Author: Stacie Hook
Graduation Year: 2007
Advisor: Michael Coventry, Ph.D.
Reader: Matthew Tinkcom, Ph.D.
Date: 22 May 2007
Link to Thesis:
There is no shortage of historical sources that assert that film was the dominant cultural medium of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Being both a creator of and reflection of cultural norms and practices, films can provide evidence to support a good many claims about the cultural climate of the era. With women making up the majority of film audiences during the time in question, their attitudes about themselves can be seen in popular films. This thesis seeks to uncover the impact that films had on working-class women of the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Using a model of representational analysis, this thesis argues that working-class women found mirror-image role models in the images they saw on screen. Moving past the traditional idea that women viewed film simply as escapist, this thesis argues that women actually consumed films on both an escapist platform, but more importantly, on a realistic level as well. Therefore, the cultural representation of working-class characters that appeared on screen provided the most salient opportunity for women to self-identify and find meaning. Through an active reception of the film’s characters, working-class women in 1939-1940 were able to consume, appropriate and use the images they saw on screen in order to find a proper place of meaning; meaning that helped women understand who they were and how they fit into the world around them.