Submitted by Justin Tremel on Mon, 2007-11-05 15:52
I recently read a New Yorker article that mentioned the spell-binding youtube video "Women in Film" seen below. It's quite mesmerizing, have a look.
In the article, author David Denby points out certain common visual elements that the diverse group of female stars all share:
The video "Women in Film," on YouTube, morphs the faces of female stars, from the silent period to the present, in a continuous progression, making it clear that eyes may be freakishly pinned open (Crawford) or flirtatiously half closed (Marilyn Monroe), but they must be liquid and voluminous. And lips must be full, the lower gently crescented and the upper a perfect bow. The women were often filmed with chin raised, looking up at men, so the neck had to be a clean line, the shoulders pliant and yielding. Women's hair in the glamour period was curtain and foliage, the luxurious motif of sexual abandon.
The video seems to me a good compliment to the Dove campaign discussed previously on Viz. In a rhetorical avenue of inquiry that places so much emphasis on images of the female body, it is compelling to see how much significant visual study can be done, even when concentrating on simply the face in monochrome. Our students may not recognize any of the earlier Hollywood stars, but I think they'll find the last thirty seconds of the video quite compelling when the morphs take on the faces that they are very familiar with.
The full text of Denby's article isn't currently available online from the New Yorker, though you can find an abstract. You can, however, access his article in html via Academic Search premier:
Submitted by Justin Tremel on Wed, 2007-11-07 14:13.
for Whoopi Goldberg to show up, but she never did...
Although, Lucy Lui, and Selma Hayek appear, and though Halle Berry closes the video it's a very racially homogeneous affair...another talking point for class discussion(?)
Submitted by Jillian Sayre on Wed, 2007-11-07 18:03.
I had the same reaction to the film as Tim, and I agree with Justin that race could be an important lens through which to discuss this piece. In my Rhetoric of the Body class we often talk about how standards of beauty, the ideal or privileged body, are propagated and of course film and television are central to this discussion. This short takes it to a new level; it builds upon the exclusionary tactics of Hollywood (who gets to be represented?) by selecting from the select. I think talking about who doesn't appear in the piece could be just as productive as talking about who does.
Want to know who made the list? The Daily Reel listed our cast for us: Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich, Norma Shearer, Ruth Chatterton, Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck, Vivien Leigh, Greer Garson, Hedy Lamarr, Rita Hayworth, Gene Tierney, Olivia de Havilland, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford, Ginger Rogers, Loretta Young, Deborah Kerr, Judy Garland, Anne Baxter, Lauren Bacall, Susan Hayward, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Audrey Hepburn, Dorothy Dandridge, Shirley MacLaine, Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno, Janet Leigh, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Ann Margret, Julie Andrews, Raquel Welch, Tuesday Weld, Jane Fonda, Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Catherine Deneuve, Jacqueline Bisset, Candice Bergen, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sigourney Weaver, Kathleen Turner, Holly Hunter, Jodie Foster, Angela Bassett, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Salma Hayek, Sandra Bullock, Julianne Moore, Diane Lane, Nicole Kidman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon, and Halle Berry.
Submitted by ubstu34 (not verified) on Sat, 2008-04-05 20:56.
Yes, even the women of color included are not shown to have explicit Negroid features. The only black women I saw (I could be wrong) were Dorothy Dandridge, Angella Bassett, and Halle Berry. Berry and Dandridge were able to achieve cross over success in their careers due to the fact that they possessed light skin owing to their mixed background. (In fact Berry portrayed Dandridge in a tv movie which she produced and paid tribute to Dandridge when she became the first African American actress to win an Academy Award for Best Actress, a prize which Dandridge had been nominated for in the 1950s but did not win.) Their African American heritage made them appear appealingly exotic to mainstream movie audiences, but the fact that they were not dark skinned appealed to normative standards of beauty.
Notice that Jennifer Hudson, a recent Academy Award winner, did not appear in this sequence. Hudson has achieved cross over success by appearing on a reality tv which trades in fairy tale success motifs and by portraying a character in Dream Girls who yearns for cross over success but cannot overcome the fact that despite her superior talent her size and skin color are not aesthetically pleasing to a majority of people. And yet Hudson's character wins our sympathy and Hudson, herself, is granted an Oscar because her artistic gifts transcend her appearance. And although many people will reject and question these standards of beauty (as they should), I doubt Hollywood image makers will crown Hudson as a cinema sex symbol as they did Halle Berry.
On the other hand, as the first African American woman to appear on the cover of Vogue, Hudson is granted the opportunity to express her sexuality in a manner which actresses like Hattie McDaniel were not able to. McDaniel, remember, was the first black performer to win an Oscar in movie history. And while she broke professional ground by winning Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Mammie in Gone With the Wind, her win catered to some of the worst stereotypes of black women which exist in our culture. Mammie was sexless although she had prodigious sexual features. Her dark and round appearance stood in stark contrast to the sleek, white, pure, virginal, and exquisite appearance of Vivien Leigh. The people who put together this montage would never dream of including Hattie McDaniel. And while the people who determine who is a screen goddess and who is not may appreciate the sex appeal of someone like Jennifer Hudson (after all African American women have relentlessly been portrayed as sexual objects since slavery times), it is unlikely she will be thought to possess the "rarefied" qualities which distinguish other actresses as screen goddesses.
Comments
I think maybe they should
I think maybe they should have called it "white women in film"...
Yeah, I kept waiting
for Whoopi Goldberg to show up, but she never did...
Although, Lucy Lui, and Selma Hayek appear, and though Halle Berry closes the video it's a very racially homogeneous affair...another talking point for class discussion(?)
Making the cut
I had the same reaction to the film as Tim, and I agree with Justin that race could be an important lens through which to discuss this piece. In my Rhetoric of the Body class we often talk about how standards of beauty, the ideal or privileged body, are propagated and of course film and television are central to this discussion. This short takes it to a new level; it builds upon the exclusionary tactics of Hollywood (who gets to be represented?) by selecting from the select. I think talking about who doesn't appear in the piece could be just as productive as talking about who does.
Want to know who made the list? The Daily Reel listed our cast for us: Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, Gloria Swanson, Marlene Dietrich, Norma Shearer, Ruth Chatterton, Jean Harlow, Katharine Hepburn, Carole Lombard, Bette Davis, Greta Garbo, Barbara Stanwyck, Vivien Leigh, Greer Garson, Hedy Lamarr, Rita Hayworth, Gene Tierney, Olivia de Havilland, Ingrid Bergman, Joan Crawford, Ginger Rogers, Loretta Young, Deborah Kerr, Judy Garland, Anne Baxter, Lauren Bacall, Susan Hayward, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Grace Kelly, Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Audrey Hepburn, Dorothy Dandridge, Shirley MacLaine, Natalie Wood, Rita Moreno, Janet Leigh, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Ann Margret, Julie Andrews, Raquel Welch, Tuesday Weld, Jane Fonda, Julie Christie, Faye Dunaway, Catherine Deneuve, Jacqueline Bisset, Candice Bergen, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon, Jessica Lange, Michelle Pfeiffer, Sigourney Weaver, Kathleen Turner, Holly Hunter, Jodie Foster, Angela Bassett, Demi Moore, Sharon Stone, Meg Ryan, Julia Roberts, Salma Hayek, Sandra Bullock, Julianne Moore, Diane Lane, Nicole Kidman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Reese Witherspoon, and Halle Berry.
Yes, even the women of color
Yes, even the women of color included are not shown to have explicit Negroid features. The only black women I saw (I could be wrong) were Dorothy Dandridge, Angella Bassett, and Halle Berry. Berry and Dandridge were able to achieve cross over success in their careers due to the fact that they possessed light skin owing to their mixed background. (In fact Berry portrayed Dandridge in a tv movie which she produced and paid tribute to Dandridge when she became the first African American actress to win an Academy Award for Best Actress, a prize which Dandridge had been nominated for in the 1950s but did not win.) Their African American heritage made them appear appealingly exotic to mainstream movie audiences, but the fact that they were not dark skinned appealed to normative standards of beauty.
Notice that Jennifer Hudson, a recent Academy Award winner, did not appear in this sequence. Hudson has achieved cross over success by appearing on a reality tv which trades in fairy tale success motifs and by portraying a character in Dream Girls who yearns for cross over success but cannot overcome the fact that despite her superior talent her size and skin color are not aesthetically pleasing to a majority of people. And yet Hudson's character wins our sympathy and Hudson, herself, is granted an Oscar because her artistic gifts transcend her appearance. And although many people will reject and question these standards of beauty (as they should), I doubt Hollywood image makers will crown Hudson as a cinema sex symbol as they did Halle Berry.
On the other hand, as the first African American woman to appear on the cover of Vogue, Hudson is granted the opportunity to express her sexuality in a manner which actresses like Hattie McDaniel were not able to. McDaniel, remember, was the first black performer to win an Oscar in movie history. And while she broke professional ground by winning Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Mammie in Gone With the Wind, her win catered to some of the worst stereotypes of black women which exist in our culture. Mammie was sexless although she had prodigious sexual features. Her dark and round appearance stood in stark contrast to the sleek, white, pure, virginal, and exquisite appearance of Vivien Leigh. The people who put together this montage would never dream of including Hattie McDaniel. And while the people who determine who is a screen goddess and who is not may appreciate the sex appeal of someone like Jennifer Hudson (after all African American women have relentlessly been portrayed as sexual objects since slavery times), it is unlikely she will be thought to possess the "rarefied" qualities which distinguish other actresses as screen goddesses.
(He boy.... nice blog you have here)