, a regular fashion into the 50s. //Hemlines Day and Night// For day, just below the knee was standard, but some dresses fell to mid-calf. At night, at least ankle-length was necessary except for the cocktail hour. //The Latest Fads// Hats of every shape and size were fashionable, and was a style that began in the previous decade. Shoulder pads occasionally reached wide, pointy, or hollowed proportions. Hot items were alligator accessories, platform shoes, and marten stoles (long fox-like animals strung together). //Innovations// Four new synthetics: saran (1941), metallic (1946), modacrylic (1949), and olefin (1949)
 * The New Look - Women's Fashions of the 1940s**
 * The fitted jacket-and-skirt suit, with a peplum to the hip
 * One- and two-fabric day dresses with 3- or 4-sided squarish curved necklines, the bust shaped by soft gathers above or below, and sometimes swags or drapery on the skirt
 * Lace and taffeta eveningwear with asymmetric, bouffant styling
 * Cap-sleeved cotton or rayon blouses and matching tap-style shorts or wide-leg pants for recreation

Cited: "The New Look - Women's Fashions of the 1940s." //Vintage Vixen//. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 May 2010. .

Fashion in Video
media type="youtube" key="LMcQzSUp1DI" width="425" height="350" media type="youtube" key="mDHxrUHMXg0" height="385" width="480" media type="youtube" key="3PwQ_wtlg6g" height="385" width="480"

Patterns from 1940-1949:
Here are two wonderful "swing" era patterns. The one on the left is a Hollywood pattern and features a fitted midriff belt with back ties, a V-neckline created by the crossover bodice and softly gathered shoulder yokes. The pattern on the left is by Vogue--very classy with its princess lines and back skirt panel (just right for dancing).
 * [[image:http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/thhollywoodswing.jpg width="129" height="200" align="left" link="http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/hollywoodswing.jpg"]] || [[image:http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/thvogueswing.jpg width="119" height="200" align="right" link="http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/vogueswing.jpg"]] ||

Here is a young Lauren Bacall, right at the start of her climb to fame.

A tailored jacket pattern from the early to mid-1940s



A trio of beautiful leading ladies from the 1940s, looking so glamorous. //Left to right:// Gene Tierney looks smashing in her evening gown with cape and matching gloves; Veronica Lake (known for her trademark hairstyle) shows off a softly-draped evening gown; Myrna Loy looks cool and chic in her street dress with contrasting pockets.
 * [[image:http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/thgenetierneygownwithcape.jpg width="75" height="100" link="http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/genetierneygownwithcape.jpg"]] || [[image:http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/thvlakegown.jpg width="55" height="100" align="right" link="http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/vlakegown.jpg"]] || [[image:http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/thmyrnaloy1.jpg width="77" height="100" align="right" link="http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/myrnaloy1.jpg"]] ||

Fifteen-year-old Shirley Temple sits on the diving board behind her home in 1943. Her playdress features a white collar and a slightly flared skirt, and note her "grown-up" shoes. (Image courtesy of [|Rita Dubas] and 20th Century-Fox.)

This is a page of Fall fashions from //Woman's Day Magazine//, 1946. Note the color samples the ladies are showing off. At this point, fashion still hasn't moved away from the fabric-conserving lines of WWII, but skirts are a bit longer, and you can see a move toward the emphasized hipline on the model at left.

Vogue Patterns has brought out its "new" line of "Vintage Vogue" patterns--reprints from the archives that are absolutely fabulous. If you want to make your own, here is the place to go! Be sure to visit the [|Vogue Patterns Website] to see more.
 * [[image:http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/thvvogue1940.jpg width="130" height="169" align="left" link="http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/vvogue1940.jpg"]] || [[image:http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/thvvogue1944.jpg width="132" height="169" align="right" link="http://www.sensibility.com/vintageimages/1940s/images/vvogue1944.jpg"]] ||

=Analysis = Rosie the Riveter is a prime example of the wide and varied portrayal of female body in the 1940s. Rosie begins to deconstruct the binary of the female – “virgin/wife/mother” vs. “whore/exoticism/fantasy.” She occupies neither of those two solidly defined roles. Instead, Rosie falls in the middle, and cannot be defined as any single role. As Butler points out that gender is performed, not biological, Rosie reaffirms this notion. Here women can take on a variety of physical appearances, alluding to the performative status of gender. Rosie can be the “every woman,” the “real pin up girl,” and the newly “independent and proud woman.”

Beyond this general understanding of Rosie, it is essential to analyze these two famous artistic depictions of Rosie.

Saturday Evening Post cover artist, Norman Rockwell, really emphasized this gray of the female body through his Rosie. Inspired by the Christian story of Isaiah, Rockwell depicted Rosie as a righteous hero. Recently, reviewers of Rockwell’s Rosie have added their interpretations and observations. “Just as Isaiah was called by God to convert the wicked from their sinful ways and trample evildoers under foot,” wrote one Sothebys curator in a May 2002 review, “so Rockwell’s Rosie tramples Hitler under her all-American penny loafer.” **Rockwell had used a petite local woman as a model for his Rosie, but he took liberties with her actual proportions to make his Rosie appear as a more powerful, Isaiah-like figure. “Righteousness is described throughout Isaiah’s prophecy as God’s ‘strong right arm’,” continued the Sotheby’s reviewer, “a characterization that must surely have occurred to [Rockwell] as he portrayed Rosie’s muscular forearms.”**

The symbol of working women during the war, the Rosie look is personified first and foremost by trousers, which was something very few women wore up till that point. Film star Marlene Dietrich wore trousers in the 1930s and was considered shocking. Reproductions of women's fashions in the 1940s focus mostly on the dresses, but for most women, their daily wardrobe consisted of loose, comfortable trousers or overalls and sturdy boots. Hair was carefully tied up in a colorful [|scarf]. A "Rosie" might still wear lipstick and keep her eyebrows well-manicured, but she was an important part of the war effort, and style was not part of the equation. Rockwell's Rosie played up this dichotomy between feminine and more masculine features, portraying Rosie with the lace handkerchief visible in her right hand pocket, to her foot placed smack on the cover of Adolph Hitler’s //Mein Kampf// at the bottom of the painting. Rockwell’s Rosie also has a halo floating just above the pushed-back visor on her head. Rosie’s “masculine” features of large arm muscles, baggy pants, minimal make-up, and overall large physique greatly influenced a change in the public persona of a female body.

J. Howard Miller, American graphic designer, drew his Rosie ultimately to recruit more women in the workforce. Unlike Rockwell’s image, Miller’s Rosie is lean, showing off her perfectly defined eyebrows, long eyelashes, plump red lips, and a slight feminine suggestion of an arm muscle. Miller’s Rosie reverted to the more “typical” public portrayal of the female body. While the idea of females “taking over men’s roles” may have threatened some men, these performed feminine attributes in beauty, were reassuring. Rosie may have left the home and picked up a wrench, but she still had not lost her feminine beauty. Additionally, this more “attractive” Rosie seemed to pressure other women in always looking their best while at work. Regardless of the oil on her hands, a woman was still to keep attractive. Miller's Rosie seemed to center its main focus on the look of the woman, rather than Rockwell's emphasis on the importance of the war effort.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> While the 1940s woman was experiencing internal/psychological and outward/bodily changes, the era is still depicted in a binary. Women were not simply a "whore" or a "virgin," rather they took several other titles - "mother", "worker", "proud woman", "sexually aware", "patriot", "wife", "girlfriend", "lover", etc. It is important to note that not any woman fully "embodied" these titles, instead took bits and pieces and shaped it into her own identity. Additionally, fashion ads and other wartime propaganda ads tried to enforce and reaffirm this dichotomy of the female body. "Beauty is duty" - Women were never to question WHY they had to look good, but KNOW it must happen to keep up a good reputation as a female.

Rosie had a great influence in encouraging women to step into new roles and acknowledge these shades of grey. Gaining confidence in the work force, women began to challenge the binary, and demand to stay working. However, many Rosies were displaced and let go, as men from the war returned and either took their old jobs or required their women to stay home. Even if women did eventually return to a performed "normal female role" of the housewife, all had changed during the war. They would never forget their experiences without a man, whether they learned independence at home, at the workforce, or through female bonding, no woman after the 1940s would say their lives could be explained in a binary.

**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Female Representation Upon the American Stage During the 1940s ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> **American Musical** The 1940s brought about the creation of the Classic Musical. Most of which contained escapism like storylines, due in part for a majority of these shows being during the time of WWII. The 1940s began with such musicals as //Pal Joey// (by Rodgers and Hart) that center around casual sex, predatory men, and promiscuous women. This was the first time in which a musical tackled the issues of “real sex, recreational sex, sex worth regretting, cheerfully adulterous sex,” (Miller 44). //Pal Joey// tells the story of a second rate nightclub entertainer in 1930s Chicago by the name of Joey Evans, who falls in love with a woman named Linda.The lead characters in //Pal Joey// had one thing in focus and this was sexual intercourse. No musical before had a true scoundrel for its lead characters until //Pal Joey//. “Rodgers said in an interview, ‘They were all bad people. Except the girl. And she was stupid,'" (Miller 44).   <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">This quote by Rodgers shows that the representation of the female character, Linda, in //Pal Joey// is of a conceited vixen who is high sexualized. The character Linda's main motivation was sex. //Pal Joey//, which was Gene Kelly’s first big starring role, only ran for 374 performances during 1940. The reviews were negative because Broadway was not ready for a musical that dealt with such heavy topics.

In 1941 the musical, //Lady in the Dark,// premiered on Broadway. This musical, by Weill and Gerswhin, centers around the character of Liza Elliot, who is a powerful and unmarried editor of the fashion magazine //Allure// that is forced to go under psychoanalysis due to strange dreams she has been having. After going through several treatments of psychoanalysis she is finally able to resolve her psychological problems with her father. This then allows her the freedom to give up, “’trying to be like a man’ and turn the magazine over to Charley Johnson, with whom she’s been fighting through the whole show. Of course she also realizes that he’s the man she has loved all along, rather than the older, married father figure she’s been sleeping with…In 1941 terms, this means psychoanalysis has cured her (in about a week) and made her a whole woman, ready to take her rightful place in society as a glorified, wealthy housewife,”(Patinkin 241). This representation of women in this musical is one which is seen a lot. The women become irrational and thus seek psycho therapy. She is shown the error of her ways, which exist in the fact that she is a powerful editor of a magazine (a man’s role during that day), which basically means she is not in her rightful and dutiful place, the home. And on top of it, since she is unmarried she is seen as a hussy (cause you’re either that or a spinster) who is led to pursue immoral sex with a married man.

The year 1943 brought about the lesser known musical by Weill and Nash. This musical is titled, //One Touch of Venus//. Based on the novel, //The Tinted Venus,// this musical is about the statue of Venus that comes to life when a young man puts his fiance’s engagement ring on its finger (Note: how it takes a token of marriage <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">to make the female statue come to life). This musical has two big ballets, choreographed by Agnes de Mille, “’//Forty Minutes to Lunch,’// which reveals much about the character of the newly revived Venus by showing her enjoying the world, the fashions, and the men of 1943 during lunch hour in midtown Manhattan; and ‘Venus in Ozone Heights,’ her dream of life in suburban Ozone Heights. (The dream ballet was becoming a tradition in musicals). At the end of the number, Venus decides to return to being a statue rather than become a suburban housewife,” (Patinkin 251). (Note: Venus would rather be an object upon a pedestal than be a suburban housewife. However, women during this time were treated as objects and put on pedestals, ie being expected to be perfect,which included being the perfect suburban housewife).

This particular musical also contains the song titled, “The Trouble with Women,” which is performed by a comic barbershop quartet who realize at the end of the song that “the trouble with women is men.”

In 1943 we are also given the glorious union of Rodgers and Hammerstein II. They joined together to create //Oklahoma!// This musical tricks the audience into thinking that the storyline is about the quirky and lighthearted characters that reside in the territory of Oklahoma with songs like //Farmer and the Cowman Should Be Friends// and that it’s centered on this girl, Laurey, who just can’t decide to take to the box social with her. The plot holds something much darker and real for the female lead. This musical is about attempted rape. “Whether or not Laurey goes to the social with him (Jud) really is a big deal. It is genuinely dangerous for Laurey to be alone with Jud, to be his ‘date.’ His advances on the way to the social are leading to rape, and he may be waiting to finish the job after the auction – which is why it’s so important that Curly win Laurey’s basket, which brings with it her company,” (Miller 49). The female representation in Laurey in this play is one of a headstrong girl with silly notions who by making an irrational highly emotional decision, is led to the possibility of being raped.

//Oklahoma!// can be seen as being significant for female representations in that the choreographer of the show, Agnes de Mille, allows the audience to venture into the deepest parts of Laurey’s feelings, which gave the leading lady her own sex drive that wasn’t represented via a man. A revolutionary thing in musical theatre. The show also doesn’t open with a big chorus number with pretty girls. “//Oklahoma!// opened with an old woman sitting alone on stage churning butter as the audience heard a solo male voice singing a cappella and offstage. The audience didn’t see girls until forty-five minutes in the first act,” (Miller 50). //Oklahoma!// began a time in which women in very lavish, highly sexualized costumes didn’t have to begin a performance.

//Oklahoma!//was highly successful. It ran for more than 5 years on Broadway giving it the title of longest-running show of all time during the 1940s.

In 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein II produced another musical hit with //Carousel//. “//Carousel// was the last hit musical to open during the war,” (Patinkin 258). //Carousel// is a tragic story surrounding a naïve girl and her abusive robber of a husband, who commits suicide after being caught during a failed robbery attempt. This leaves his pregnant wife behind to deal with the burden of his status as a thief who committed the “ultimate sin” of suicide. After spending 15 years in purgatory, the husband returns to Earth to save his now 15 year old daughter from his same fate. “The show is about sex, violence, spousal abuse, the indistinguishable line between good and evil, and the cruelty of fate,” (Miller 52).



<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">“Julie Jordan, the central female character, is strong, loving, and unintentionally slightly masochistic,” (Patinkin 259). This female portrayal is an interesting one because it makes it seem like the character Julie enjoys being beaten by her husband. And the character of her husband, Billy, “…is written so that his behavior is understandable and ultimately forgivable,” (Patinkin 259). This shows that domestic abuse is seen as ok and forgivable during the 1940s.

Female characters had very little dimension or depth to them in 1940s American Theatre. “ According to a study of Pulitzer Prize plays up to the 1940s, a woman was conceived as someone whose sole motivation in life is the search for a romantic lover;she is emotional rather than rational in her deliberations, rarely works at a job, almost never becomes a successful career person, is physically passive and is either totally selfless or sinfully selfish,” (Chinoy et al xiv). Female roles are boxed into the aforementioned stereotypes without any real arch or a chance to grow. Of course, these are the stereotypes that existed during the 1940s (and still subsist today), and so is understandable that they would then be brought into the realm of theatre. <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> Female representation in theatre was also rarely given a main part. There are very few female protagonists found during the 1940s. As is stated in the book, //Women in American Theatre//, “During the 1940s a female protagonist is even more rare: among the seven Pulitzer plays, only one character, Blanche in //A Streetcar Named Desire//, can be considered the protagonist. The most popular occupation of the women characters is that of wife or mother or both. In the decade of the forties a female character was more likely to be portrayed as a wife or mother than in the other decades,” (Chinoy et al 239). <span style="color: black; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;">Again the stereotype of what woman should be not only decreases the amount of female protagonist roles that are available, but still keeps them within a box; this box being the role of wife, mother, and the occasional whore. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%;"> The character Blanche from //A Streetcar Named Desire//, as was aforementioned, is somewhat a paradox and reaffirmation of the earlier spoken ideas and representations of women. //A Streetcar Name Desire// by Tennessee Williams premièred on Broadway in 1948. Blanche’s constant struggle for power and dominance in this play goes against the societal norms expected of her. She is seen as a strong woman, yet also mentally sensitive. Being a paradox within herself makes the character of Blanche complex and more than the one-dimensional housewife or whore that is come to be expected in 1940s theatre.
 * AMERICAN THEATRE**

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> “ Whereas Blanche wants to write Stanley out of history by relegating him to the savage, distant past of pre-history, Stanley is not satisfied with a reductive reading of Blanche; he moves to inscribe, to author, not only her past, but her future. He has already selectively authored her past by choosing only her recent history… When Stella asks, ‘What on earth will she do,’ extending Blanche's exile to a planetary scale, Stanley responds, ‘Her future is mapped out for her’ The passive construction of that sentence masks Stanley's active part as cartographer,” (Vlasopolos 332).

Blanche not only experiences a loss of power, but she is punished for her passionate struggle to regain control for her sister Stella and for herself when Stanley rapes Blanche. Because she refuses to become the woman in the traveling-salesman joke, the stereotype of the nymphomaniac upper-class girl, he rapes her. His famous line rationalizing the rape, ‘We've had this date with each other from the beginning,’ summarizes both the struggle for mastery in which he and Blanche have engaged, leading to the crucial combat, and his ultimate reduction of her to the whore of his history who provokes and enjoys yet another encounter,” (Vlasopolos 333). Blanche’s punishment for not fitting within the norms is what was happening in society during the 1940s and even what continues today.

“Ultimately, Stanley's authority derives from the same sources which most of us are forced to acknowledge in one way or another all our lives: physical violence, intimidation, and above all economic domination. In the quest for authority, Stanley profits from staying within the parameters set for him by his sex and class, and Blanche loses because she fails to conform. Stanley is perceived as normal. His plea- sures are sex, bowling, drinking, and poker. His loyalty is to his family, for which he is a good provider. Except for his rape of Blanche, nothing Stanley does threatens the social fabric. Blanche, on the other hand, is deviant in regard to her class and sex. Although she maintains the trappings of the aristocrat in her expensive and elegant tastes, she has allowed the rest to slip, like Belle Reve, away from her. In seeking emotional fulfillment, she has disregarded the barriers of "normal" female sexuality and of class. Her actions subvert the social order: she remains loyal to the memory of her homosexual husband, she fulfills the desires of young soldiers outside the very walls of her ancestral mansion, she is oblivious to class in her promiscuity, and she seduces one of her seventeen-year-old students,” (Vlasopolos 337).

Blanche provides actresses of the 1940s finally a substantial and complex role to take on and perform. The only problem with this is that the character of Blanche is punished within the realm of the play and society as a whole, for existing outside the “box” and fighting against control and power by a man. What kind of example would this set for women in the 1940s?

Chinoy, Helen Krich, and Linda Walsh Jenkins. __Women in American Theatre: Revised and Expanded Third Edition.__ New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2006.

Miller, Scott. __Strike Up The Band: A New History of Musical Theatre.__ Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2007.

Patinkin, Sheldon. __No Legs, No Jokes, No Chance: A History of American Musical Theatre.__ Evanston: Northwestern UP, 2008. 233-245.

Vlasopolos,Anca. “Authorizing History: Victimization in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire.’” __Theatre Journal.__ 38 (1986): 322-338. 25 April 2010. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/3208047>.

American cinema surrounding WWII offers fascinating manifestations of this age representative of the gender binary breaking apart for the popular and cultural portrayal of the female body. As a constantly developing field in regards to performance, technology, and artistic vision, film at this time, it should be pointed out, was largely a reflection of psychological reactions to socio-political happenings. And those reactions were from a specifically male point of view – the major filmmakers of this era (including John Ford, John Huston, Frank Capra, William Wyler, Michael Curtiz’, and the list goes on) were male as was the majority of the Hollywood industry. This gives us a wealth of opportunities to examine the construction and definition of the female body in this artistic medium. Here we are with examples of men and their cameras, sizing up women, tearing them down, lasciviously watching them cry, cheat, steal, and riding their curves all the way to wartime reinforcement of American masculinity and post-war examination of crime and the justice system in an effort to relate to war-torn Europe. Things come in two’s through these cameras: the American film of the 1940’s builds on the work begun in the English Restoration period of drama, where a woman for the first time crosses the stage and becomes more than merely a virgin bride or a prostitute turned to the streets. While we will still see the camera attempting to categorize women in terms very clear-cut and simple (or should I say, black & white?), shades of grey and further personifications are added to the virgin/whore binary as the women of America move into the workforce throughout WWII and remain a permanent fixture of that workforce post-war and men struggle with what came before and how now to cope with the opposite gender becoming a gender equal in strength and power. We’ll take a look at two different examples of binary-busting in American cinema performance of the forties: 1) The wartime paradox of the famous, over-sexualized pin-up gals versus “the girl back home” 2) The generally postwar (emerging full force in the final stages of WWII) paradox of the “Spider-woman” versus “The Nurturer” as portrayed in the genre of film noir.
 * The Woman In Film of the 1940s**

The early years of the 40s decade were not promising for the American film industry, especially following the late 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, and the resultant loss of foreign markets. However, Hollywood film production rebounded and reached its profitable peak of efficiency during the years 1943 to 1946 - a full decade and more after the rise of sound film production, now that the technical challenges of the early 30s sound era were far behind. Advances in film technology (sound recording, lighting, special effects, cinematography and use of color) meant that films were more watchable and 'modern'. Following the end of the war, Hollywood's most profitable year in the decade was 1946, with all-time highs recorded for theatre attendance. The world was headed toward rearmament and warfare in the early to mid-1940s, and the movie industry, like every other aspect of life, responded to the national war effort by making movies, producing many war-time favorites, and having stars (and film industry employees) enlist or report for duty. The US government's **Office of War Information (OWI)**, formed in 1942, served as an important propaganda agency during World War II, and coordinated its efforts with the film industry to record and photograph the nation's war-time activities. Tinseltown aided in the defensive mobilization, whether as combatants, propagandists, documentary, newsreel or short film-makers, educators, fund-raisers for relief funds or war bonds, entertainers, or morale-boosters. Films took on a more realistic rather than escapist tone, as they had done during the Depression years of the 30s.


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: small; font-weight: normal; line-height: normal;">A new breed of stars that arose during the war years included Van Johnson, Alan Ladd, and gorgeous GI pin-up queens Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. (Betty Grable had signed with 20th Century Fox in 1940 and would soon became a major star of their musicals in the 1940s.) Some of Hollywood's best directors, John Ford, Frank Capra, John Huston and William Wyler, made Signal Corps documentaries or training films to aid the war effort, such as Frank Capra's **Why We Fight (1942-1945) **documentary series (the first film in the series,** Prelude to War **was released in 1943), Ford's** December 7th: The Movie (1991) **(finally released after being banned by the US government for 50 years) and the first popular documentary of the war titled** The Battle of Midway (1942)**, Huston's documentaries** Report From the Aleutians (1943) **and** The Battle of San Pietro (1945)**, and Wyler's sobering Air Force documentary** Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944)**.**

The Quintessential 40s Film: **Casablanca**: The most subtle of all wartime propaganda films was the romantic story of self-sacrifice and heroicism in Michael Curtiz' archetypal 40s studio film [|**Casablanca (1942)**]. It told about a disillusioned nightclub owner (Humphrey Bogart) and a former lover (Ingrid Bergman) separated by WWII in Paris. With a limited release in late 1942 (and wider release in 1943), the resonant film was a timeless, beloved black and white work originally based on an unproduced play entitled //Everybody Comes to Rick's//. The quintessential 40s film is best remembered its superior script, for piano-player Dooley Wilson's singing of //As Time Goes By//, and memorable lines of dialogue such as: "Round up the usual suspects" and Bogart's "Here's looking at you, kid." Its success (it was awarded Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay) made Humphrey Bogart a major star, although his character reflected American neutrality with the famous line: "I stick my neck out for nobody." (SOURCE: http://www.filmsite.org/40sintro.html)

Look at this link to a scene from the movie **Down Argentine Way** (1940) starring Betty Grable. media type="youtube" key="QjJWxbuCqKs" height="340" width="560" Pay close attention to how the camera frames Grable throughout the scene - and observe the mise-en-scene present in terms of the club as well as other actors in the space. Here, we see Grable set apart for a majority of the scene meant to dance for the entertainment of all the on-lookers. Throughout, we are aware of other women in this dance club, but none are highlighted, only the curvacious, blonde bombshell Grable - specifically noticeable in the camera pulling out from the club near the end of the clip as it still highlights her center. Turning an eye to the narrative of the clip, she is introduced in her singing by remaining silent while her male counterpart (Don Amenche) controls the musical number, serves the purpose only as entertainment, until she is re-united with her male counterpart in the last few sugary-sweet bars of the number.

And for just another example of many from the vast library of pin-up-turned-film-star, take a peek at this clip from [|My Gal Sal (1942) starring Rita Hayworth]. Notice again the appearance of a full-color, full-out Busby Berkeley-reminiscent musical number as a highlight of the film As we begin to pull this apart the same as the Grable clip, observe the "gotchya" moment of comedy with the reveal of the women and men on the ground behind the umbrella. In case any audiences would think we were portraying effeminate men, think again - it's actually a reinforcement of a male-female relationship. Then watch Hayworth herself emerge as the centerpiece amongst all the other performers. In her bathing suit, she is also highlighted by the eye of the camera, singing about how much her and her fella are in love and all the reasons as to why. Turn your attention to the setting - even through they're performing on a stage in the film, just look at the beach setting and specifically dance numbers performed incorporating the sand. Could this be an advocation for a return to tourism in America's recently terrorized Hawaii? If it is, Hayworth is used for her status as a bombshell to perpetuate very specific wartime propaganda in the scope of American A-cinema escapism. At any rate, as with the Grable clip, Hayworth is watched by a group of performers, set apart for us to gaze upon. And did anyone else take their eyes off the screen for a second only to be left wondering - where did all the other women go? Here again, we see the beautiful pin-up queen reunited with her men at the end of a saccharine tune. For more examples, watch any of [|Rita Hayworth's films] between 1940-1944. After that, her image evolves into the intriguing "spider-woman" of film noir, which we will get into later.

Opposing the Hayworth/Grable pin-up depiction of women in film with their grandiose, elaborate musical numbers an re-affirmation of masculine power is the more simplistic, silently powerful "girl back home" of popular cinema at the time. She takes many forms, but she waits for her man to return from war, often caught between a sentiment for the past and a need to move into the world ahead. While approaching wartime from a different angle, these women, interestingly enough, continue to typify a need for masculinity to succeed in order for the world to go on. While both these types of A-cinema gals at the time achieve the same purpose through their performances, here is where we are seeing the diversions from the binary virgin/whore portrayal of women as we move into a post-world war modern world.

Look at this clip of [|Ingrid Bergman requesting the song "As Time Goes By" from Casablanca (1942)]. Here's another musical number - but the nature of it has changed. Bergman's character requests the song be played - and it is done so simply and with a heavy emotional effect. By the end of the clip, the man (Humphrey Bogart) comes to her - not the other way around. Bergman is the sedentary one, and the world moves around her. Her man comes to her. Also, we can see she is dressed professionally, the lines of her costume are simple and sharp. Contrast this with the elaborate costumes of Grable and Hayworth above. And here, there is no smiling, no sugar-sweet song song about how wonderful her man is. In fact, she doesn't even sing the tune. She serves the purpose of inviting the audience to think about war with her same sentiment, about the loss and suffering involved - a wild contrast to the escapist big-budget musical numbers. She is still moved to tears at the sight of her man, and we witness a reunion of the two that establishes her desire and need for him. But, this is done so without breasts in the frame, without elaborate choreography that emphasizes her hips and legs. We see an emphasis on her facial features, suggesting that this camera is beginning to see that women's emotions are equal in complexity to those of men.

Here's another example of that girl. Greer Carson in her role in the film **[|Mrs. Miniver (1942)]**. While about the struggles of a British family during wartime, this character still exemplifies the "girl back home" image. Look at her costume and compare it to the examples above. Certainly closer to that of Bergman's character, Carson wears an outfit with lines that begin to mimic those of her male counterpart in this still frame from the film. With this example, we also begin to associate the family as a trope the comes along with this girl. She symbolizes all that is good about being together with her man and the continuation of a socio-political status quo that is secure for everyone. She is typically independent because her man has been off fighting in the war, but she still yearns for his return and carries with her all that is threatened by losing her man to war. It is that loss that A-cinema uses to rally support for America at war. Looking again at this frame and also at the Bergman clip above, notice the softness in the faces of both women. First of all, again, the face is emphasized - a jump that will be very important to film noir and the psychology of women as a part of that genre. However, here, we have the girl-back-home with a soft face framed by often unkempt-looking but let-down locks of hair to soften further the angles of her physical features. She is built to appear non-threatening and also as sensible - an apparition of reality in film. Contrast this to the Grable and Hayworth look - hair picked up in an elaborate up-do with makeup noticeable in a whole range of colors not naturally occurring in the human face. That is, if you even notice their faces because you're not supposed to in the eye of the camera - what's more important as we look at those two are their bodies. Their bodies that had originally made them famous in print prior to film. Those two perform an escape, a dream, a highly-sexualized dream. Our gals-back-home are more of a performance based on concepts Realism, with a more natural look influenced also by professional, independent attributes taken from women moving into the working world to keep America alive while men were at war. Here is our paradox in the portrayal of women throughout wartime cinema - one view is a fantasy, the other a mimicking of reality.
 * [[image:Greer.jpg]] ||

//**Film noir**// began to take shape just before the United States entered World War II with films such as //Stranger on the Third Floor// (1940), //I Wake Up Screaming// (1941), and //The Maltese Falcon// (1941), but it did not develop fully until the late stages of the War and flourished in the immediate post-War years. Since //noir// films generally question social and governmental institutions, it seems likely that wartime pressure to represent the United States and American society in a positive light and to keep up the people's spirits prevented Hollywood from exploring the darker aspects of //noir// while the outcome of the War was still in doubt. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: arial,helvetica;">//Film noir// takes shape with visual and social disorientation. //Stranger on the Third Floor// (1940) || Dana Polan argues that the cultural imperative of wartime America was to promote a sense of community and shared commitment to a single cause — one nation and one people working together to win the War. The family was inextricably linked to this sense of community and commitment. It was celebrated as the foundation on which community is built as well as the motivation behind the war effort itself. The family was seen as "what 'we' are fighting for: the woman in the home, builder of healthy families, prime consumer of products." [|**8**] It was not until after the War that Hollywood felt free — perhaps even obligated — to reassert its independence by revealing the negative side of American society: "[R]ecent work on //film noir// (especially postwar noir) has read it as a moment of re- relativization of the cinematic institution, its distancing from any simple confirmation of dominant ideological practice." [|**9**] Still, even after the War had ended, American culture — including most Hollywood films - continued to work overtime to support the //status quo//values of community and family, and to prescribe strict gender roles for men and women. Nina Leibman places post-War //film noir// in the context of a society obsessed with returning women to their "proper place" in the home and converting men from adventurous soldiers to reliable breadwinners. Leibman points to
 * [[image:http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/images/lorre-sm.jpg width="198" height="137" caption="Visual and social disorientation in Stranger on the Third Floor (1940)" link="http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/images/lorre-lg.jpg"]]

the dominant social imperative of post-war America with its emphasis on the importance of nuclear family life, the proper role of the sexes, the superiority of suburbia. . . .//McCall's// magazine launched an issue on family "togetherness" as the crucial factor in the family enclave. Housewifery became professionalized with a plethora of books and articles extolling the virtues of domesticity and urging women to leave their "Rosie-the-Riveter" jobs for the less tangible rewards of child-rearing and housekeeping. In addition, these articles cautioned both men and women to assume their proper roles lest their aberrant behavior result in untold psychological trauma. [|**10**]

Describing a later //noir// film, //The Big Heat// (1953), Leibman defines the family as "very much constructed along traditional lines: the working father, the helpmate mother, the child who is both nuisance and source of comfort." [|**11**] It is this image of the "traditional" nuclear family that prescriptive sources such as //McCall's// and non-//noir// Hollywood films held up as an ideal to which all "normal" American men and women must aspire. And it is this image of the ideal family and the mass production of that image in American culture (especially classical Hollywood cinema) that //film noir// calls into question. //Film noir//'s view of the family contrasted not only with the dictates of society at large, but also with the images or myths of family life propagated by other films coming out of Hollywood. These more mainstream films, dating back to the beginnings of large-scale filmmaking in the early 1920s, belonged to the body of films loosely termed classical Hollywood cinema, or CHC. CHC films depicted a very narrow range of acceptable family relationships and rigid gender roles within the family. They also reinforced the dominant culture's endorsement of the traditional nuclear family as a necessity for successful, "normal" life and the foundation of community and society in general. The depiction of women in classical Hollywood cinema is especially significant to an understanding of the contrasting images presented in//film noir//, since both bodies of films express their attitudes toward the family largely through the female characters. Women in CHC films of the 1920s, '30s, and '40s seldom ventured outside of their socially prescribed roles as sweethearts, wives, or mothers to the male hero. By providing a romantic interest for the hero, the woman served the function traditionally assigned to her gender (particularly in film) while allowing the male character to play out his own pre-ordained role. [|**12**] Women in CHC films were allowed to be heroic only within the boundaries of their proper sphere. [|**13**] Meanwhile, by far the most common image of women in classical Hollywood cinema was the wife or mother who was not the heroine, but merely a supporting character for the film's star. [|**14**] Although they may temporarily resist the hero's advances or oppose his wishes, traditional women seldom are depicted as threatening to or incompatible with the hero, the nuclear family, or the //status quo//. Instead, they promote the ideal of the traditional family by giving up all resistance to the hero, submitting to male authority, and embracing their proper place in the nuclear family. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: arial,helvetica;">Marlene Dietrich in //Morrocco//(1933). The nontraditional woman is converted ... || Still, classical Hollywood cinema does contain many examples of nontraditional women — women who do not readily accept their place in the nuclear family. These characters generally fall into two categories: the dangerous seductress and the abnormally independent woman. Among the women of CHC films, they come closest to achieving the power and independence of the//femmes fatales// of //film noir//, but they are not allowed to keep their independence. Invariably, these women are destroyed, punished, or converted to more traditional roles after learning that their independence was a mistake. Thus, rather than challenging the supremacy of the nuclear family, the nontraditional woman in non-//noir// films ultimately reinforces the family and traditional womanhood as the only acceptable choice for women. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: arial,helvetica;">... or destroyed. Greta Garbo (with John Gilbert) in //Flesh and the Devil// (1927) || Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich created many of the earliest examples of deadly independent women. Both actresses specialized in playing women who used their sexual attractiveness to ensnare unsuspecting men or otherwise controlled their own sexuality outside of marriage and the nuclear family. [|**15**] But in all of her movies, Garbo's character renounced her independence through her love for the hero or made a noble gesture to preserve the family that she had threatened — often just before her death. Similarly, Dietrich's fallen women are converted to "normal" womanhood or reveal themselves to be soft-hearted, traditional women beneath their heavy makeup. [|**16**] <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: arial,helvetica;">In the end, Katharine Hepburn's liberated heroines give up independence for love. || Other examples of strong, independent, but non-//film noir// women include heroines such as Scarlett O'Hara (Vivian Leigh) in //Gone with the Wind// (1939), the self-reliant career women of 1930s and '40s comedies, and the overtly "feminist" characters often portrayed by Katharine Hepburn. Yet, these women also stop short of the //femme fatale//'s total rebellion against the //status quo// and the social disruption that she creates. Despite her talent for manipulating men, Scarlett O'Hara is no //femme fatale//; she dedicates her life to one man, and her greatest triumph is restoring and protecting the family home. The cynical, city-wise career women played so often by Jean Arthur, Barbara Stanwyck, and Rosalind Russell usually end up happily married to the hero and cured of their cynicism by the final reel. [|**17**] Even Katharine Hepburn's liberated heroines are chastened for their refusal to embrace traditional womanhood and are forced to "reform" and reassess their values because of their love for the hero. [|**18**]
 * [[image:http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/images/dietr-sm.jpg width="146" height="195" caption="Marlene Dietrich (1933)" link="http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/images/dietr-lg.jpg"]]
 * [[image:http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/images/garbo-sm.jpg width="227" height="174" caption="Garbo & Gilbert in Flesh and the Devil (1927)" link="http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/images/garbo-lg.jpg"]]
 * [[image:http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/images/kate-sm.jpg width="150" height="205" caption="Katharine Hepburn"]]

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: arial,helvetica;">Jean Arthur's wisecracking career women are softened and cured of their cynicism by marriage to the hero. || (SOURCE: http://www.filmnoirstudies.com/essays/no_place2.asp)
 * || [[image:http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/images/jarth-sm.jpg width="150" height="188" caption="Jean Arthur" link="http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/noir/images/jarth-lg.jpg"]]
 * <span style="font-family: arial,helvetica;">Thus, the majority of Hollywood films produced before and during the appearance of//film noir// use women to communicate an unqualified pro-family message. They reward women who play traditional roles in the nuclear family, punish women who refuse to stay in their proper place, and convert or castigate women who openly question the validity of the nuclear family and female gender roles. Above all, these films consistently portray traditional family relationships and women's place in those relationships as "natural" or "normal" — so much so that even the most independent women cannot resist the family beyond the end of the film. ||


 * 1940s: Femme Fatales**

Usually when we think of women and **[|film noir]**, we think of femmes fatales like **[|Rita Hayworth]**'s //**[|Gilda]**// (1946), a calculating woman who spends all of her time manipulating men. This sex role stereotype is so blatant it verges on parody, but //Gilda//, thankfully, is only a glimmer of the whole picture. Some noir buffs think it a mistake to believe women were always presented as femmes fatales and point to examples such as //Nora Prentiss// (1947) and //Criss Cross// (1949); both show sympathetic women, while it's the men who make the bad moves. A major force behind noir was writer-turned-producer **[|Joan Harrison]**. A **[|Hitchcock]** protegé and writer on films like //**[|Rebecca]**// (1940), //Suspicion// (1941) and**[|//Saboteur//]** (1942), Harrison also wrote //**[|Dark Waters]**// (1944) for the remarkable **[|André De Toth]**. Like many of the talented women in Hollywood, Harrison bloomed as a producer, and produced five noir films: //Ride the Pink Horse// (co-written with Dorothy B. Hughes in 1947); //They Won't Believe Me// (1947); //Nocturne//(1946); //The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry// (1945); and //Phantom Lady// (1944).

//The many faces of **[|Ida Lupino]**//

Following in the footsteps of 1920s director Lois Weber, **[|Ida Lupino]** made pictures dealing with issues of female sexuality and independence. She signed with Warner Brothers in the 1940s as an actress but soon became the heroine of American independent cinema as a director. As an actress, Lupino played ambitious headstrong dames in such noir classics as **[|//They Drive By Night//]** (1940) and //**[|High Sierra]**// (1941); she even called herself "the poor man's **[|Bette Davis]**." Her role in **[|//The Big Knife//]** (1955), an expose of the studio system, made Lupino rather unpopular with high rolling Hollywood insiders. Lupino became the second woman admitted into the Directors Guild of America, and at the time, she was the only working female of its 1300 members. On Lupino's director's chair were the words "The Mother of us all," a nod to Gertrude Stein, who wrote a libretto for an opera about Susan B. Anthony. **[|//The Hitch-Hiker//]** (1953), Lupino's best film, is technically the only true noir by a woman during the classic noir period of 1944 to 1950. Lupino's film //Outrage//(1950), starring **[|Mala Powers]**, dealt with the subject of rape and a woman destroyed by gossip. "There was a great deal of camaraderie between the crew and Ida; they would do anything for her," said Powers. Lupino was just one of many women who switched with ease between her roles as actor and producer. Bette Davis continued the tradition when she produced //A Stolen Life// (1946) in the midst of her turns as a dominant alpha bitch and double-crossing dame in women's melodramas of the 1950s. (SOURCE: http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/womeninfilm.jsp)

DL this article PDF by Janey Place on the nature of women in film noir. This will be the basis for our analysis of a couple quick clips (in addition to the theories of Mulvey and Butler). Place offers up yet another paradox in this portrayal of women in American cinema of this time period. Again, we're split in two - a "Spider-woman" or "Femme Fatale" and the Nurturer. Place constructs another binary looking back on this time period, but through that proves the emergence of new ideas of what women are capable of manifest through performance.

Let's look at this clip highlighting a specific sexually-charged scene in Billy Wilder's **Double Indemnity** (1944): media type="youtube" key="Gz-5wKegyOw" height="344" width="425"

Now we see a dramatic shift from the relationship between men and women through performance. Physically, Stanwyck appears as a synthesis of the Grable/Hayworth look and the Bergman/Carson look. Already, we've moved into a representation of a dangerous ambiguity - is she a sex goddess, or is she the housewife? It's unclear at first sight. Move onto the text of the scene - listen to the fast-paced exchange between the two characters. Not only is it a change from the saccharine, sentimental dialogue between a man and a woman, it is also laden with sexual innuendo which Stanwyck almost commands throughout the conversation. We see her stand tall and cut down the character Walter Neff. She is physically stable and though heights of the actors vary, her stable facial features and solid body language signify that she is just as powerful if not moreso than her male counterpart. By the end of the clip, she has seen Walter out the door; she has controlled the path of his movement through the scene. His departure casts a significant shadow, giving the illusion that he has transformed into nothing more than a mere spectre in her wake. He is already caught in her "web." Her voice is strong, never wavering. Same with her body language. Here is the woman that represents danger, sex, corruption. If you get a chance, watch the film for further examples. Throughout the narrative, Walter finds himself controlled by his sexual desire for Stanwyck's character, a fact she manipulates in order to prompt Walter into killing her husband for her. With a conclusion that ends in death for both characters, this new femininity on screen is typified by physical strength manifest through the use of sex by women and usually ends in a punishment for her - indicating the fear inherent in the male gaze when constructing this new breed of powerful women.

For further example, take a look at any number of these similar examples:

The wise-cracking [|Veronica Lake in the final scene of the Blue Dahlia (1946)] An armed and extremely dangerous [|Peggy Cummins in Gun Crazy (1950)] An intriguing [|Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946)] The powerful [|Jane Greer in Out of the Past (1947)] A look at how A-cinema women turned carried their sex to noir with [|Rita Hayworth in Gilda (1946)]

...among countless other examples. In all of these clips, notice how we've moved to a completely different regard for the female body by male characters. Gone are the choruses of men ogling a piece central to every single frame of a shot or sequence of film. Here we see a much more psychological control these vixens emphasize over specific targets - one or two men are stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of a pair of legs, hips swaying as she walks away, or a hypnotic rhythm of speech. Truly, these women are built by the camera to be feared. All are women who use their bodies to achieve their own means, and none of them are afraid to destroy anyone in their path in order to get what they want. Here is an acknowledged awareness on behalf of these characters that their sexuality can be used as a weapon - an enticing statement made in a time when women outside of the camera are exercising more and more control over their personal lives.

After the Femme Fatale of this American film genre, let's move on to the other women on-screen in the same style. Now we have almost an evolution of "The Girl Back Home" of A-cinema - she's turned into a caring, sensible nurturer speaking in the voice of reason to her man, persuading him to avoid a (re)turn to a life of crime.

First, take a look at Ida Lupino's character Mary in On Dangerous Ground (1952): media type="youtube" key="WINM14TJB1Y" height="344" width="425" Thought Lupino is above described for her versatility as an actress and for her unique portrayals of the Femme Fatale, regard in this clip the sentimentality with which she treats the male character matched with her physical appearance in this scene. Her character is blind - stripped of her use of a very psychologically intimidating feature: the eyes. Without them, we immediately find her to be much more inviting than any spider-woman. This blindness is also a disability communicating her harmless nature. Additionally, we would be led to assume that if she cannot see herself physically, she is not a prime candidate for dressing her body in such a way that is sexually engaging. She is the physical embodiment of the nurturer - a welcoming, soft appearance. On top of this, listen to the soft, sweet music that accompanies her text - creating the atmosphere of a gentle song. The soundtrack is a key element in the crafting of her person here. And her text serves mainly to support the male character, questioning him about his own motives, rationally leading him to peer inside of himself for answers he wishes to find. In this film, Lupino lives the "other woman" of film noir - the woman that more often than not ends up suffering the loss of her beloved man due to the wiles of the Femme Fatale.

For the prime example in Noir of this female, take the Place article's suggestion and check out [|Virginia Huston in Out of the Past (1947)].


 * USO Performers**

The **United Service Organizations Inc.** (**USO**) is a private, nonprofit organization that provides morale and recreational services to members of the U.S. Military with programs in 140 centers worldwide. Since 1941, it has worked in partnership with the Department of Defense (DOD), and has provided support and entertainment to U.S. armed forces, relying heavily on private contributions and on funds, goods, and services from DOD. Although congressionally chartered, it is not a government agency. During World War II, the USO became the G.I's "home away from home," and began a tradition of entertaining the troops that continues today. Involvement in the USO was one of the many ways in which the nation had come together to support the war effort, with nearly 1.5 million Americans having volunteered their services in some way. The organization became particularly famous for its live performances called //Camp Shows//, through which the entertainment industry helped boost the morale of its servicemen and women. Hollywood in general was eager to show its patriotism, and lots of big names joined the ranks of USO entertainers. They entertained in military bases both at home and overseas, often placing their own lives in danger by traveling or performing under hazardous conditions - some losing their lives. During the 1990s it delivered services to 5 million active duty service members and their families and today "continues to be a touch of home to America's troops." [|USO's]
 * War effort-**


 * A pretty girl is like a melody**

In a journal article titled “And, Fellas, They’re American Girls!” On the road with Sharon Rogers All Girl Band, the women were interviewed at a reunion. All female Jazz/Swing Bands- Virgil Whyte’s Musical Sweethearts, Ada Leonards’s All American Girl Band, Joy Cayler’s Band, D’artega’s All Girl Orchestra, the Sharon Rogers Band and the International Sweethearts of Rhythm (only African American band to tour overseas) (133) A Guide to the Foxhole Circuit “primary duties for women on stage included looking “like the girls back home on an important Saturday night date.” (134) The fact that USO entertainers were forbidden by section 10 of the standard USO contract from “conduct[ing themselves] in a manner offensive to public decency or morality,” (147) and the fact that “stage door Johnnies” were strictly prohibited, many female USO entertainers had difficulties with sexual expectations of officers and were often punished for not cooperating with unpleasant or arduous assignments. According to Maxene Andrews…these episodes, rather than diminishing the patriotism of USO women often left them with increased respect for the GI’s (147) All female Jazz/Swing Bands- Virgil Whyte’s Musical Sweethearts, Ada Leonards’s All American Girl Band, Joy Cayler’s Band, D’artega’s All Girl Orchestra, the Sharon Rogers Band and the International Sweethearts of Rhythm (only African American band to tour overseas) (133)



[|Ann Miller Performing V is for Victory] - Beverly Ross the radio DJ, a story inspired by Jean Ruth Hay who became the new face of early radio when she proposed a radio show called Reveille with Beverly to her local radio station. Soon her show was being broadcasted to soldiers around the country- Hay received a huge volume of mail from homesick GIs. "I tried to make it the girl next door, warm, and maybe semi-sexy," Hay told Smithsonian magazine.



The Andrews Sisters “During [the 1940’s] the sisters were very active in their patriotic duty of wartime entertainment. They volunteered their free time to entertain enlisted and wounded men by singing, dancing and signing autographs. In June of 1945 they participated in an eight-week USO tour and performed for thousands of servicemen. They had been hoping to do such a tour since the war started in order to give back to the soldiers that were fighting.” []

He was a famous trumpet man from out Chicago way He had a boogie style that no one else could play He was the top man at his craft But then his number came up and he was gone with the draft He's in the army now, blowing reveille He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B They made him blow a bugle for his Uncle Sam It really brought him down because he could not jam The captain seemed to understand Because the next day the cap' went out and drafted a band And now the company jumps when he plays reveille He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B A-toot, a-toot, a-toot-diddelyada-toot He blows it eight-to-the-bar, in boogie rhythm He can't blow a note unless the bass and guitar is playing with him He makes the company jump when he plays reveille He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B He was our boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B And when he plays boogie woogie bugle he was buzy as a "bzzz" bee And when he plays he makes the company jump eight-to-the-bar He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B Toot-toot-toot, toot-diddelyada, toot-diddelyada Toot, toot, he blows it eight-to-the-bar He can't blow a note if the bass and guitar isn't with him And the company jumps when he plays reveille He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B He puts the boys asleep with boogie every night And wakes 'em up the same way in the early bright They clap their hands and stomp their feet Because they know how he plays when someone gives him a beat He really breaks it up when he plays reveille He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B Da-doo-da da-doo-da-da da Da-doo-da da-doo-da-da da Da-doo-da da-doo-da-da da Da-doo-da da-doo-da-da And the company jumps when he plays reveille He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B! [|Andrews Sisters- Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy]