They Done Her Wrong : Hegemony, self-censorship, and the construction of women's identies in Hollywood films, 1930-1939

Sammanfattning

This thesis examines how Hollywood self-censorship through the Hollywood Production Code affected filmmaking, focusing on the portrayal of women in Hollywood films. While the subject of censorship in Hollywood is well-researched, often by examining films in controversial genres, this thesis uses the portrayal of women by actresses in roles deemed culturally significant within the film industry itself as a lens to understand how cultural production functions within a regulatory hegemonic framework. While the main focus is censorship and filmmaking, it also touches upon the construction of gender identity in films and on women’s history in the US context. The thesis also contributes to a discussion on the term ‘pre-Code Hollywood’, finding that it might be an oversimplification to make such a clear distinction between a time of perceived loose censorship (1930–1934) and stricter enforcement (1935–1939). The analysis indicates that censorship was a constructive force in that it affected the way filmmakers created female characters in films and that a stricter enforcement of the Code post–1934 was handled by redemption or punishment for characters who subverted the norms, while the characters who conformed to the dominant hegemon’s norms and values worked as catalysts in two ways: These conformist characters guided the path of the non-conformist ones, and was used to mirror them to show what a correct portrayal of women should be. At the same time, looking at the films in the thesis, Hollywood throughout the 1930s created female characters who showed a high rate of individuality and agency, indicating a complexity inherent in films constructed within a hegemonic framework built on patriarchal values.