the ones numbers like 'We're In the Money' made in the depths of the depression, to those of the fifties, projecting a blonde, beaming, picture of sexual relations in a decade of pure sexual misery.
But few of us remember that the sexual and class values in these films were by no means a true reflection of what was happening in society. Nor were they even the expression of writers, directors, and The explicit movies made America dictated for over 20 years by the Hays Production Code (1933-1951).
In relation to matters sexual, all films had to have a 'happy ending' marriage for lovers, reconciliation for troubled partners, necessary to restore the family unit again. No pre-marital or was allowed, accompanied by appropriate conseq lences. Bedroom scenes were permitted only if there were twin beds, and each person had one foot on the floor!
The infamous production code did not reflect social reality. values that it propagated were those of the entire population. it aio reneck nowevel, was complete control over industry, and the values it needed to control in spheres of life.
It further reflected a relationship of forces between the capitalist class, the working class, and women more generally, insofar as the capitalist class was able to impose, through monopoly, censorship in what appeared to be the "harmless' entertainment industry.
Although virtually every capitalist country still has its board of censors, today no such official code exists to regulate the "moral' American films. As a result, many of ilavc become accustomed thinking that the images, situations and patterns we see in the movies are in some sense a real reflection of life, of the trends and contemporary society, even if it takes the cinema a long time to 'catch up' with reality.
After all, isn't Saturday Night Fever a film about the alienation of urban, working class youth? Aren't Girlfriends and Norma Rae feminist films? Aren't films like these evidence that Hollywood has its thumb on our pulse, since it is able to make movies that reflect and explore experiences and questions seventies?
Hollywood films have changed -at least in some measure — in their presentation taken place due to two overriding factors. First, the women's liberation movement has had a direct effect on Hollywood itself.
Women actors, directors have all felt the supportive and challenging impact movement, and have begun to push away some of the old barriers in their path. Increasingly, they are demanding that role, job, more into line with their 'reality."
Second, the men control the industry have also felt the impact of the movement, in two ways.
Doubtless, there are some who have rethought certain attitudes to women, and whose contribution to films comes from what we could call positive motives.
But largely, the pressure of the women's movement form of a large audience Hollywood who nave also affected. by this movement and will pay to see films which deal with their ile experience.
This kind of motivation by its very logic implies an imperative to down the revolutionary.
of women's liberation.
10o crass or cynical an explanation for the minor proliferation of films like Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, #lick i Girlfriends, a brief look at these films Unmarried Woman, reveals that this tendency is very much al piay, mixed in with the positive motion toviard change for women.
Alice and An Unmarried Woman Socialist Challenge 6 Septerber 1979 Page 14 The capital's the film all other certain content of to issues of the the world (widowed This both have pubescent children. and the and script come the one case other. largely film. into the • certain handsome, cowboy, and twilight comes in the and established artist.
outside Nevertheless, been they took the first steps and nursery play possibilities protagonists in life, If this seems moving parts in a play of not yet make a feminist film.
Julia or Girlfriends.
playwright and both revolve around the adventures ot women who are left on their own in For divorced).
Ellen Burstyn plays Alice, a working class woman who supports herself by waitressing, and would like to sing for Jill Clayburgh • plays the ex-wife of a stockbroker, a woman with few visible skills but with some undefined artistic aspirations. They While these two women live on opposite sides of the class fence, their situations are otherwise similar. They even have similar coteries of women She friends, cynical and heart-broken, but full of wit and courage, waitresses in idle ex-wives in If these similarities are remarkable, even more remarkable is the symmetry or the resolution in eact The working class woman goes sunset burly and atfluent the petit-bourgeois woman goes off into the New York with her handsome, • burly, UWII. these films were greeted as 'feminist" simply because to bring women out from the shadows of the on to centre stage. Women appeared to have been granted the opportunity to be seen as not simply as male initiative. Fair enough — but this does was released at about the same time as Unmarried Woman, and quickly followed lies Julia told the story of a friendship between Lillian Hellman (Lilly), the novelist, and her friend Julia, a woman who studied philosophy at Oxford, and went to Vienna to work with Sigmund Freud.
became a highly committed socialist and anti-fascist in thirties, a commitment which led to her assassination.
Julia represented a major advance over Alice because it gave us a sense of the role which social and political commitment can play in women's ability to transcend traditional female barriers, as well as the profound role OCIN CCI women. underlined the right of women to lead independent and creative lives of their Julia lends itself immediately to a comparison Girlfriends, story of two young contemporary women, and how their friendship as they grapple with evolves implications singlehood marriage, children and work, and of Louise. sexual relations (essentially with men).
Where Julia takes place against a sweeping backdrop of shattering events, Girlfriends is very much an 'everyday' film. Its success in the way conveys contradictions between what the old woman wants ('I want Martin to look after me, ' says Annie) and what the "new' one aspires to ('You don't need the Sally Field as Norma Rae, modern 'union-maid'. anyone to look after you, you car take care of yourself, We get a clear sense of how these contradictions put friendship as well as on each woman individually.
Good as these films are from a feminist point of the exhibit several central flaws First, while they explore some of the issues in male-lemale relaulon the ships, they do no exploration of either and lesbianism or collective living and childrearing as potential alternatives 'normal' sexual patterns. Consequently, resolutions available to each woman protagonist inevitably dealise social-sexual Ine Nowhere do we get even a flavour of the women's movement itself the very thing which makes Susan and Susan replies)
SLICOS view, they still important, CYCL there is process and family change. all the bourgeois) throughout. come up . all the limitations of the allanke Annie's new lifestyle (not to speak of the film itself, possible consciousness-raising groups to building demonstrations.
nowhere any sense that women can improve the quality their lives if they are engaged in the of collective activity for Good old American (read individualism persists The film industry has shown a marked aversion to combining the themes of women's liberation class politics in the spate of films that have emerged respond to the appearance of the working class, as a class, since the mid-seventies.
papers showed a flicker of interest in