Feminism 3.0: Research in Feminist Media Art/Theory/History

2011-12-13T04:19:00.000-08:00

Jean Muir was a social activist on the frontline of the battles for labor and civil rights, she made 28 films mostly for Warner Bros. She was fired from a TV show for her political beliefs during the 1950s blacklist, perhaps the only woman that was treated to this honor, she also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame but no website.
William M. Drew, knew Jean Muir and interviewed her for his book, "At the Center of the Frame." Last week I helped him create a post at "THE YEAR OF THE WOMEN." http://william-m-drew.webs.com/19112011.htm

MISS REPRESENTATION SCREENING TODAY, NOV 12 ON OWN NETWORK, 11:00 EST,

2011-11-12T06:28:00.000-08:00

Just had a chance to catch the trailer for Miss Representation -- my students had told me to look out for the rebroadcast and here it is today on OWN network.

Jean Harlow and women's work

2011-11-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

There is a marvelous article exploring Jean Harlow’s opinion on “women’s rights”; I think it is particularly important as I don’t usually think of Jean Harlow as a feminist, a facet of a very complex woman.
It is posted as part of 100th Anniversary celebration “THE YEAR OF THE WOMEN AND WHAT WOMEN THEY WERE” at the film historian, William M Drew website, here is the link: http://william-m-drew.webs.com/19112011.htm

2011-10-06T14:44:00.000-07:00

It is interesting that the women's movement was having a problem with a political party, the more things change the more they remain the same, sometimes we just don't progress...as much as we think...interesting...

Remix and Media Literacy: An Interview with video artist Elisa Kreisinger

2011-01-31T11:50:00.000-08:00

I just started writing for a new series with NAMAC (National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture). I kicked off my contributions for the series with an interesting and fun interview with Elisa Kreisinger. Hope you enjoy!

About the NAMAC Bloggers

2011-01-14T17:03:00.000-08:00

Just signed on as a NAMAC blogger -- will be focused on media literacy, media activism, and emergent media forms/formats (especially transmedia). I should be getting my first post out there soon, and I am going to start out with an interview of remix artist, Elisa Kreisinger of Pop Culture Pirate, which should be a blast.

For more info on the NAMAC bloggers, check out these bios here:

About the NAMAC Bloggers

1914 Suffragettes at Keystone

2010-12-23T21:54:00.000-08:00

In August 1914 Inez Haynes Gillmore and Nina Wilcox Putnam went to visit Keystone Studios to see Mabel Normand. A few articles and information is at Looking-for-Mabel, in Reprints but here is the direct link http://looking-for-manel.web.com/visitbysuffragettes.htm

Reclaiming the Archive, first interview with Suzanne Leonard available

2010-09-19T14:16:00.000-07:00

I have been meaning to post interviews with contributors to the Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History book, but things have been pretty hectic this last year. I do now have a podcast posted with Suzanne Leonard of Simmons College on celebrity culture, romance, and marriage. It's a very lively discussion, and I hope you enjoy! With luck more to follow soon!

Women's Land Army - the "Farmerettes"

2010-08-17T11:59:00.000-07:00

I have posted a very little piece on Elaine Weiss book on the FARMERETTES at Looking for Mabel, the was a fascinating group of women that populated the American farmlands during World War I. http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/farmerettes.htm

Women and Silent Screen VI Conference, June 2010

2010-06-18T09:16:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note to mention the upcoming Women and Silent Screen VI conference coming up next week in Italy. I am very excited that I will be able to attend this year as this is truly my favorite academic event. There are wonderful presentations, great scholarship, amazing screenings featuring beautiful prints of rare films, and collegial, lively participants. Here's a link to the conference site and the conference program

I will be presenting on Mabel Normand and focusing on the discourse in the latter part of her career, the obituaries discussing Norman's death, and situating the discussion within the context of the "New Woman" in the 1920s. My paper is part of a panel on Hollywood's creation and critique of the New Woman and includes also: Hilary Anne Hallett (Columbia University) "Re-reading Hollywood's First Sexual Scandal: Virginia Rappe, New Western Women, and the Bohemian Movie Colony"; Shelley Stamp (University of California, Santa Cruz) "Exit Flapper, or Lois Weber's Critique of Jazz Age Hollywood"; and Anne Morey (Texas A&M University) "School of Scandal: Alice Duer Miller, Scandal, and the New Woman." I know I will learn a lot from this group, especially with Jennifer Bean (University of Washington) leading the discussion as panel Chair.

I will try to post or tweet as time permits, although it is usually an action packed time.

New Microfilm Reader at LoC

2010-05-03T05:59:00.000-07:00

Anything to make the reading of micofilm easier....

A note from Rob Farr, "Oh, Oh! Guess what! The Library of Congress Motion Picture Reading Room has a new microfilm reader that will let you scan images to your thumb drive. Yes, you still have to scroll the pages slowly to find what you're looking for, but the pdfs are clean and hi-rez (about 400-500 kb). Just think, you walk in with nothing but a thumb drive and ... walk out with hundreds of pages on that drive. Even if you just think something might be interesting, hit "scan" and read it a home. Oh, Oh! I'm geekin' out!"

Mabel Normand 1 of the 10 female directors listed

2010-04-27T02:32:00.000-07:00

One of the members of the Mabel Normand Yahoo group posted this note and I thought you might like to know that Mabel is listed in the "TOP TEN" (thanks very much Patricia...)

"I was researching women who are or have been film directors and come across this list, which mentions Mabel (as #9)."

http://blog.beliefnet/moviemom/2010/03/list-women-directors.html

Julia Brew Benson

2010-04-04T00:10:00.000-07:00

I knew Julie Benson; she was my quardian during my formative years. On a personal note, one of the last things Mabel did was give Julie a gift of $10,000 (in 2010 dollars that would be $125,551.74) a nice remembrance. I thought it was time to tell you a bit about Mabel's friend. http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/juliabrewbenson.htm

Digital Archives, SP-ARK

2010-03-16T13:40:00.000-07:00

We are always on the lookout for new archival forms for film and media here and Sally Potter's website points us to the online archive SP-ARK, which promises to be one that will be helpful in helping us rethink not only what an archive looks like, but how it might operate and connect scholars and practitioners in knowledge and conversation.

SP-ARK brings together production materials from Potter's film, Orlando, in an online environment that includes components of networked world -- tags, discussion forums, user contacts and messaging. Check out the video on this innovative effort by Sally Potter and Adventure films. The archive is still in its beta testing phase so those interested in touring and working with the site in full functionality should contact beta@sp-ark.org with some info about yourself and your interest in the topic.

Lunch Love Community -- Social Media Project by Helen De Michiel and Sophie Constantinou

2010-03-13T10:30:00.000-08:00

My friend Helen De Michiel has a great project up on Kickstarter, which documents the Berkeley School Lunch initiative. Part of a larger film OPEN MINDS, OPEN MOUTHS that will be available next year, the Kickstarter effort will be to fund a activist social media project around a series of short and free webisodes to "put a human face on food policy reform." Beyond the fundamental nutritional and health issues, food policy is a site of numerous intersecting points in contemporary culture ranging from economic, environmental, and quality of life concerns. Here's a clip and a link to Kickstarter where you can check out more about the LUNCH LOVE COMMUNITY social media project.

Crossing the Wild River: R.I.P. Robin Wood (1931-2009)

2009-12-19T08:05:00.001-08:00

Shared from the amazing Film Studies for Free website, by Catherine Grant.

Crossing the Wild River: R.I.P. Robin Wood (1931-2009)

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Wayne State University Press - Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History - Edited by Vicki Callahan

2009-12-16T16:57:00.000-08:00

Hi all, just a quick note with the link on the forthcoming collection. I will be putting up a website in the New Year with details on contributors and some fun extras so stay tuned!

Wayne State University Press - Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History - Edited by Vicki Callahan

1923 Feminist

2009-10-27T02:09:00.000-07:00

In 1923 the first wave of feminism had sweep the country, was an electrifying time and I found an interesting article by Heywood Broun (January 6, 1923 - Press Publishing Company) - I transcibed it at Looking-for-Mabel, One line - "Feminism The Dividing Rock In The Middle Of The Dramatic Stream" now how could I not post it? It is in "Off Topic" http://looking-for-

mabel.webs.com/index.htm

He reviewed, "Will Shakespeare" by Clemence Dane and "Secrets" by Rudolf Besier.

Cinecon 45 Hollywood Sept 3-Sept 7

2009-08-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

Ida Mae Park wrote in 1920. wrote:
"As for the natural equipment of women for the role of director, the superiority of their emotional and imaginative faculties give them a great advantage. The fact that there are only two women directors of note in the field today leaves an absolutely open field. But unless you are hardy and determined, the director's role is not for you. Wait until the profession has emerged from its embryonic state and a system has been evolved by which the terrific weight of responsibility can be lifted from one pair of shoulders. When that time comes, I believe that women will find no finer calling."

Among the twenty-five unusual feature films tentatively scheduled for Cinecon 45 is:
BROADWAY LOVE (1918)In the 1910s Universal was one of the few studios willing to take a chance on women directors. Starring Dorothy Phillips and Lon Chaney, Broadway Love was directed by Ida May Park.

Minta Durfee and The Last of the Terrible Men

2009-07-10T07:40:00.000-07:00

By Joan Myers

On September 9, 1921, a woman named Virginia Rappe died in a San Francisco hospital, four days after attending a party held in the hotel room of the popular silent screen comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Thirty-four hours later, the night of September 10, Arbuckle was arrested for her murder. The murder charge was later reduced to manslaughter; Arbuckle was tried three times and ultimately acquitted of the charge, but the affair destroyed his career.

Reporters began following the story the night of Virginia Rappe’s death when the San Francisco police were called into the case. By the time Arbuckle had been advised of Rappe’s death, spoken to the San Francisco police, and contacted his attorney, several hours had passed and reporters had already interviewed many of the principals--including Arbuckle himself. In an era when crime beat reporters whiled away their time playing cards with precinct detectives, this was not atypical. Reporters and police were usually advised of cases simultaneously, but reporters, needing only a pen to cover a story, could deploy more nimbly and often arrived first at crime scenes. Reporters were sometimes such an integral part of the story they were covering that they became participants in the events rather than mere observers.

Crime beat reporters also nurtured relationships with defense attorneys and other officials, with an eye to scooping rivals with inside stories of investigations and trial strategy or exclusive interviews with defendants and witnesses. The cozy relationship between scribe and source did not mean that reporters were completely in thrall to their contacts, and the contacts had their own reasons for cultivating selected members of the press. Bluntly stated, the reporters wanted the story and the contact wanted the spin. Since the two parties had differing objectives, the dance was sometimes an uneasy one. Occasionally neither party achieved the result they wanted.

By the time Arbuckle’s lead attorney, Frank Dominguez of the prestigious law firm Dominguez, Dehm, and Cohen, arrived on the scene, (at around midnight the night of Rappe’s death) Arbuckle had already been summoned back to San Francisco and press speculation on the burgeoning scandal had spiraled out of control. The speed with which events unfolded meant there was not much Dominguez could do to control the press. He responded by immediately denying reporters access to his client, limiting the chances that prosecutors could later use Arbuckle's words to impeach his testimony.

There was, however, one subject of public speculation that could be controlled, and that involved the state of Arbuckle’s marriage. At the time of his arrest, Arbuckle and his actress wife, Minta Durfee, had been estranged for five years. Durfee’s career had waned during that five-year period; she was not well known and was not prominent in the immediate reportage, although she did garner a few whiffs of attention. While some reports suggested that Arbuckle was a bachelor, others intimated that he had discarded Durfee as excess baggage in his climb up the career ladder. Those reporters who noticed her at all noticed that the two were living on opposite coasts--a departure from traditional living arrangements that did not go unremarked.

Three days after Arbuckle’s arrest, on September 13, Durfee and her mother departed New York en route for San Francisco. They completed the transcontinental journey in a tidy five days. On September 18 they were intercepted in Sacramento by two of Arbuckle’s attorneys, Charles Brennan and Milton Cohen, and the party drove from there to the Bay Area, arriving at the Oakland Ferry dock the early morning of September 19. Although they were greeted by eager reporters, neither Durfee nor her mother was allowed to answer questions. The attorneys issued a prepared statement, and the two women were then whisked from public view and sequestered in an unknown location.

Getting down to business, the two posed for photos with the accused and appeared at Arbuckle’s side during his preliminary hearing (beginning September 22), but interviews continued to be refused and reporters were kept away from the Durfees until September 25. That morning, attorney Charles Brennan arranged a press conference to be held later that day at the Palace Hotel. The event was designed to introduce Durfee to the press and counter suspicions that her decision to travel to San Francisco had not been entirely of her own making.

The few reporters invited to this press conference were hand-picked and vetted by Brennan, a former San Francisco newspaperman. I have located four reports of this event, all of which ran in the next day’s papers. Two of the lucky journalists present were from San Francisco: Helen Roberts of the San Francisco Examiner, and an unnamed reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle. The third report, in the San Francisco Bulletin, appears to have been derived from newswires. The fourth reporter, James H. Richardson, seems to have been the only invitee from Los Angeles.(1)

Richardson, later dubbed “The Last of the Terrible Men,”(2) went on to a storied career as a newspaperman and eventually as City Editor of Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner. Pulitzer Prize-winning sports reporter Jim Murray described Richardson as “a one-eyed, iron-lunged, prototypical Hearst city editor, a tyrant of the city room.” Other colleagues often described Richardson in terms considerably less adulatory and decidedly unsuitable for a family-friendly blog. Two Los Angeles news photographers, brothers Coy and Delmar Watson, knew Richardson and held strong--and diametrically opposed--views. Delmar loathed the man; his initial response upon hearing Richardson’s name was “that son of a bitch!” Coy liked Richardson, although he acknowledged that he could be unpredictable. “It was always on the level with me,” he said, “but I never knew what was on the level with Jimmy!”(3) When asked about Richardson’s abilities as a reporter, however, both Coy and Delmar responded identically: “He was a great reporter.”

In 1921, Richardson worked the city beat for the Los Angeles Evening Herald. He was known for assiduous courting of contacts, tenacious and flamboyant reporting, heavy drinking, and irascible temper; he also had a reputation for fair play, especially when lives and reputations were at stake.(4) It is unlikely that Richardson knew attorney Charles Brennan, but he had a better contact on Arbuckle’s legal team--Frank Dominguez. Richardson lists Dominguez as a friend in both his 1954 autobiography, For the Life of Me, and his 1922 serialized novel, Spring Street. In that novel Richardson’s protagonist, a dewy-eyed cub reporter, visits his silent-star sweetheart at her ancestral home, a decaying but picturesque rancho located immediately outside Los Angeles. The cub reporter and silent-star sweetheart were Richardson’s creations; the rancho was not.(5) Reporter Adela Rogers St. Johns also recalled attending barbecues at the Dominguez Rancho with her father, legendary Los Angeles criminal attorney Earl Rogers. Rogers had been associated with Dominguez, Dehm, and Cohen until 1919, when years of epic drinking finally ended his colorful career (the firm was originally Rogers and Dominguez, later Rogers, Dominguez, Dehm, and Cohen). When Rogers died in January 1922, Frank Dominguez and Milton Cohen served as his pallbearers.

At first glance, the articles written about the press conference by Richardson, Roberts, and the Chronicle reporter seem favorable. Closer examination, however, suggests that the event was not completely successful for either the attorneys or the reporters. All three stories contain subjective, occasionally barbed commentary. The Chronicle report is the most straightforward of the three, but even it is not completely flattering. After his introductory paragraphs, the reporter writes:

To hear this self-possessed cordial little woman explain it, the oddity of a wife, separated from her husband for five years, during which time they met but seldom, hastening at the first intimation of trouble to his assistance, without encouragement from him, becomes an entirely reasonable and logical act.

Setting aside the writer’s gentle skepticism of Durfee’s wifely reason and logic, the remainder of the report is positive. But Helen Roberts, later one of Durfee’s staunchest admirers, reminds her readers that Durfee is an actress, with years of training behind her for such eventualities. Roberts then carefully describes the event’s logistics, illustrating the staged nature of the affair.

Frank Dominguez dropped the fatherly attitude toward the visitors and became the alert lawyer. “Is everyone here, representatives of the press whom you invited,” he inquired of Charlie Brennan, glancing at his watch. It was 5 o’clock.

Brennan replied in the affirmative.

“Proceed, gentlemen,” Dominguez said. He slipped into a corner of the room facing Mrs. Arbuckle and her mother.

Roberts finally gives up reporting altogether in favor of transcribing questions and answers. She closes her article with questions answered solely by attorney objections, making it plain that even had Durfee been privy to the relevant information, the attorneys would not have allowed her to discuss it.

Q. What is your opinion of the evidence of the prosecution so far presented, either at the coroner’s jury or at the preliminary examination?
A. Objected to by attorneys.

Q. If you believe it to be weak, what has your husband told you that permits your faith in him to counterbalance the sworn testimony of the witnesses?
A. Objected to by attorneys, who announced that questions bearing on the case would not be allowed.

Richardson begins his report by ignoring Durfee altogether, stating that he prefers talking to Flora Durfee, who appears less rehearsed.

Somehow what she said seemed more genuine than the censored answers of her daughter, although Mrs. Arbuckle’s sincerity was manifest.

He pointedly refers to Durfee several times throughout the article as “The Forgotten Wife,” and gleefully reports an unnamed reporter’s ironic response to one of Durfee’s more cloying statements.

“I can’t tell you what will happen when it’s all over. Things like that are”--she hesitated for words--“are in the hands of God--don’t you think?--and I can tell you what I hope. I hope we can go back to Los Angeles again, back to Los Angeles and...”

“And perhaps a rose covered bungalow,” someone interrupted to ask.

Later in the article Richardson directly quotes Durfee, but not without adding his own dry dollop of commentary:

“Oh, I know Roscoe’s innocent,” she said, her emotion lifting her voice dramatically. “I know, because I know him for what he is--a big, good-natured, happy boy.”

“Big, good-natured, happy boy”--the same words used by Mrs. Durfee.

Richardson closes his article on bizarre note, indicating that attorney Brennan might better have stuck with Durfee’s soft soap than attempting his own hard sell:

Charlie Brennan, the San Francisco attorney associated with Dominguez and Cohen, bent over to whisper in my ear:

“What a woman! “What a woman!”

The interview was at an end. “The Forgotten Wife” had told her story and told it well.

Naturally, Arbuckle’s attorneys were as concerned with protecting their client’s battered reputation as they were with providing him a defense, and they were carefully controlling the information released to the public. But the reporters invited to the conference also had a mission: to get a story. All the reporters liked what they saw of Durfee and felt that she performed well, but they were under no illusions that her performance was anything other than a performance. They saw fluff, and fluff is what they reported.

If Arbuckle’s attorneys had hopes for a more substantial role for Durfee in the case, the warnings implicit in the press conference coverage and the reporters’ repeated off-limits questions during the conference must have dashed them. Even had the attorneys been inclined to breach client confidentiality by discussing the case with Durfee, they must have recognized that she would not have long withstood determined, unsupervised interrogation by a reporter of Richardson’s caliber, then or later. Durfee’s further interactions with reporters were limited to brief, innocuous remarks, generally revolving around her attire--and even those minor interactions were closely monitored by the attorneys. An entertaining personality, she became popular with the press and Arbuckle’s most effective (if unsubpoenaed) character witness, but throughout the remainder of the scandal she was never again turned loose in front of reporters.

When Frank Dominguez was replaced as Arbuckle’s lead counsel in early October 1921, James H. Richardson also departed the case. In his autobiography he dismissed his time on the Arbuckle case with a noncommittal clause: “the “Fatty” Arbuckle scandal in which he was accused of causing the death of a beautiful girl in as foul a way as could be imagined...” Whether that dismissal indicated his lack of opinion about the case or merely disinterest due to his truncated involvement is unknown. He returned to Los Angeles and continued ferreting out crime and civic corruption, serving as a model for every hard-bitten, chain-smoking, alcoholic newspaperman who ever graced a pre-code or noir film. In 1937 he became City Editor for Hearst’s Los Angeles Examiner and spent the next twenty years terrorizing his underlings into either departing the newspaper game altogether or becoming prize-winning reporters. He retired in 1957 after forty-five years as a newspaperman and died in 1962. At his retirement, Time Magazine mournfully proclaimed that “some of the blood drained permanently from one of the last great arteries of blood-and-guts journalism.”

1. Roberts, Helen, “Wife Defends Arbuckle, Separation is Explained,” San Francisco Examiner, September 26, 1921; “Little Woman Says Roscoe is Generous to a Fault and that His Few Faults are Minor,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 26, 1921; “Arbuckle is Innocent, Says His Wife; Separation is Explained,” San Francisco Bulletin, September 26, 1921; James H. Richardson, “Mrs. Durfee Declares Her ‘Son’ is a Good Boy,” Los Angeles Evening Herald, September 26, 1921.
2. The soubriquet was bestowed by Harlan Ware, who wrote the screenplay for the 1951 James Cagney film Come, Fill the Cup, based on Richardson’s life and career.
3. This is not a family-friendly blog. Delmar Watson, personal communication, October 8, 2007. Coy Watson Jr., personal communication, October 8, 2007.
4. Wagner, Rob Leicester, Red Ink, White Lies: The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles Newspapers 1920-1962, Upland, CA: Dragonfly Press, 2000.
5. Dominguez’s exact relationship to Don Manuel Dominguez, the scion of one of California’s great (and fabulously wealthy) land grant families, is unclear but he was probably a nephew or great-nephew. Any genealogist who wishes to search for the name “Dominguez” in Los Angeles has my sympathies. James H. Richardson, For the Life of Me, New York: G.B. Putnam’s Sons, 1954; James H. Richardson, Spring Street, Los Angeles: Times-Mirror Press, 1922

Joan Myers Podcast, Upcoming Blog Post, and Future Podcasts!

2009-07-06T15:33:00.001-07:00

Just wanted to let everyone know about the interview with Joan Myers in our podcast area of the feminism 3.0 site. I think folks will find Joan's commentary on the Fatty Arbuckle/Virginia Rappe scandal quite lively. Joan is promising another blog post very soon on her work. We had considerable interest and so much great feedback on her first post that I asked her to share more of her research with us, which she kindly has agreed to do.

We have been getting lots of great mention for the blog and podcast from cool sites like Catherine Grant's amazing Film Studies for Free and Laura James's CLEWS Your Home for Historic Crime.

I do have several podcasts planned as I launch a related site around my forthcoming book, Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History. The book should be out in March 2010 from Wayne State University Press and has essays from leading feminist scholars including Laura Mulvey, Janet Staiger, Patricia White, Annette Kuhn, Sumiko Higashi, Shelley Stamp, Anna Everett, Soyoung Kim, Yvonne Tasker, Genevieve Sellier and many, many others. Several of the authors have already agreed to join in the podcasts discussing their essays and related current work. I will have more info as I get the book site up and running, but you will be able to find a link to the site as well as some other things I am working on via my new landing page, vickicallahan.com

Till then, check out Joan's podcast and her post(s).

64 Words for Aung San Suu Kyi

2009-06-02T09:18:00.001-07:00

Please visit this site and leave your words of support for human rights and democracy activist, Aung San Suu Kyi.

64 Words for Aung San Suu Kyi

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Assorted Tweets

2009-05-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

Well, still looking for that best gadget that allows for twitter feeds. I didn't really find something that I thought looked good on the page or worked the way that I wanted so am going to let that go for now and catch up my blog posts, but will be on the lookout. I am a major fan of twitter -- I know there are skeptics out there, but I learn so much every day from the crew whose tweets I follow.

It was perfect then when my friend and colleague in transmedia explorations, Lina Srivastava, put me in contact via twitter with Duke media scholar, Negar Mottahedeh. Negar is doing some interesting work on questions of national cinema and gender (see her book on Iranian cinema, Displaced Allegories), as well as some really cool work in social media. Her blog, The Negarponti files, is one I suggest you check out. On the site there is a brief interview with Negar on Iranian film; some experimentation using twitter feeds and the text to animated movie software xtranormal (really fun); and a write up on her intro film class that ran the much discussed twitter film festival. I was a major fan of the festival since the circulation of the Chronicle of Higher Ed article produced a lively, if far too brief, discussion on the use of social networking tools in my home department of Film at UW-Milwaukee. I feel sure we will be revisiting these questions soon particularly given ongoing convergence of networking tools and media formats.

Back to my research on best twitter gadget for Blogger -- send me your suggestions on this!

Ada Lovelace Day!

2009-03-24T17:50:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone:
Just wanted to join in on this great idea -- blogging on women in technology as part of an international celebration: Ada Lovelace Day! You can find out more specifically about Ada Lovelace, who wrote the first computer programs for Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine during the 19th century by the organizer of today's event, Suw Charman-Anderson's, site.

I thought what I would do for my participation in the day would be to write something a bit more on the meta-side. That is, I decided I would blog about bloggers and specifically what all these great new tools of technology have meant for women to connect and write stories and histories that had previously been hidden, misrepresented, ignored or trivialized. Digital tools, like Blogger, Wordpress, Twitter, etc., have the potential not only to distribute this information, but also to to link us in very powerful ways and in an ever expanding network.

We need only look to the post below by Joan Myers on the Fatty Arbuckle trial as a case in point. The Arbuckle case has certainly spilled its share of ink, but very little on the gendered discourse surrounding the trial nor much on Virginia Rappe herself (except as the "cause" of Arbuckle's supposedly unwarranted fall from grace). Joan's approach to the case is unique indeed, and I am hoping I can convince her to share more of her extensive research with us on this site. It is the sort of story that is made for a blog since it is a counter history, something that works against the received and entrenched ideas on the topic and thus perhaps not easy to publish within more traditional historical venues.

And then of course there is the amazing Marilyn Slater, who has posted here on this site with regard to silent cinema and early 20th century women's cultural history. She is the author of the Looking for Mabel site that I have found to be such an ongoing inspirational work on the silent film star and director, Mabel Normand. Not only is Marilyn a wonderful scholar, she is fabulous for putting folks together (e.g., I met Joan through Marilyn!). Marilyn taught me the possibilities of the 21st C. online archive form as well as a research rigor that surpasses many in academia, and a generosity and enthusiasm for her research that is truly unmatched.

I would be remiss if I didn't include something on Twitter -- one of the best online tools for sharing information. I should also point to my favorite twitter feeds these days as they are now my daily injections of data on what is happening --here are two amazing sources that I look to every morning to get me going: first, Christy Dena's web/twitter feed on transmedia.

Seriously, almost too much info for you to take in - Christy is the rock star of transmedia so she gets a special shout out from here.

Then, Lina Srivastava's blog on transmedia activism is a focused take on all these new tools and storytelling with particular attention to issues of social change. Both Christy and Lina's sites feature wonderful and smart writing on digital media, but it is truly their amazing twitter feeds that teach me so much about contemporary media happenings and the potential for change.

There are many more amazing women and sites to point to, but these are some of my favorite places to visit right now and which seem to be in the spirit of the Ada Lovelace celebratory day!

The Case of the Vanishing Juror

2009-03-17T17:48:00.000-07:00

by Joan Myers

In September 1921, silent film comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle was arrested in San Francisco for the murder of a woman named Virginia Rappe. The murder charge was later reduced to manslaughter, a crime for which Arbuckle was tried three times. The first two trials ended in hung juries; the third and final trial resulted in Arbuckle’s acquittal in April 1922. The Arbuckle trials became Hollywood’s first ultra-sensational “celebrity scandal.”

Arbuckle scandal canon holds that the first trial jury hung due to the malevolence of one woman juror, Mrs. Helen Hubbard. The facts are imperfectly understood and details of the story vary, but they are usually regurgitated thusly: Mrs. Hubbard believed that Arbuckle was guilty and wangled her way onto the jury intending to convict him. Mrs. Hubbard refused to review evidence or trial transcripts during deliberations. Mrs. Hubbard claimed that she would vote Arbuckle guilty until hell froze over. This woman’s obtuseness is such a cherished tenet of Arbuckle scandal belief that the first jury’s final vote is often misreported as eleven to one. But in fact, Arbuckle’s first jury hung by a vote of ten to two.

It seems we’ve mislaid a juror.

This essay reexamines the first Arbuckle trial jury vote, the legendary intransigence of Mrs. Helen Hubbard, and the mysterious disappearance of the second juror. Since jury deliberations are private and not recorded, our only sources for this story are the contemporary newspapers. Using newspapers as sources for historical analysis is problematic, but given the lack of alternatives in this case, use them we must. All sources--no matter how reliable--have limitations, but if approached cautiously both a source and its limitations can be illuminating.

We should properly locate the story within its historical context. Momentous social changes were taking place in 1921. Women, like June, were busting out all over--and not everybody was happy about it. The 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote, was ratified by Congress on August 26, 1920. California had granted that right nine years earlier, in 1911, but a woman’s right to serve on juries remained in question. Jury composition was determined by the California Code of Civil Procedure, which defined juries as “a body of men”; debate centered upon whether the term “men” included women. Some officials took the position that the right to vote included the right to serve on juries, and accordingly women were summoned for the first time throughout California in October 1911.

This encroachment of women into the civic arena had not gone unnoticed, nor had it gone unchallenged. Convictions handed down by juries on which women had served were often subject to appeal. Following a 1917 appellate court decision (People v. Lensen, 34 Cal App 336), which concluded that women could not legally serve on juries, the California Assembly passed the Women’s Jury Bill in April 1917. This bill specifically granted women jury rights by amending the Code of Civil Procedure to change the definition of a jury from “a body of men” to “a body of persons.”

Not surprisingly, the objections to women serving on juries did not evaporate in the wake of the California Assembly vote. Traditionalists argued that women were by nature and training incapable of the critical, objective thinking required for jury service. Women were ruled by their emotions and would not only vote into office handsome but incompetent men, they would acquit handsome but nefarious criminals. Time spent serving on juries would “unsex” women by removing them from their domestic duties and subjecting them to the salacious evidence often exposed in courtrooms. Women would be sequestered with unsavory male strangers to decide cases. Underlying these objections lurked the unstated but palpable fear that men might find themselves being judged by women. For many citizens the sight of a woman in the jury box must have heralded the imminent scuttling of the ship of state.

By November 1921, when Arbuckle’s first trial began, none of the voiced predictions had yet materialized, but the anxiety had not abated. Media coverage of women on juries simultaneously reflected the societal concern and exacerbated it by keeping the issue on the front burner. Reporters lavished attention on the female jurors, covering age, looks, marital and economic status, attire, responses during voir dire, and votes.

Roscoe Arbuckle’s first trial began on November 14, 1921 amidst more-than-usually intense press speculation that women might be included on his jury. News reports covered the five-day jury selection process in colorful detail, emphasizing the sensational moments. And sensational moments there were. Attorneys for both sides seized every opportunity to try the case during jury selection, hurling accusations and indulging in flights of lawyerly rhetoric. Judge Harold Louderback finally halted the squabbling by ordering attorneys to select a jury and reserve the oratory for the trial.

Mrs. Helen Hubbard, the 46-year-old wife of a San Francisco attorney, was accepted as a juror on November 15, the second day of jury selection. Neither state nor defense perceived any need to challenge her, and her voir dire passed so uneventfully that the newspapers failed to report it altogether. She appears listed as an accepted juror, without editorial comment, in the news reports on November 16. The jury --containing seven men and five women--was completed on November 18, but at the end of that day a juror advised the court that he’d formed an opinion on the case. He was excused, and the next day his seat on the jury was filled by a 54-year-old Geary Street candy shop owner, Mr. Thomas Kilkenny. Mr. Kilkenny’s voir dire also passed without comment from the press. Mr. Stephen Hopkins was then accepted as the alternate juror, and immediately after he was sworn in, the trial began.

The trial ended with closing arguments on December 2, 1921. At 4:10 pm, the judge finished reading his instructions and the jury retired for deliberations amid excited press expectation that Arbuckle would be acquitted. Reporters clustered around alternate juror Hopkins, who told them “I had an opinion when I was sworn in as a juror, but I was allowed to remain in the box because one side had no more challenges. I still have that opinion.” Since reporters knew the state had exhausted its challenges this was interpreted as a pro-Arbuckle opinion. (Hopkins later stated that he did not think the state had made its case, but he refused to discuss the matter further.)

But the jury did not immediately return the expected acquittal. Hours--and then days--passed. Defense hopes for a quick acquittal vanished, replaced with presentiments of a mistrial, presentiments fueled by reports of acrimony in the jury room. After forty-four hours of wrangling the jury finally admitted defeat, and the foreman, August Fritze, advised the judge that they were hopelessly deadlocked. The poll on the final ballot stood ten for acquittal to two for conviction. The two jurors who had held out for conviction were Mrs. Helen Hubbard and Mr. Thomas Kilkenny.

Hubbard and Kilkenny refused press interviews and hastened from the Hall of Justice. Eager reporters converged on the remaining jurors. Either they canvassed only the women jurors or only considered the responses of the women newsworthy, because (with the lone exception of juror Arthur Crane) the next day’s reports contain quotes only from the women. The male jurors were, apparently, about as newsworthy as “dog bites man.”

It was learned from these first interviews that during the forty-four hours of deliberation, many ballots were taken and votes shifted between ballots. Hubbard, juror Louise Winterburn, and an unknown juror voted guilty on the first ballot; Kilkenny cast a blank ballot. On the second ballot Hubbard, Winterburn, and Kilkenny voted guilty, and the unknown juror changed his vote to not guilty. Kilkenny shifted his vote to not guilty on the third ballot and stayed there for the fourth; Hubbard and Winterburn voted guilty on both ballots. After discussion the fifth ballot was taken, whereupon Winterburn changed her vote to not guilty and Kilkenny changed his to guilty. From that point on Kilkenny remained unwavering and uncommunicative and there the vote remained until deliberations were halted.

Winterburn told reporters that she was conflicted: “Sometimes I think he is guilty and sometimes I believe him innocent.” Mrs. Kitty MacDonald revealed that the element of reasonable doubt played a large part in the stand of some of the jurors: “We felt that the case had not been sufficiently proved,” she said. “Some of the jurors believed that Arbuckle was innocent, others believed that not enough proof had been presented to warrant a conviction.” She told reporters that Mrs. Hubbard had expressed her belief in Arbuckle’s guilt, delineated her reasons, and would not change her vote. Mr. Kilkenny, she said, refused to discuss his vote at all. Jurors Arthur Crane and Dorothy O’Dea reported that the ten jurors who voted for acquittal tried their best to swing the two opposing votes. “We had some wild times in the jury room before it was over,” O’Dea admitted.[1]

Later that evening, Helen Hubbard broke her silence and gave a lengthy interview to a young friend, Geraldine Sartain of the San Francisco Chronicle.[2] After first expressing surprise that she had been chosen as a juror--as an attorney’s wife, she had assumed she would be challenged--she explained her vote by analyzing the testimony of the witnesses, the forensic evidence, and the legal strategy and arguments. She was unimpressed with both the defense witnesses and Arbuckle’s attorneys. “The entire case in the jury room was the trial of the District Attorney’s office rather than the trial of Arbuckle,” she said.[3]

She remained calm through the reporter’s questioning until asked about her treatment in the jury room. She then became angry. She described the behavior and comments of her male counterparts, reserving specific ire for jury foreman August Fritze, whom she accused of abusive behavior in his attempts to induce her to change her vote. Similar behavior was not, she pointed out, directed toward Mr. Kilkenny. The Hubbard interviews are detailed and they are informative. Mrs. Hubbard did not need to “review the evidence” or “read the transcripts” in the jury room because she had heard the evidence in the courtroom. She believed Arbuckle was guilty. And she was not amenable to bullying.

Thomas Kilkenny was never interviewed.

That night Arbuckle’s lead attorney, Gavin McNab, responded to Mrs. Hubbard’s comments: “I will say this about the lady juror, Mrs. Hubbard, that is, that as soon as she was sworn in as a juror the defense counsel were unanimous in the opinion that from the expression of her countenance, that whenever the defense tried to present any matter, she manifested extreme hostility and prejudice. We concluded, therefore, that regardless of the attitude of all or any one of the jurors, that she would hold for the prosecution.” With this statement, McNab places the responsibility for the hung jury solely on Mrs. Hubbard and covers his legal posterior by claiming that Mrs. Hubbard’s manifestations of “extreme hostility and prejudice” occurred only after she was sworn in. No such manifestations were discerned during voir dire by Arbuckle’s five munificently-recompensed attorneys or by the legion of reporters present in the courtroom.

McNab did not comment on Mr. Kilkenny’s manifestations.

Later that evening Arbuckle issued an official response regarding the deadlocked jury (the statement purportedly came from Roscoe Arbuckle himself; although he probably approved it, his lawyers undoubtedly wrote it). The statement opened with: “But for one woman on the jury--of twelve representative men and women--who refused to allow her fellow jurors to discuss the evidence or reason with her, and who would not give any explanation for her attitude, my trial would have resulted in an immediate acquittal.”

Mr. Kilkenny is not mentioned in this statement.

Although the December 5th papers reported the vote as ten to two, coverage then and later centered on Hubbard’s refusal to be guided--or intimidated--by her male peers. Kilkenny’s vote was soon forgotten, all the more quickly because he was intelligent enough to remain completely mum. Also ignored were the jurors who’d voted not guilty due to reasonable doubt rather than any firm belief in Arbuckle’s innocence. Mrs. Hubbard became “the woman who hung the Arbuckle jury,” and the newspapers finally had their “Man Bites Dog.”

That Arbuckle’s attorneys focused on Hubbard to the exclusion of Kilkenny, however, can only be explained as a cynical attempt to exploit public anxiety. McNab later began publicly referring to the first trial vote as eleven to one, completing Mr. Kilkenny’s rout. The ploy was as breathtaking as it was successful, and it provided the public and Arbuckle’s defense team with the archetypal story both wanted: “Woman Bites Man.”

Mrs. Hubbard and Mr. Kilkenny soon vanished from the public eye, (which probably suited them both), although Hubbard continued to be painted as a bugaboo by Arbuckle’s attorneys throughout the trials. Arbuckle’s second trial was heard before a jury of eleven men and one woman; it also ended in a hung jury, the vote this time ten to two for conviction. He was acquitted of the manslaughter charge at the third trial, but both public and press had ceased being interested long before the final verdict, and his career was in ruins.

Time passed. Principals in the scandal died or dropped from sight. Arbuckle died in 1933. Thomas Kilkenny died in 1948; Helen Hubbard in 1952. If either later spoke about their jury experiences, no record remains. The ship of state sailed majestically on; eventually the sight of a woman in the jury box failed to excite comment, and the newspapers went on to the next “end of western civilization” hot-button issue.[4] People forgot to be concerned and then forgot that they had ever been concerned.

But old Hollywood scandals never die. The Arbuckle trials continued to serve as fodder for gossip and the occasional silly article written for the men’s magazines so popular in the 1950s. In 1976, fifty-five years after the events and at another juncture when women were again crossing societal boundaries (and not everybody was happy about it), David Yallop penned The Day the Laughter Stopped, his account of the Arbuckle scandal. Yallop introduces his discussion of the first trial deliberations with the following announcement.

What happens in the confines of the jury room is theoretically sacrosanct, but
during my three years’ research into Roscoe Arbuckle’s life I discovered what
happened that weekend in December, when the jury deliberated about Roscoe’s
guilt or innocence.

Mr. Yallop does not reveal how he discovered what happened that weekend, but he produces no information that isn’t readily available in the newspapers. After misspelling juror Louise Winterburn’s name (“Winterburr”), he eschews analysis, ignores Mr. Kilkenny, and pounces on Mrs. Hubbard: “One woman had prevented a verdict of acquittal.” He supports his thesis by adducing: “She refused to look at the exhibits. She refused to read the trial transcript.” Nowhere in The Day the Laughter Stopped does the name Thomas Kilkenny appear.[5]

Andy Edmonds, who misspells nearly everybody’s name in her 1991 account of the Arbuckle scandal, Frame Up, summarizes the first trial deliberations: “One woman remained firm in her belief that Roscoe was guilty, and she refused to listen to any reasoning or consider any evidence that could prove her wrong.” Nowhere in Frame Up does the name Thomas Kilkenny appear--misspelled or otherwise.[6]

Modern understanding of the events of Roscoe Arbuckle’s trials stem from The Day the Laughter Stopped and Frame Up. Both books opted for the 1921 interpretation of the first trial vote, ignoring both the historical context for that interpretation and the metamorphosis that took place as the story was redacted. Mrs. Hubbard was enshrined as the perverse mirror image of Henry Fonda in Twelve Angry Men and Mr. Kilkenny was consigned to historical oblivion. But is now time for Mr. Thomas Kilkenny, a Geary Street candy shop owner, to take his proper place in the discourse. Roscoe Arbuckle’s first trial ended in a hung jury, but that jury did not hang because of the intransigence of one woman. It ended in a hung jury because two people voted guilty and ten did not.

References
[1] Marjorie C. Driscoll, “Jury 10 to 2 for Acquittal of Movie Star,” San Francisco Chronicle, December 5, 1921, p. 1.

[2] Ishbel Ross, in her biographical sketch of Sartain in Ladies of the Press (Harper & Brothers, 1936), writes that Hubbard and Sartain were friends and that Hubbard granted Sartain the interview to help further Sartain’s career. The interview was Sartain’s first byline; she went on to a 30-year career as a reporter. San Francisco Examiner feature writer Mollie Merrick also seems to have been present for at least part of the same interview. Merrick’s career is not covered in Ladies of the Press. Geraldine Sartain, "Mrs. Hubbard Declares She Did Her Duty," San Francisco Chronicle, December 5, 1921, p. 1; Mollie Merrick, "I Stood Firm Because I Felt He Is Guilty,’ Says Mrs. H.M. Hubbard," San Francisco Examiner, December 5, 1921, p. 1.

[3] Sartain.

[4] And I do mean “eventually.” The last state to legally allow women jurors was Mississippi--in 1970.

[5] Yallop, David, The Day the Laughter Stopped, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1976, pp. 240-241.

[6] Edmonds, Andy, Frame Up, William Morrow & Company, Inc., New York, 1991, p. 240

We still wear "Lingerie" or did you Burn your Bra?

2009-03-05T11:58:00.000-08:00

It was 100 years ago and still can't get him to do the dishes! Nor do my laundry so perhaps, I should just do away with my ‘Lingerie” Is this something that the University of Wisconsin has continued to teach?

SAYS LINGERIE IS USELESS FAD
It cannot be seen and it enslaves washerwomen.
RUFFLES ARE RAPPED

Miss A. L. Mariett of the University of Wisconsin,

Scores Fancy Underclothing – “Women are Copy Cats”

La Crosse, Wis., February 8, (1910) – Miss A. L. Marlette, of the home economics department of the University of Wisconsin, wrote “30” on ruffled lingerie before a large class of girls at the La Cosse County College of Agriculture because, she said none saw it and it merely was the means of enslaving the women who had it to wash. Besides, it is unsanitary, she said, and a set of two garments, under and outer is preferable in the woman’s wardrobe. “The time is coming according to Miss Mariett, when women will wear loose clothes and gym suits about their work.

Most women are “copy cats,” according to Miss Mariett. They see another of the fair sex with her hair “done” attractively and they rush home and try to duplicate it, regardless of its adaptability to their style. Women should dress with regard to accentuating their beauty she declared, which can be done by considering the lips, eyes and hair. Illustrating she said a blue eyed girl might give the appearance to her eyes of the blue that the poets rave about by dressing in a pale shade of blue, while rosy checks and lips may be accentuated by similar methods of taste.

False hair is the greatest spreader of disease with which women have to contend, she says, and related personal knowledge of two cases of leprosy contracted by college girls from “switches” cut from the heads of lepers by unscrupulous foreign hair merchants.

For that matter, women would be better off, she said without false hair, or even hats, for when the time comes as she says it will, for people to go bareheaded, there will be no more need for hair tonics and headaches will have disappeared.

The average woman has a putty shape – at least, said Miss Mariett, it is possible to change it to conform with any fashion.

She took a ran at the husbands when she declared women should train them to do most of the housework. This can be done by any clever woman, she said and she can therefore escape the drudgery of housework labor. The men, she said are in the habit of sneering at housework and the time will come, if her prediction be true, when the husband will be the household drudge.

1916 Mabel Normand Peace Day

2009-01-30T17:05:00.000-08:00

Mabel had a day of Peace here is the link

if the "olive" doesn't link to the article, just use the address below...

http://looking-for-mabel.webs.com/peaceday1916.htm

New Podcast with Sharon Sekhon, Studio for Southern California History

2009-01-03T17:19:00.001-08:00

Hey everyone:
As promised, my interview with Sharon Sekhon discussing her work with The Studio for Southern California History can be found on the podcast part of the feminism 3.0 site:

Archives of Empowerment

2008-12-30T10:52:00.000-08:00

Tucked between an electronics store and an employment agency in LA's Chinatown is the wonderful, Studio for Southern California History, a community based cultural history museum, which focuses on overlooked histories/stories of the region. I first had the good fortune to visit the museum as part of the Imagining America conference in October 2008, when, as part of the event, the Studio's Director, Sharon Sekhon, took us on a walking tour of the neighborhood.

But I truly knew this was my kind of archive when I saw the website connected to the space borrowed a quotation from Marcel Proust:

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." The Studio for Southern California History is one of my favorite places to visit in LA as it is all about rethinking and reshaping the lenses with which we use to see, study, and understand our past. Our "lenses" of history now include previously hidden, marginalized, or ignored perspectives on events as well as new ways or formats for seeing. The Studio is a counter history of Southern California as well as an exploration in counter historical writings -- using a variety of media: photos, texts, video, audio, and assorted installation/interactive objects (my favorite being a pinball machine featuring LA landmarks!).

I will be having more on the Studio in an upcoming podcast with Sharon Sekhon. Sharon is truly an innovator who brings interactive archives, historical writing, and community engagement together through the Studio. Stay tuned for our dialogue on another exciting model for the "archive for the future." Below is an image from the Studio's current exhibit: Signs of Our Times.

Performance, Gender and Comic-Con

2008-09-03T15:08:00.001-07:00

Ten years ago, attendance at Comic-Con—the largest comic book convention in the world—hovered around 40,000 attendees; in 2008, the number had grown to around 125,000. While attendance has more than tripled, the amount of floor space for the convention has only doubled, insuring more comic book geeks per square foot than anywhere on earth. With the growth came cries from comic book purists that the convention has lost its way, that comic books had been displaced by television and film projects that may have only tangential or non-existent links to the comic book world.

At the same time, mainstream media coverage of Comic-Con has become extensive, as evidenced by major articles in TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. Comic-Con is now the epicenter of the buzz for most genre films and television series, and studio executives venture into the great, unwashed mass of nerd-flesh to gauge audience reaction to their upcoming releases. In my experience, this reaction can be trusted more than any random focus group. The lukewarm smattering of applause that followed the trailer to Aeon Flux signaled that movie’s box-office death long before it was released into theaters.

While Comic-Con has become a key stop in studio publicity tours, the coverage of the Con often focuses on the eccentricities of the attendees, especially those fans who dress up as their favorite characters. The vast majority of the fans featured in press coverage are women in outfits ranging from the modest to the pornographic; when men are featured, their costumes tend to be less revealing although often skin-tight. To use Henry Jenkins’s term, the fans are “poaching” these characters, taking these comic book figures and making them their own, the underlying implication being the distinction between the (often) corporate source and the fan manipulation. What makes Comic-Con interesting is that the distance between “original” and poached icon diminishes and the two often collide; an individual dressed as a comic book character may stand up at a panel and ask a question of an actor famous for playing that character or even the author/director who created the character. Comic-Con is the Fermi Lab for reception studies, giving even the casual observer the opportunity to watch the cultural process of poaching twist and turn in on itself in amazing ways, especially in terms of gender politics.

Part of this strange dynamic is that when most celebrities appear at Comic-Con, they—whether genuinely or not—adopt a kind of casual garb and attitude that signals to the fans that they are “one of them,” answering questions with patience and/or a sense of humor. The extent to which the fans want to treat them as “real” people is clear by one of the unspoken (and at times spoken) rules of the Q&A sessions: do not try to network while asking questions. Fans who try to solicit scripts or get jobs are routinely booed and shouted down by other fans. Although the fans may never have physical contact with the stars (although that may happen as well), these panels work to embody these figures of the fan imaginary, to give them a corporeal reality that was absent before. The fact that these stars tend to dress modestly—jeans and t-shirts are the norm—does nothing to lessen their sexual allure to the fans or to de-sexualize their bodies. Female celebrities will be greeted with hoops and hollers and asked how they “could be so very hot,” and male stars can be treated in much the same way.

The fans who create costumes go through a very kind of reverse corporealization process. While the stars show themselves as being “real people,” the fans who dress up—sometimes as these stars—transform their bodies into something new, often something more sexually aggressive and provocative. This brand of "cosplay" forms the basis for one of the most important events of the Con: the Masquerade, a huge contest for homemade costumes. While star and fan share a certain link, news coverage of the event does not place the two on the same level. The fans who indulge in costume-play are shown as freaks, in the same way that coverage of gay pride parades focus on those wearing fetish gear. The stars and directors assume a position as creators, as the originators. Those fans who do more than simply consume the product are singled out as eccentric nerds.

The physical layout of the convention center replicates this split between creator and imitator, between original and copy. On one side of the center are Hall H and Ballroom 20, the two largest rooms, along with a series of smaller rooms. Hall H houses the biggest names—usually film and television stars and directors—who appear to show sneak peeks of their upcoming projects and to answer questions from fans. Room 20 usually focuses on television but can be equally as hard to get into. This last summer, fans for the show Lost and Heroes were lining up 16 hours ahead of time in order to ensure that they would get into Hall H.

Leaving Hall H, you walk across a large patio and a massive autograph area, in which celebrities sell their signatures to waiting fans. Once you leave the autograph area, you enter into a space that five years ago used to contain the entire convention. On the top floor are rooms ranging from quite small (50 seats) to rooms that hold hundreds of attendees; once again, lines for the more popular panels stretch down corridors and exit the building.

Leaving this space and going down two sets of stairs leads you to the “floor,” the mercantile heart of the Comic-Con, 52 aisles long and 5 aisles wide with 9000 exhibitors. Unlike Hall H, with its sense of orderly lines and fixed seats, the floor is an equally crowded but dynamic mass of fans, mingling in close quarters as they jostle for position to see exhibits and to purchase the objects of their fascination. It is here, on the floor, that fans parade in their homemade costumes, often pausing to take pictures with other fans, and it is here that some of the most interesting action takes place in terms of gender.

Comic-Con has a growing number of female attendees and an increasingly vocal gay/lesbian presence, but the Con is still territory dominated by straight men. The women who masquerade as popular culture characters often dress in a highly sexual manner, adding fetishistic touches to already sexualized characters. This last summer, a woman dressed as Ms. Marvel added thigh-high stockings with lace tops to the costume, replacing the plain, black leggings of the original design. Women dressed in this way often stop to take pictures with adoring male fans, who then post them to websites.

It is easy to criticize this behavior as sexist, especially given the presence of superheroine porn on the internet, much of which plays out elaborate rape fantasies. Yet, there is a sense in which these women at the Comic-Con occupy a position of power. The characters they poach and embody are often figures of strength; you will see many women dressed as “bad-ass” characters such as Wonder Woman or Jean Grey and none dressed as Lois Lane or Mary Jane Parker.

The power that these women possesses does rely on and operate within the confines of male voyeurism, although some of the female fans seem relatively naïve to the sexual politics of masquerade play; I overheard one young woman dressed in full costume complaining that people were looking at her. Other female costumed fans seem very aware of how they inhabit a certain power structure and how they can push its limits, and it is wrong to assume that this activity is defined only by straight sexuality. A few years ago, during the height of the popularity of Pirates of the Caribbean (that is to say before the horrendous sequels) a great number of individuals sauntered drunkenly around the floor dressed as the pirate Jack. What I found wonderful was that more than half of them were women, drag kings masquerading as Johnny Depp in full costume and beard (an activity commonly known as "crossplay"). Many of the costumes worn by men possess a potential erotic charge that crosses lines of orientation, especially those tight-fitting costumes that reveal male genitalia. The queer aspects of these costumes are most fully evidenced in those worn by the anime/manga fans. The source material for these costumes mandate a certain level of sexual ambiguity, given the sexually subversive nature of many of the gender-bending heroes.

Ultimately, what keeps this fan masquerade from falling into pure sexism is the carnivalesque quality of the convention floor. Exhibitors routinely use beautiful women to lure in the supposed straight male customer to their booth; porn stars will sometimes work at booths, selling their films. It is a simple point, but it is one that makes a great deal of difference: the fans making these costumes are doing so because they are fans, not to make money. The women and men who parade themselves around the floor wearing costumes that may amount to a relatively small amount of spandex do so because they enjoy the reaction they get, the feeling of transforming themselves into someone or something else. Many of the individuals who LARP at the convention—male and female—do not possess the typical “superheroic” body type, thus calling into question these often unattainable body standards.

This element of performance sometimes extends off of the floor of the convention and into the more staid, controlled arena of the panels. Ironically, despite the fact that these individuals are on a stage, the panel participants (the comic book writers/artists, stars, directors, etc.) often play it resolutely “straight,” describing their work and answering questions in order to appear as “natural” as possible. At times, these individuals even appear bored, which may be a part of their performance. The problem is that no matter how engaging the artist/director/star may be, the format of the standard panel—particularly with the more popular figures—suffocates any chance of improvisation or subversion: the star is introduced, the crowd applauds wildly, at some point a clip is shown, the star says how much he or she enjoyed working on this project, they answer questions and then leave. The fans may approach the dais, but the line between those who create and those who consume is never broken.

Those stars who cross that line—who begin to perform, not just appear—may not only subvert the class distinction between fan and star but the codes of gendered behavior as well. The set-up of the standard panel replicates a patriarchal power structure, the same one evidenced in the traditional classroom, in which the star/teacher appears at the head of the class and imparts knowledge. Major fan favorites such as Nathan Fillion or Bruce Campell use the panel as a performance space, often satirizing their own fame as well as their sexual appeal, thus undermining their own position (while simultaneously endearing themselves to their fans).

Not surprisingly, many of the more radical examples appear in the panels dedicated to comic books and their creators. At the 08 Comic-Con, Linda Barry transformed her talk on creativity into a performance piece, asking the audience to recapture the power of child-like play. By doing so, she refused to position herself as the authority. During the same convention, Eric Powell—the creator of The Goon—subverted the standard Q&A structure by staging his own exorcism, conducted by Reno 911!’s Robert Ben Barant and Thomas Lennon. Once the exorcism had failed, Powell—who has created a wonderful persona based on a boozy style of hypermasculinty—invited fans to join him on stage to help answer questions.

My favorite example may be “Bob Stencil,” a “reporter” who covers Comic-Con, acting as a mash-up of comic book geek-dom, Rat Pack style sexuality and Hunter S. Thompson gonzo journalism. Stencil—I do not know his real name—interviews fans and celebrities alike, often mocking the pretensions of both. Comic-Con regulars have come to expect and look forward to his off-putting questions, which often puncture the reverential mood of the panels (video of Stencil can be found at firstshowing.net).

I do not mean to imply that Comic-Con is a utopia of unfettered and subversive performance, but comic book fandom offers an incredible opportunity for reception studies. What needs to be done is more work interviewing the fans who participate in costume play at the Comic-Con, as well investigating the interaction between their poaching and the entertainment industry. The Comic-Con and comic book fans in general should be studied in this way since the art form lends itself to fan poaching. Unlike film or television, comic books (as well as animation and video games) are not fettered by the constraints of the photorealistic. In his excellent work This Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics as Literature, Rocco Versaci argues that

…it is impossible for a comic book creator either to hide entirely or to project complete realism because of the medium’s use of illustrations. That is, the comic book aesthetic projects unreality to the some degree because every comic book is a drawn version of the world, and therefore, not “real.”

Fans who dress up as Angelina Jolie must measure up to the “real thing,” an act that can never be accomplished by its very nature; fans who dress up as Tomb Raider, Wonder Woman or Spiderman escape these constraints since this character already has multiple incarnations. Most comic book characters who have a long publication history—with notable exceptions—have been drawn by many artists and have gone through many iterations; more so than film or television celebrities, the comic book character represents the fluid nature of stardom and the possibilities it presents to its fans.

Women and Silent Screen V, Stockholm University June 2008

2008-07-24T13:06:00.000-07:00

A belated and partial report from the always inspiring Women and Silent Screen conference. This biennial event, which began in Utrecht in 1999, is for me one of best academic conferences around on topic of cinema history. Not only is the conference small enough that it has almost a family get together sort of feeling, but the quality of the research is uniformly excellent and typically addresses uncharted territory in film history. In addition, the screenings at each of the conferences (I have been fortunate to attend four of the five held) are filled with rarely or unseen gems of the cinema (and usually with jaw dropping gorgeous prints). This year was no exception, and I want to start out by sending out a big thank you to Astrid Soderbergh Widding and Sofia Bull and their crew in Cinema Studies at Stockholm University for their all hard work, hospitality, and indefatigable good cheer. Other acknowledgements for conference organization efforts should be sent out to Jane Gaines, Annette Kuhn, and Tytti Soila. In addition, the collective efforts of Annette Forster, Elif Rongen-Kaynakci from the Netherlands Film Museum and Kajsa Hedstrom and John Wengstrom from the Swedish Film Institute on the conference screenings were simply amazing to say the least -- beautiful, fascinating, rare, and pristine 35mm prints were shown each day of the event.

Astrid Soderbergh Widding and Laura Horak's presentations separately examined the phenomena of cross-dressing in the silent era. Soderbergh Widding looked at the 1926 Swedish comedy by Karin Swanstrom, FLICKAN I FRACK/THE GIRL IN TAILS (a restored version was premiered at the conference), which uses the device as a narrative strategy to question gender roles, while Horak's talk explored the "Biograph Boy," Edna/Billy Foster, whose roles were not so much cross-dressing but rather working from the theatrical tradition of male impersonation. Again, we were fortunate enough to see an example of the "Biograph Boy" in a screening of the D.W. Griffith film, BILLY'S STRATAGEM (1912) although the radicality of the gender role twist is countered with Griffith's usual dualistic vision of race/ethnicity, and indeed gender, since Billy's role is in fact to save "his" sister from marauding Indians, a plot structure we know all too well from the director's career.

Cross-dressing could be much more stylized or performative as Victoria Duckett's paper on Sarah Bernhardt underlined the largely overlooked or unappreciated "theatrical film" in early cinema. Often seen as an anachronism, Duckett made a compelling case for thinking of Bernhardt's films as falling outside of the silent film classifications of "attractions" or "classical narrative." Anne Morey examined similarly a cross-over from the theatrical tradition in her presentation on Geraldine Ferrar, a Metropolitan Opera star who strangely enough made only one film, CARMEN (Cecil B. DeMille, 1915) which was an adaptation from the opera stage. As Morey notes, Ferrar's casting was an effort by Hollywood to bring in mass audiences to the cinema with an appeal to "high class" performances, but here the sheer presence of Ferrar rather than the art form itself was the designator of the "class" act.

Some of the histories discussed at the conference were dependent upon many hours spent pouring over the rich resources of the Margaret Herrick Library (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles), and one panel was particularly inspiring for helping us to think about the many different kinds of materials found there. Barbara Hall, Richard Abel, Mark Garrett Cooper, and Jennifer Horne all gave us insights into opportunities for research at the Herrick. Barbara Hall noted particularly the Pickford papers, the Mack Sennett collection, early sheet music and fan magazine collections on hand, while Richard Abel pointed out the Herrick's often overlooked collection of Selig promotional material from cinema's earliest days. Jennifer Horne reminded us that the Herrick could also be a treasure trove of cultural history (beyond film production material) by discussing her work on the "better films movement" and the connections between women's clubs, public libraries, and film exhibition.

Lastly -- and I am leaving out far too many amazing panels and films at this year's conference -- I wanted to note a panel I was fortunate enough to chair and to learn much from, on "Film Festivals," featuring Kay Armatage, Ingrid Stiggsdotter, and Kelly Robinson. This panel was especially interesting in that it focused on parallels in time between women's participation and recognition in early and contemporary cinema as well as on writing and curatorial practices that would enable women's film history to resonate with new audiences. In the discussion that followed we all realized how fragile women's place in film history still is today -- not only for their labor in the silent era, but also from its not so distant past (1970s women's filmmaking and film festivals are still in need of historians, theorists, and archival documentation). It was simultaneously a sobering (i.e., how much is to be done) and exhilarating (how much there is to learn!) conversation. As always, I came away from the Women and Silent Screen conference energized and most importantly, fortified with the knowledge that so many wonderful scholars are working on related terrain.

Susan B - Social Pressure and Me

2008-07-01T10:06:00.000-07:00

This is not a real discussion of women suffrage that said, the material available on the work done on the lack of women's rights and government prejudice prior to 1920 is all over the internet. It does warrant more reading by me, so please tell me what you have found. After the 19th amendment, it became a matter of law but before that, it was a matter of social pressure and just ugly discrimination. This is the period that interests me.

The idea that Susan B. Anthony had died in 1906 a long time before the rights of women were codified into constitutional law is a testament to the far thinking of this remarkable woman. I like her. In a private letter, Susan wrote in part that,
“I wish all the women who would better the world by their living could see how powerless they are to change a condition – moral, social, educational or industrial, any more than political – while women as a class are not a factor in the government of City, State or Nation…I am glad of every disaster coming under our half free and half slave republic, which opens the eyes of the people – especially the women – to see that ‘universal suffrage is the first proof and only basis of a genuine republic.’ When our best men and women come to feel the truth of this assertion of Charles Sumnor, they will, for the time being, hold all other aims and ends in abeyance, while they work together as one mighty power to secure through constitutional guarantees, both State and National, the right of a voice in the government to the half of the people hitherto disenfranchised. While I so feel the utter futility of all efforts by a subject class, I cannot get up interest to work for any other reform. I can only work to get to DO. I rejoice in every movement of women to better the conditions of society, not because I think they can do the thing they start to do, but because by trial and failure they will learn their need of the weapon which in hand makes or unmakes those conditions. So work on in all ways, I say to women, and when you see your need of the ballot, go up higher and join the grand army of women who are making the demand for power to be and do for demand for power to be and do for themselves. In political equality is the key to equality in all other spheres of action .

It would have been nice if more things had changed in 119 years; I transcribed a short article from the Daily Independent September 26, 1889

“Senator Brown says that the ballot could not affect woman’s wages, because these are governed solely by supply and demand. But supply and demand are largely influenced by prejudice. Owing to prejudice, there is no demand for women’s services in many trades and professions, which they could otherwise follow with ease. This crowds the professions that remain. Owing to prejudice, the best-paid places in many professions which women do follow are reserved for men, although women could fill them equally as well. Government sets its official seal on this prejudice by paying women in government clerkships one-third of what is paid to men for the same work, and by making a marked discrimination in the wages of the men and women who teach in the public schools.”

TORCHES OF FREEDOM

2008-06-01T01:03:00.000-07:00

"TORCHES OF FREEDOM"

Although we may live in the same country as the women of 1920s, we didn’t live in the same world; women who smoked during those early years of the last century were labeled as sluts and whores. There was an American taboo against women smoking.

This presented a real problem to the American Tobacco Company; which hired Eddie Bernays to market cigarettes to women; it was a hard sell. The life of women was changing and Eddie Bernays understood how to take advantage of a social movement, he understood now to market smoking to ‘respectable’ women hence his Torches of Freedom campaign.

Eddie Bernays was born in Vienna Austria on November 22, 1891 and lived to be 103 years old. He called himself the father of public relation, of course, he was one of the sperm donors, there were many fathers; it is hard to blame just one man.

Eddie’s father was Ely Bernays, brother of Martha Bernay, the wife of Sigmund Freud and his mother was Freud’s sister, Anna. The Bernays family immigrated to New York in 1892. He received a degree from Cornell University in 1912. His first career choice was journalism; he married Doris E. Fleischman in 1922. Although Eddie’s parents were Jewish, he never considered himself a religious man and did not identify with the Jewish community.

It was said that, “When a person would first meet Eddie, it would not be long until Uncle Sigmund would be brought into the conversation.” He used his relationship with his Uncle to establish his own reputation; although he was a man of real influence in his own right. His books “Crystallizing Public Opinion“(1923) and “Propaganda” (1928) became landmark texts. Eddie argued in “Propaganda“, that ‘scientific manipulation of public opinion was necessary to overcome chaos and conflict in society and the manipulation was for “our own good and the only way that democracy can work efficiently.” Joseph Goebbels, the notorious Nazi propaganda minister utilized Eddie’s theories to subvert democracy and used Eddie’s ideas in the deliberate campaign in the attack of the Jews of Germany. Proving Eddie wrong in that manipulation of society isn’t always for the best interest of its members.

George Washington Hill, president of the American Tobacco Company in the 1920s hired Eddie Bernays for an annual retainer of $25,000 to market Lucky Strike cigarettes to women. Women were smoking but usually behind closed doors in private. It is hard to believe but it was illegal in many places for women to smoke outside. In 1922, a woman was arrested for ‘daring’ to light a cigarette on the street in New York City! Smoking was a “risqué” act after all it was only “bad girls” that smoked.

This social norm had to be overcome, if American Tobacco hoped to increase sales. To develop a marketing plan, Eddie hired A.A. Brill, the psychologist to find out what would make “respectable” women smoke in public. Brill found that cigarettes were seen by women as something for men and a phallic symbol.

It was during this period women had achieved the power to vote, were taking job’s that had traditionally been filled by men. Women had moved into professions formerly considered only the male’s domain. Yes, this was the Jazz Age, Roaring 20s a time of enormous social change but still women faced discrimination.

The parameters of the campaign were established, which would link cigarettes and the new liberated woman. Brill explained; “The emancipation of women has suppressed many of their feminine desires. More women now do the same work as men. Cigarettes, which are equated with men, become ’Torches of Freedom’.”

Eddie created the “Torches of Freedom” campaign. Eddie’s secret was to associate the cigarette with the subliminal woman’s sexual desire with the application of conditioned reflex. To Eddie, feminism could be used as a marketing tool, which would entail the systematic re-engineering of the morals of women as a way of moving them out of the home and into the smoking in public.

Recently, in an interview originally done in 1998 was aired on C-Span, Larry Tye, author of ‘The Father of Spin: Edward L. Barnays and the Birth of Public Relations’, told the story of Eddie sending a group of debutants to march in the New York Easter Parade along 5th Avenue.

“On March 31, 1929, a woman by the name of Bertha Hunt stepped into the throng of pedestrians in the New York the Easter Parade, and created a sensation by lighting up a Lucky Strike cigarette. Hunt told the reporter from the New York Evening World that she “first got the idea for this campaign when a man with her in the street asked her to extinguish her cigarette as it embarrassed him. ‘I talked it over with my friends, and we decided it was high time something was done about the situation.’”

The press release stated that Bertha and her friends would be lighting “Torches of Freedom” “in the interests of equality of the sexes and to fight another sex taboo.” At the end of the day, Bertha and her friends told the press that she hoped they had “started something and that these Torches of Freedom, with no particular brand favored, will smash the discriminatory taboo on cigarettes for women and that our sex will go on breaking down all discriminations.’”What Miss Hunt did not tell the reporter is that she was the secretary of a man by the name of Eddie Bernays. The New York Times (1 April 1929) printed: "Group of Girls Puff at Cigarettes as a Gesture of 'Freedom'". She also didn’t tell the reporters that Mr. Bernays had received a handsome retainer from the American Tobacco Company to promote cigarette consumption among women. What billed itself as a feminist promotion of the emancipation of women was in reality a public relations ploy to open a new market for tobacco by getting women addicted to cigarettes.

The Torches of Freedom campaign was a classic instance of using sexual liberation as a form of control. It proposed addiction as a form of freedom. In this, it was an early version of the Virginia Slims, “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby” campaign, which made repeated reference to the Suffragette movement as a way of associating cigarettes with freedom.

Bertha said“...cigarettes...We hope that that we accomplished what we set out to kill a ridiculous taboo symbolic of more important sexual inequality” (and make some money using the feminist movement as a marketing tool).

So perhaps, we have not ‘come a long way’ after all.

T'Aint Misbehaving

2008-05-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

A great many of the mainstream reviews of Forgetting Sarah Marshall included references to Jason Segel's nude scene at the beginning of the film, a lengthly sequence in which his character--aptly named Peter--stands naked while being dumped by his eponymous girlfriend. For the most part, Segel received praise for his performance, with the critics citing his bravery in appearing nude and revealing his penis.

Peter is not alone. A number of recent mainstream films have included full frontal male nudity: Borat, The Simpsons Movie, and Eastern Promises. While not entirely a new phenomenon, the sight of a penis in a Hollywood film still carries a great deal of shock value, as best exemplified by the wonderful sequence in The Simpsons Movie during which Bart's penis is masked by a series of conveniently placed objects only to have these same objects cover up everything but his member.

What I find interesting is that this emphasis on the exposure of the penis masks a more controversial aspect in these films: the visibility or the threatened visibility of the anus. When I saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall in the theater--with a fairly packed house--the audience did indeed laugh heartily at the sight of Segel's character, standing naked with his limp penis dangling (what Peter Travers in Rolling Stone refered to as his "shriveled schlong") as he attempted to convince his girlfriend not to leave him. The crowd reacted even more vociferously when Segel's character turned his back to the audience and began to cry and bend over. At that point, people began to shout and the laughter took on a more intense quality.

The homoerotic qualities of these moments can be made safer for the audience by presenting them within the context of violence, either for comic effect in Borat or to heighten the sense of danger and vulnerability in Eastern Promises. Eastern Promises presents the more obvious example, with the fight taking place between a naked Nikolai (Viggo Mortensen) and two men in a bathhouse. As the men struggle, slicing each other with knifes, director David Cronenberg does not hesitate to choose angles that reveal not only Mortensen's penis but his entire genital/anal region, including what is referred to in slang terms as the "t'aint." This nudity seems radically different than say Harvey Keitel's nude scene in The Piano or any number of "butt shots" of male stars.

In a further study, I would like to examine these scenes and the audience reaction to this more explicit level of male nudity, paying special attention to how these moments spill out of the films themselves and into other media texts (for example, the extended riffing on the naked fight scene in Borat at subsequent award shows).

"You just said a mouthful there, sister": Post-feminism and the Contemporary Media

2008-05-09T11:01:00.000-07:00

My research is focused on how female-driven/female-oriented cultural narratives circulate in and out of different contemporary media forms and inform and reflect feminist and post-feminist historical discourses. One of the pitfalls (and joys) of doing research on the "now" is that the now happens every second of every day (curse you, present!), and it is difficult for work that is to be published to remain current.

For instance, in my current project Women Who Want a Bicycle: Romance in the Post-Feminist Media (a play on the feminist saying "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle"), I devote a lot of time to discussing the television show Sex and the City's ability to be simultaneously progressive and traditional.

Yes, the show was remarkable and groundbreaking for its presentation of women who are professionally successful, comfortable pursuing sex outside of a romantic relationship, and as the TIME cover story addresses, don't really "need" a husband. However, it still manages to reinforce the traditional romance narrative structure, with its female characters "wanting" the fulfillment that comes from heterosexual coupling. For those that followed the series, you know that the finale saw all four of the main characters safely ensconced in romantic relationships.

Now that the Sex and the City movie is set to hit theatres in a couple of weeks, there is a new round of discussion about the show and its representation of post-feminist women. The conversation is still frustratingly simplistic and, dare I say, insulting. Manohla Dargis's comments in this article on the lack of female characters in summer movies got my blood up. Don't get me wrong, I love the premise of the article, and I enjoy most of Manohla's work. (How can we not love one of the few visible female film critics, and the only female critic writing for The New York Times?) But here is what she says about Sex and the City: The Movie:

"The girls of summer are few in number, and real women are close to extinct. The teenage Emma Roberts plays a Malibu brat shipped off to boarding school in “Wild Child,” and little Abigail Breslin has gone blond for “Kit Kittredge,” the first big-screen spinoff from American Girl dolls. Meryl Streep stars in the adaptation of the jukebox musical “Mamma Mia!,” and the cast from “Sex and the City” hits the big screen, though as that HBO show’s fans know, its four bosomy buddies are really gay men in drag."

Here Dargis seems to be dismissing an entire viewing audience's pleasurable identification with these four women by suggesting that they aren't actually women. Her claim echoes another common observation about the show: that it is about women who have sex like men. All of this need to essentialize and reduce who or what these women are is certainly part of the post-feminist media's difficulty in discussing the complexity of gender in contemporary culture. Why can't these women just be women who represent a broad range of characteristics that a range of audiences (of different sexes, ethnicities,and sexual orientations) will be able to identify with, laugh at, and at the very least, find entertaining? Why do they have to be like any type of man for us to discuss them?

See the trailer here:

When looking at the trailer, it is clear that the film, like the show, is quite self-conscious of the blurred boundary between need and want, fiction and non-fiction, fantasy and reality. Clearly, as Carrie's voiceover informs us, she knows what she is supposed to want (the happy ending) but also states that she knows that it doesn't always work out that way.

I would like to think that Dargis's claim is alluding to this sort of blurring (or queering) of boundaries, which has a potential for empowerment for all of its viewers. But her problematic dismissal of the film seems to suggest her unwillingness to consider that Sex and the City might not only be an exception to her argument but may actually have something to say about how women get pigeon-holed into certain types of roles. I find it obvious that the film is quite consciously commenting on the culture in which it is situated when Miranda and Carrie are discussing Halloween costumes and Miranda says, "the only two choices for women: witch or sexy kitten." This kind of self-conscious "wink" to the audience is a common trope of post-feminist media texts, and what makes them both entertaining and far more complex than critics such as Dargis give them credit for.

Early Woman Filmmakers

2008-05-02T13:14:00.000-07:00

This book review was passed along by a member of the Mabel Normand Yahoo Group; I think this might be something I need to read and keep as a reference book on the growing shelf of Woman in Early Cinema. With the continued interest, perhaps Mabel will find her rightful place as one of the “Woman Filmmakers.”
Marilyn
“Looking-for-Mabel”

H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by H-SHGAPE@h-net.msu.edu (May 2008)

Karen Ward Mahar. _Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood_. Studies in Industry and Society Series. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. xii + 291 pp. Halftones, notes, essay on sources, index. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8018-8436-5.

Reviewed for H-SHGAPE by Dominique Brégent-Heald, Department of History, Memorial University of Newfoundland

From Girls on/behind Film to the Big Business Film Boys

In April 1896, the audience at Koster and Bial's Music Hall in New York City witnessed the first projected motion pictures in the United States. By the mid-1910s, this technological novelty had evolved into one of the nation's most lucrative industries. The rise of the film industry is a story oft told. Yet, historians typically have omitted the part women played during this transitional period both on screen and off. Karen Ward Mahar fills in this gap in the historiography by examining the significant role of women in the U.S. film industry between 1908 and 1916, and the subsequent marginalization of women in the post-WWI period within the larger context of early twentieth-century American business history.

Mahar, an associate professor of history at Siena College, New York, divides the book into two broad chronological sections. Following a prologue that considers the birth of motion pictures as a scientific invention (read masculine) at the turn of the twentieth century, part 1 covers the period of Progressive-Era uplift when women became active in the film industry. During the nickelodeon boom (1905-7), storefront theaters that showed a continuous rotation of short films, Progressive-Era reformers alleged that the nickel theaters, along with the films they screened, engendered a corruptive influence on working-class audiences, particularly women and children, and, therefore, clamored for censorship and regulation. In response to its critics, the film industry strove to elevate its craft by moving to longer films and establishing legitimate exhibition venues. As Shelley Stamp shows in _Movie-Struck Girls_ (2000), women, who were widely seen as a positive moral influence, played an important role in the attempt to achieve middle-class respectability as spectators and fans.

Mahar adds to this argument by further demonstrating that in the years following the demise of the nickelodeon, women were not only avid consumers of films but also a creative force within the industry. Though women had worked in various capacities during the nickelodeon period, as box office cashiers, theater manager/owners, and actors, the evolving film industry of the 1910s offered women novel opportunities both in front of the camera, due to the emergence of the star system, and behind-the-scenes as directors, producers, scenarists, and editors. In addition to discussing the more familiar women filmmakers of the period, including Mary Pickford, Nell Shipman, and Mabel Normand, Mahar restores to historical memory such forgotten women as Lois Weber, Alice Guy Blaché, Gene Gauntier, Grace Cunard, and Clara Kimball Young. According to Mahar, the public profile of these New Women smashed the Victorian ideology of separate spheres, while the commercial success of athletic, plucky, and comedic serial queens challenged conventional notions of proper feminine behavior. The author, however, is careful not to position this period as one free of sexism and discrimination. She maintains that it was easier for men to find work as directors and producers than it was for women. Moreover, women star-producers often worked in partnerships with men. When these relationships ended, the tendency was for the woman's career to fail while the man transitioned to other projects.

By the mid-1920s, it had become increasingly difficult for women to find work in creative and managerial capacities in the film industry. In part 2, 1916-28, Mahar discusses the rise of the studio system, a vertically integrated oligopoly of five major and three minor studios, which resulted in the marginalization of women and the concomitant remasculinization of filmmaking. This novel business model contrasted the earlier collaborative structure of the film industry. Due to the influence of Progressive-Era professionalization and scientific management techniques, filmmaking had become not only regimented, hierarchical, and departmentalized, but also characterized by sex-segregated work roles; with only a few exceptions, the tasks of directing, producing, and editing were relegated to men. Mahar, thus, connects the disappearance of opportunities for women in the film industry to preexisting patterns in modern American business. She writes, "the industry shifted away from the goal of cultural legitimacy ... toward a model that prized business legitimacy. This shift ultimately marginalized the woman filmmaker" (p. 133).

Overall, Mahar's case is convincing, though I found the first part stronger than the second. Regardless, throughout the text, Mahar's argument is buoyed by careful research and a sound methodology, which is a combination of feminist theories on the gendering of work and historical analysis on the culture of American business in general and the film industry in particular. As such, the monograph nicely fits within the Studies in Industry and Society series, edited by Philip B. Scranton and published with the assistance of the Hagley Museum and Library. Her prose is clear and absent of jargon. Moreover, she provides enough context for those who may be unfamiliar with film history, which makes _Women Filmmakers in Early Hollywood_ accessible to undergraduates or nonspecialists in the field. This title will undoubtedly appeal to H- SHGAPE readers interested in learning about filmmaking during the Progressive Era and the role of women amid changing business ideologies in the early twentieth century. My only regret is that Mahar did not include a filmography!

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I am Looking-for-Mabel

2008-04-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

As you can tell from the name “Looking-for-Mabel, my interest is primarily in finding out about the life and career of Mabel Normand. Therefore, my focus is rather narrow but in developing an understanding of the effect this pioneer woman filmmaker had on the industry, I have found that I have recently had to look beyond the borders into the reactions of the ‘foreign’ market for American films.

The era of the Mabel influence was the teens and early twenties of the last century. ‘MICKEY’, the feature film she produced and starred in at her own studio beginning in 1916, thankful has always been available, sadly. Mack Sennett’s first dramatic feature ‘MOLLY O’ (1921 Sennett) in which she starred was thought lost until it was located in Gosfilmofund, Moscow, Russia, UCLA now is working on the restoration, you can see it but it is a work in progress. Each time I see it is looks a little better.

The films she made while under contract to Sam Goldwyn, were thought lost expect for the ‘WHAT HAPPENED TO ROSA’ (1920 Goldwyn). ‘HEAD OVER HEELS’ (1922 Goldwyn) was found and then again, a foreign archives had saved Mabel’s films for us when ‘THE FLOOR BELOW’ (1918 Goldwyn) was found by Filmmuseum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in the private collection of a Dutch film lover.

I have just begun this aspect of her history and as my understanding of the effect of the World War1 is rather superficial vis-à-vis the distribution of the export and import of silent films after the end of the WW1. This period is very interesting but so many tables and so many numbers!

Archives for the Networked Age

2008-03-24T13:29:00.000-07:00

My research currently looks at how archives and historical writing might be re-imagined and reshaped in the networked age. I find of particular interest the project by Lynn Hershman Leeson and the Stanford Humanities Lab entitled, Life Squared, that exhibits some of the artist's work online in the virtual world of Second Life. Not only does Life Squared make the work of the artist available to the audience to walk through and explore 24/7, with a parallel opportunity to meet and discuss the work with others literally thousands of miles away from the spectator, but the digital format encourages an especially dynamic form of interactivity in which the viewer can remix the history of past analogue artifacts into a new and hybrid narrative that includes media rich materials and almost infinite reanimation possibilities.

The exhibit itself demonstrates the new mode of writing, first by its "archival" presentation of Hershman Leeson's 1973-1974 installation piece, The Dante Hotel -- a hotel room in San Francisco, left perpetually open for anyone to walk through or leave a message or artifact for later observers. In Life Squared we now see the documentation of the installation (written descriptions of the events) remixed alongside images taken from the installation of the space itself, or materials left at the site. Some of the documentation is "written into" the floor or ceiling of the space itself, so that the merger between text and image becomes seamless and our avatar's presence becomes another sign at work in the hybrid site (with our own narrative and history added to the story line).

Near the Dante "archive" is a parallel remix, which documents Hershman Lesson's ongoing performance as Robert Breitmore (1974-1978 in analogue form, now with a Second Life avatar sometimes seen on the Life Squared site). The proximity of the Breitmore exhibit and its format of perpetually morphing photographs documenting her past performances, enable the audience to "remix" the two exhibits themselves so that a deeper understanding of Hershman Leeson's work both to destabilize our sense of a fixed social identity and to empower our own reconstruction or assembly of identity might be seen.

As we travel to a separate part of the exhibit, another version of the Dante Hotel appears, this time in 3D, enabling us to put together another variation of the history, the place, and our participation in it. All of this would seem to be particularly instructive for feminist historians, who argue for multiple pathways through a time, place, and identity.

I will have more on Lynn Hershman Leeson's work in the forthcoming collection that I edited, Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History, which includes an interview with the artist. To find out more about the Stanford Humanities Lab and their amazing projects,

see http://shl.stanford.edu/index.html. For more on Lynn Hershman Leeson's prolific career, see http://www.lynnhershman.com.