Relationship between Women and Early Cinema - Essay Example

Introduction This paper aims to outline the debate on the relationship between looking, eroticism, and spectacle in early cinema alongside the roleplayed by fashion and clothing in them. Early films embrace the spectacle of clothing and dress which was shown between the period of the vaudeville and cinema. Cinema is a form of mass media in which certain values, attitudes, and fashion trends are promoted. It likewise accentuates a concept of beauty which pervades among the protagonists and lead actors, in which a certain distinct standard of beauty is emphasized with the audiences' acceptance, a fact in which dressing and fashion are a part. It was said that films embody a complex historical, cultural, and aesthetic relationship which the effect of each result in the other's development (Knopt 2005, p. 37). The cinema is hence not just a social tool that provides entertainment, but also one in which the cultural and social aspects of society are reflected. It promotes intents and clamors for what must be geared for by people in general. It may be inferred that the cinema has a model of attraction in which the audience is significantly drawn into. This attraction provides a relationship between the viewer and the film, in which a relationship between the cinema and its connection to the era's entertainments and expositions of technologies are highlighted (Strauven 1999, p. 121). What this concept implies is that there was indeed a cinema which offered viewers a specific pleasure, a pleasure characterized by different degrees - from the plot itself to the dresses and clothing of the cast. A cinema of attractions, like the early cinema, addresses the viewers directly and become the privileged recipients of the pleasures. By its very nature, narrative cinema relegates the viewer to the safe position of observer-voyeur (Strauven 1999, p. 121), in which the viewers are given the privilege to peek closely at the physical characteristics of characters, their motives, behavior, facial expressions, and even the manner of dressing. The film spectacle is thus an act of showing which presents sudden bursts of presentations created for pleasure of immediate vision-apparition (Strauven 1999, p. 122). This conception is grounded on the fact that the camera is able to see and conceive things and the world differently. It was posited that the machinery of cinema involves powers and qualities that allow it to become an attraction machine, in which attraction itself is a corroborative idea that is enduringly present in its heart. Historians agree that during the first few decades of the cinema, a spectacular, direct, and exhibitionist model was created making it a vision machine that offer marvelous visions. It is clear that women and fashion were two dominant elements in early cinema, existing hand in hand with each other as they inflict new values among the viewers. There was no lead actress that dressed poorly unless her role asked for it, which eventually transforms her to a beautiful girl in high fashion. The women depicted were young ones, attributing to the important connection between youth and eroticism and the corresponding cut of clothing necessary to reveal this eroticism. Looking good is essential in this pursuit in which it is necessary to cast beautiful women with beautiful bodies characterised with slim waists and large breasts which early cinema was accounted for. As we have posited that the cinema in general provides observation and voyeurism, a beautiful face and body are hence important ingredients of these aspects, in which fashion and good dressing are likewise contributory factors. The cinema affects the viewed in a sense that it tends to promote all these aforementioned which the viewers easily adopt and create as a form of fashion style. Certain approaches to courtship, dating and sex are also promoted by the cinema as a form of mass media affecting the habits and values of people in its usage of beautiful erotic bodies and equally good dressing of women characters. Eroticism is the element that expresses desires through the image itself (Bruzzi 1997, p. 178); embodied by the totality of the actors and actresses including the clothes they wear. Women dressing as men are viewed as a stance of a political act, in which means' clothing has no significant erotic value as compared to women and wearing them could not possibly provoke sexual desires (Bruzzi 1997, p. 179). It is to this provocation that women's manner of dressing is based, alongside their promotion of fashion in the movies. In this sense, women characters must wear make-up in order to accentuate this eroticism and to complement the fashion depicted in the cinema. Coupled with a beautiful body and face, the women of early cinema were able to project an erotic stance on the viewers who were drawn through attraction and tended to imitate the dressing and sense of style of the women characters. Hollywood's use of fashion in cinema as spectacle is traced down to "theatrical tableau, night club revue, beauty contest, and fashion show "( p. 47). All of these traditions are directly linked to film genres that used costumes as a spectacular aspect, such as the fashion film, the musical, and the costume drama. The vaudeville and cabaret traditions were drawn by female stars; like Mae West and Marlene Dietrich in performing their playfully exaggerated performance styles (Berry 2000, p. 47). Other female actresses had their careers grounded on high-budget prestige dramas in which elaborate historical costumes are featured such as Greta Garbo and Norma Shearer. The spectacular and commercial aspects of costume in the Hollywood cinema were compatible although fashion and costume often demystified high fashion in the contrast of high and low culture according to popular appropriation of elite standards (Berry 2000, p. 48). Populism emerged in films about fashion and couture, emphasizing accessibility of high-fashion glamour rather than an exclusive or elite design culture. This accessibility is provided by the radiations of popular melodrama, masquerade, and spectacle (Berry 2000, p. 48). The fashion show on the Hollywood screen has often an entirely different inflection as caused by its association with the musical. It was evident that the 1930s presented musicals that were characteristically utopian, being outrageously luxurious with an aura of democratic abundance (Berry 2000, p. 48). Musicals indeed produced an ambiance that reeks with class, which was also a playful critique of class difference (ibid). Sets and costumes went together in the promotion of fashion in cinema, depicted by the creation of visual device in which large quantities of lighting were added to the beauty of films' sets in order to accentuate the whole background that would complement with the character's dress. It is apparent that dress implies fashion which in turn implies visuality which in turn implies market (Verhoeff p. 172). The early cinema depicted of fashion and dressing as indispensable aspects like music and sound effects to a film. If examined closely, their presence were not fro anything fancy but for a clear manifestation of promoting an elitist nature which the viewer would in turn view as important and emulative. Women dressed in a rather feminine fashion in which shirts and trousers were of no use, as these lack erotic value than a low-cut gown or a high-rise mini. The men had to complement their manner of dressing with that of the women in order to highlight opposites. Since the cinema is a form of mass media, dressing and fashion were used as tools that drew attention and attraction from the viewers. It may also be inferred that the cinema's consumerist and commercial value allows for fashion and dressing as elements that would draw the viewers towards watching the film, significantly creating earnings and profits for it. He female characters were hence depicted as good dressers and 'fashion models' in which viewers safely observe and voyeur, drawing on significantly a kind of consciousness that allows for them to mimic what they see and patronize continuously a character's attire and fashion style. The women in the cinema during the 1930s were known for their feisty, courageous stances stamping the era with their personalities and styles, such as Joan Crawford, Katherine Hepburn, and Greta Garbo. Class is epitomized by these women in such films as Jezabel, Queen Christina and Mary of Scotland, and Easy Street (Sterk 2001, p. 199). It was argued that the seduction principle influenced the choices of women's fashion embodied in these cinemas. However, when typical women enter the workplace which is not subject to the norms of society, questions of self-presentation often face them which are not adequately answered by the seduction principle (Sterk 2001, p. 199). It then posits that the fashion depicted in early cinema was one that did not include the world in which women were frequently in, such as the workplace. Indeed, it was posited that the use of costume to denaturalize social distinctions may have been a relevant aspect of Hollywood cinema's entertainment value, as well as demystification of dress and certain modes of behavior (Sterk 2001, p. 200). The cinema was hence a venue for narratives in which women were able to change circumstances, which also provided models of dress which the viewers hopefully retain in their consciousness as a distinct fashion style of Greta Garbo, or of Katherine Hupburn, or of Joan Crawford. The viewers who were mesmerized by these dresses and the corresponding value they have of them can be readily available in fashion stores and home department stores, bearing the identity of the actress who wore it. It is a form of consumerist practice translated by the cinema into profit-generating stance which the fashion boutique or the home department store promotes. It is essentially argued that accessibility of Hollywood inspired dresses is worked according to how cultural life changed when film technology took over and provided a key source of entertainment while dictating a cultural pattern of dressing that a certain group of people should adopt. It as clear that entertainment paved a way for the films of the 1930s modeled women along with their characteristic strength and stylistic glamour were a contrast to the then economic depression era in which women were inspired to better their own lives (Sterk 2001, p. 200). Likewise, it could also be viewed as an escapist stance in that the cinema at this time depicted topics far from the socially relevant circumstances of the period. It must also be considered that the women characters during this period of early cinema, particularly the lead ones, were all whites, indicating the social construction of beauty as directed to whiteness. Likewise, the viewers were able to relate to this construction who hailed white skin as beautiful, and complemented with the fashion and eroticism embodied in the cinema. Conclusion Dressing, fashion, and eroticism went hand-in-hand in the period of early cinema in which women wore dresses only of feminine nature and wearing those that belong to the male fashion was considered non-feminine and lacked erotic value. The women characters themselves depicted eroticism not only on their choice of clothes in the films, but also in their beautiful faces and bodies culturally conceptualised as white, and were hence, beautiful. The female characters had in them a certain degree of eroticism which did not necessarily have to be envisaged by their roles, actions, or their dialogues, but by mere movements and how they carried their dresses and fashion styles. Fashion in cinema was transformed to visuality, which in turn was transformed to market in that the cinema functioned like an advertiser in which lead female characters with their elegant clothing were viewed as the viewers as ones worthy of identity. References Berry, Sarah, 2000. Fashion and femininity: Screen Style in 1930s Hollywood. University of Minnesota Press. Bruzzi, Stella, 1997. Clothing and identity in the movies. Taylor & Francis. Knopt, Robert, 2005. Theatre and film: a comparative anthology. Yale University Press. Sterk, Helen, 2001. "Determination and style: 1930s Hollywood and women's lives". The Review of Communication. Vol. 1, p. 199-203. Strauven, Wanda, 1999. The cinema of attractions reloaded. Amsterdam University Press. Verhoeff, Nana, The West in early cinema. Amsterdam University Press. Read More