H ollywood, censorship and the vamp: the films of Mae West 1932-1933
Films of Mae West She done wrong HIM and Belle of the Nineties (1934) are an excellent introduction to consider the question of the relationship between cinema and popular culture in terms of mass culture and the industrialization of culture. When Mae West, actress to Broadway, a halo scent of scandal came to Hollywood in the early 1930s, the preparation of films she must both write and play highlights the tensions inherent in the Hollywood system. The female figure that is provocative, independent, sexually active and away from both middle-class moral standards and image of the ideal woman as are the American churches, studios confronts a dilemma: accept his public persona and his private life and make films that can achieve a success of scandal, or uphold the standards of censorship et du Code Hayes qui sont la garantie de la fabrication d’un «produit » uniformément commercialisable mais passer à côté d'une évolution dans la société qui a vu la reconfiguration des rôles féminins et masculins. Dans ce contexte la censure est l’expression d’un rapport de pouvoir. La question n’est pas seulement celle de la possibilité d’expansion d’un genre, la comédie sexy et d'un personnage, la vamp. Autour du personnage de la « vamp », ce qui est en jeu, c’est la représentation dans l’espace public de personnages féminins défiant les normes et renouvelant conventions.
Films of Mae West pose, in fact, dramatically the issue of censorship. The Hayes Code and the office of censorship established by the association of Hollywood producers are attacking these films she wrote and in which it appears. This allows considering the Hollywood censorship in its economic dimension (must produce films for the general family audience) but also in its symbolic dimension: what are the shows at the general public? The specific issue of the two films considered is the representation of roles féminins dans l’Amérique des années 1930. On verra comment les studios cherchent à s’adapter à une situation instable. Une évolution amorcée au cours des années 1910 a, en effet, conduit, au cours des années 1920, à l’effacement relatif des conceptions victoriennes des la sexualité, de la famille, et de la place de la femme dans la société, au profit de conceptions plus modernes auxquelles les censeurs rechignent à reconnaître une légitimité. Par ailleurs, le bureau de censure cherche à brider la pénétration,dans des œuvres destinées à la classe moyenne, de traits de la culture populaire urbaine du début du XXe siècle : irreverence, challenge moral standards, denial of sexual puritanism. Consideration will also be on the paradox of the work. A film is above all a work in which an author gives free rein to his creativity. for operation, it is necessary not to destabilize the narrative springs. Thus it is with the paradoxical character of a woman of ill repute in the 1890s that Mae West questions the sexual and social conformity of the 1930s.
this film will be addressed by considering initially the overall context of its creation: the United States for years 1920-1930, and delivery female roles in question. We will focus in a second time to the particular context of its production: the arrival of Mae West in Hollywood studios and operation; be considered Finally, the particular points which bear the censure of his films. In conclusion we will wonder how the films of Mae West's answer to a question about the broader relationship between cinema and popular culture.
I. The United States for years 1920-1930 and the questioning of female roles
In his book, American Cool. Constructing a Twentieth-century Emotional Style , NYUPress, 1994, 366 p., Peter N. Stearns montre comment les Etats-Unis au XXe siècle s’affranchissent de ce qu’il appelle le « Victorian Style » en ce qui concerne le gouvernement des émotions et des relations sexuelles, pour entrer dans un ensemble de représentations qu’il rassemble sous le terme de « cool». Caractéristiques des excès des « roraring twenties », les films de Mae West ne peuvent absolument pas être rangées dans la catégorie du « cool » mais elles témoignent du mouvement d’émancipation par rapport social and moral standards of the Victorian era that characterizes the beginning of the century.
This means that Peter Stearns of the term "Victorian Style" is the combination of great emotional intensity, restrictions on sex and social rules on the strict control of the body. In this context, the intense expression of emotions in verbal, written or even physical (tears, fainting ..) offers the opportunity to overcome the stringent standards applied to sexual life. The standards developed within the middle and upper classes of England nineteenth century (hence the term 'Victorian') are being challenged particularly clearly in Europe and the United States after the First World War.
Historians can identify the phenomenon by studying, for example, textbooks of 'savoir vivre' edited for the American middle class (the books on how to make marriage for example, or to educate young people) but also through the letters of individuals who have been kept, popular novels and movies .... We see for example occur during the 1920s a new conception of marriage où l’accent est mis sur la compatibilité sexuelle et la satisfaction légitime des désirs des deux partenaires. On constate aussi la redéfinition de la féminité en termes de sexualité. Les « Roaring Twenties » voient une libération symbolique des corps féminins. Les corsets ont disparu, les jupes raccourcissent, on porte les cheveux coupés. Cela est sans doute lié à la généralisations de nouvelles formes de travail féminin depuis la guerre. Les métiers du secrétariat, de la comptabilité, de la vente dans les grands magasins permettent à de jeunes femmes vivant en ville d’acquérir une autonomie économique.
Cet affranchissement des contraintes victoriennes se traduit dans le milieu des arts et des spectacles, aux Etats-Unis notamment, par une multiplication de comportements qui testent les limites de la tolérance de la société. A Hollywood, divorces et remariages éclair contestent l’institution du mariage. Fatty Arbuckle, grande vedette comique du muet, est impliqué dans la mort d’une starlette lors d’une fête à son domicile à Hollywood, où circulent alcool et drogue.
Par ailleurs, la crise des années trente fait apparaître une nouvelle figure féminine : celle de la jeune femme at which the crisis can no longer or not to work in decent conditions and in a context marked by the almost exclusively male access to economic resources, makes hunting a rich husband legitimate strategy of survival. is the theme, for example, Gold Diggers of 1933 (discussed in Rabbi Theys Must Be Represented , ..)
II. Mae West Hollywood
Mae West is a small theater actress outcome of who wins the East Coast in the early 1930s, a major success. His arrival in Hollywood is part of a strategy of crisis. Faced with financial problems, Paramount is trying to play the card of the sexy vamp. But other forces are at work in studios.
Hollywood, crisis, censure
Hollywood is in the early 1930's economic crisis and this has implications for the content of films and performances of female roles. The studios, in fact, chose the transition to talking films in 1929 as a way to renew their contracts. But it requires huge investments and studios in almost Bankruptcy (Paramount, Goldsmith) pass under the control of banks in the east coast. The latter will exercise tighter control on profitability of their investments. In particular, the system of prior censorship of films is reorganized and the powers of the office of internal censorship Producers Association (MPPA), the Hayes Office, are strengthened.
must understand the exact function of the latter in the process of film production to assess to what extent it participates in the reconfiguration of the representation of women's place in society. Even before 1910 the films produced in the United States face censorship of the municipal authorities and police. One of the first cases of censorship takes place in Chicago where the police chief does not want broadcast a tape showing the murder of a policeman. The filmmakers fail to put themselves under the First Amendment protection. The film is considered a commercial activity by the Supreme Court. But the censorship of a film already made is a significant financial loss. To minimize the hazards and not to engage them to ruinous competition, U.S. producers of major studios that control the entire production decided to create an office of censorship of films; they hire to direct William Hayes, former director of the American position, which was also the head of a Protestant church. This will produce an internal code, a sort of aide memoire, which lists what is permitted and what will not be (we can not show the breasts of actresses, burning the American flag, swear, show or race relations ...). The scenarios are covered and kinds of inspectors inside the studio monitor that rules are properly applied, of course, creating farcical situations when checking the depth of a cleavage or the length of a skirt. The challenge
reads both in terms of 'morality' (which is allowed and what not is not in a society) and economic resources. The huge investment of talking pictures will be cost effective if the public goes to the movies as family entertainment. It is there in the logic of mass culture. It is necessary that the films are likely to attract the greatest number. And why should they respect the moral norms, social representations of many.
At least one dimension of the issue. Because these moral and social norms are neither general nor immutable, we saw when we discussed above changing standards of sexual morality and marriage. Moreover, the films are also works. They obey the rules of a genre (comedy, western, "music") but a certain creative freedom is left to the director in the implementation of such rules due. These rules are constantly being questioned and reinvented by the filmmakers, and creativity is also one of the keys to economic success of a film. The studios are caught between two contradictory imperatives: make films that do not offend standards of morality to not offend anyone or make films interesting, exciting, innovative and out of the fund on the form, which feed into long term desire to "go to the movies .
could identify two poles. On one side of the films that depict violence, sex and contemporary figures of urbanity (the gangster, the journalist, the detective). These films can appeal to a more urban audience of young men but also talk to the whole society of problems affecting it ( Scarface, Little Caesar ,). On the other movies that play on representations "Victorian" family, valuing the control of sexual impulses, the physical expression of emotions by accepted rules (cries crying, fainting), the religious conformity, and family office. The studios think that these films are better suited for a family audience, women, the middle class, both rural and urban areas. Between these extremes, all positions are negotiable, and for each movie, what is possible and what is not being negotiated between the director, producer, actors, under control of the censorship board.
is in this context that Mae West came to Hollywood in 1932, coming directly from the theaters of Broadway and preceded by a sulfurous reputation. It will put in power while the system around one question: what is unacceptable as a representation of the female figure in 1930s America [2] ?
- The adaptation of Diamond Lil : a first bone of contention
When Mae West came to Hollywood in June 1932, she has behind her a singing career review and music hall. She has played for six years on Broadway and wrote herself pieces that have a succes de scandale. His latest play The Constant Sinner , that tells a story of interracial love is fell after 64 performances. She is 36 years and Paramount gets a contract (for a single film) with his friend George Raft who knew one of her lovers, gangster in Chicago.
The Hayes Office (office of internal censorship in Hollywood) has officially warned the studios they see West as "pornographer" and they do not want her in movies. She is neither thin nor a brown "European", as the female figures in fashion in Hollywood as Marlene Dietrich. The press and Louella Parsons are the "too fat, too blond and too vulgar." She moved to Hollywood and built an image of star where his private character is confused with his public persona. The apartment she retained until his death is absurd: polar bear skin, naked statues, and mirrors on the ceiling in his bedroom. She gets a lot of men: they must have left home early in the morning ...
Mae West author
She has no time between 1933 and 1936, the peak of his career, to write scripts for herself as she did on Broadway and then gives rules for those who work for her. These rules are interesting in that they allow us to understand how to build the character of a star. Its recommendations must be read in light of common codes of femininity. Mae West wrote "Mae West can never be the husband of another woman chasing a man, play a role as a mother, exposing her legs being pushed by another character. MW must always leave the situation with a royal pardon, emerge triumphant from every game completely and make the audience laugh. " Other rules: it has no parents, but a secret past, possibly responsible for crimes and many lovers, she has never broken heart, she is rich and men cover the gift, she dies ever, does not suffer, not afraid, is not deceived and never, never be married ...
Mae West also controls its presence in the image. It requires a film with an "entry": ten minutes of preparation during which the men celebrate the beauty and women despise their lifestyle. It appears and then "takes" of film. It is in every scene where she is still the star, even despite the likelihood or the plot.
Mae West also controls its presence in the image. It requires a film with an "entry": ten minutes of preparation during which the men celebrate the beauty and women despise their lifestyle. It appears and then "takes" of film. It is in every scene where she is still the star, even despite the likelihood or the plot.
From Broadway to Hollywood
production of his first film shows how it is difficult to switch codes and cultural and commercial Broadway than in Hollywood. Hollywood seeks primarily to adapt its big Broadway hit Diamond Lil . The problem is that the Hayes Office was blacklisted for 2 years The Paramount however, asks John Bright (The Public Enemy , 1931) to adapt. As West wants to control every word a conflict arises and Bright is returned.
This conflict highlights two vulnerabilities West. She wants to be an author or Bright noted that the pattern of his play is a melodrama 1880. Furthermore, his dissolute life can shock. Everyone is more or less "dissolute" in West Hollywood but is guilty of breaches of code of conduct implied. She chooses her lovers out of the circle of actors and invites businessmen, heirs but also unknown artists and sportsmen black. Now Hollywood is feeling "upper class" and is openly racist.
West also does not deny its roots popular. She comes from Brooklyn, her father is a boxer who is also a real estate agent and detective, and at nine years of Mae West playing characters Children in popular melodramas. It starts at 15 years touring with a vaudeville troupe, then mounts a number with a jazz musician and married secretly. It begins with a review on Broadway "On Broadway" in a theater named "Folies Bergere." The manager is Jesse Lassky future director of Paramount
A sexy vamp
Its main attraction is its "sexy". Typed his voice, languid, combined with costumes that mold forms and gestures that are his trademark: a hand behind the head, the other on her hip. She walks on screen, it takes its swaying suggestive (suggestive wiggle) to black cabaret dancers. She herself wrote a play called Sex which reached in 1926, 385 performances despite critics outraged (the heroine is a prostitute who lives in Montreal with a master singer and loves a black naval officer ...) The
piece is attacked by the association called "Crusade for the Suppression of Vice." It is therefore eight days in jail for " moral corruption of youth "
When Hayes realizes that Paramount wants to adapt Diamond Lil ( Him Wrong She Done with Cary Grant, chosen by Mae West, 1933) he intends to fight for the film to be "safe." In 1932 Paramount and is the new boss, Cohen tries to save the studio with films "of women." Several films portray "bad women" who live in luxury and Back Street, Possessed, Blonde Venus, films that relate
The Hayes Office revises the whole script. Trafficking in counterfeit currency becomes white; emphasis is on the side 1890 - which separates the facts of the contemporary period, the Army officer's Hi seduced by the heroine becomes a mere social worker. But during filming Mae West manages to make all the cuts even more suggestive, Hayes is furious at the first vision of the film: the problem with Mae West is not what she says but how she says it. The censors were particularly angry with respect to the song " A guy who takes his time . The movie poster says it is "Hitting the high spots in lusty entertainment" ("peak in the entertainment forceful") and Arthur Mayer, Zukor but argue over the meaning of lusty. " Lustful means lascivious.
- She done wrong HIM
She Done Wrong HIM , Is one of the great successes of 1933. However meantime came the election of Roosevelt. Is also published a book "Our movies make children" investigation "scientific" conducted between 1929 and 1933 on the effect of Hollywood films on the education of youth. It says that vulnerable young girls learn to "hold a cigarette like Nazimova, Norma Shearer smiles, the eyes play as Joan Crawford." Problems with Belle of the Nineties, whose original title was to be " This is not a sin "(denied" by the censors) will multiply.
- Belle of the Nineties
In Hollywood, Hayes recruited Joseph Breen, crossed moral conservative Catholic, anti-Semitic "to closely monitor the studios. An internal agreement stipulates that studio seal the censorship board is now required before release. Breen tackles the current project: the adaptation of The Constant Sinner , which will Belle of the Nineties. Breen rejects completely the first script to be vulgar, obscene, glorification of prostitution, criminals and crime go unpunished. It requires changes: the heroine, Ruby Carter is no longer a prostitute but "just" a singer. Her lover, Kid Tiger, is no longer an ex-gangster at the same time as a boxer but only a boxer. It removes a scene where Ruby-Mae West stole money and another where the censor mark too languorous kisses. The scenario assumes that the lovers spend five days in bed, making Breen furious. It removes a scene where after flirting with a male Ruby-Mae West asks "what is your name?". And even Ruby et Tiger Kid se marient légalement à la fin. Il ne reste rien de l’histoire originale, que des phrases choc et, quand même, des numéros musicaux avec Duke Ellington et son orchestre noir que Mae West a imposés.
Ce sera le dernier film de West qui se passera dans les bas fonds de la société. Le suivant Klondike Annie sera aussi sauvagement censuré. Or West perdait sa raison d’être en cessant d’être une « bad girl. » Elle continue à tourner à Hollywood mais chaque film est une bagarre et son personnage de vamp sexy se démode progressivement. In 1943, she returned to the scene. Breen won.
Conclusion
This film gives us to read the competition between two types of acceptable representations of femininity in the public space. Note that for the film "Belle of the Nineties " the story, set in the 1880s has apparently little to do with America in the 1930s. However, if one chooses a problem built around the question of the representation of female characters, and more generally the perception sexuality in a changing society, we grasp how the system of self-censorship Hollywood and processes that contribute to the development of a filmic object acceptable to the American public. We also see what raises tensions used Hollywood to resume pieces from Broadway that narrative and aesthetic codes are very different from those studios. We finally understands what is the innovation of Hollywood in a specific context: that of a mass media dominated by a commercial
