The New Woman in Cinema

Life through a camera lens, though glamorous, is fleeting. Hollywood starlets prove this over the decades of cinema whose careers are only distant memories. After long hours in front of the camera, these performers have been asked to put their lives under a public magnifying glass. Hollywood’s perceptions of young starlets were no different in the 1920s. They were the ideal woman, every man wanted them and every girl wanted to be them. However, the female stars had all eyes on them.

With women’s right to vote newly enacted and the incorporation of sound into films around the corner, these stars were idols to the women of the roaring twenties. At the turn of the 20th century, a new woman arose. These women were well rounded with “educational, political, and occupational pursuits outside the home (Sharot 74).” They were getting married later in life, took steps towards higher education, and fought for their basic civil rights. However, the story of the new woman doesn’t just begin with early Hollywood cinema.

Before our pop culture’s 50 Shades of Grey, Elinor Glyn was writing steamy erotica novels in the early 1900s. Born in October of 1864, Glyn seemed to always be reaching higher, whether it was to be a higher class or from writing novels to writing scripts. In 1907, she published her sixth novel, Three Weeks, about a young British nobleman sent away to Switzerland by his family. While there, he meets an older woman abused by her husband and begins a steamy affair resulting in her death and a son. The novel is most famous for its “tiger rug” scene, where Paul enters a room and finds The Lady laying, barely covered, on a tiger skin rug. This has been used in pop culture, in subtle hints, since to signify a sexual ferociousness or sexual tension.

The book is rumored to have been based on Glyn’s own personal experience of cheating on her husband. The book caused mixed reactions because of its sensuous nature and the illicit relationship between the older “The Lady” and the young protagonist, Paul. Nickianne Moody wrote, “Three Weeks became notorious because its focus is not society manners or pre-nuptial morality, but an adulterous affair that is treated sympathetically, almost reverentially by the authoress (Moody 92).” The sexual nature of the book and rebelliousness of the female protagonist created “the Edwardian construction” of what we now know as the femme fatal (Moody 92). The novel impacted not only British women but also Americans, setting the stage for what would become Hollywood cinema’s “new woman”.

Hollywood was obsessed with the “domestic vampire” instead of the turn of the century “virginal sweetheart”. These femme fatal characters drew from mythology and nature for their key characteristics. The earliest “vamp” performance on-screen was associated with Theda Bara in A Fool There Was (Porter Emerson Browne 1915). This early character shaped the outline of the twenties’ flapper, which F. Scott Fitzgerald referred to as “lovely, expensive, and about nineteen (Petersen).” These women were usually portrayed as sexual predators; however, the character began to change over time, slowly becoming what we now know as the flapper. The creation of this femme fatal, who exists outside of convention, stirred up controversy and eventually helped Glyn make the transition from Britain to America. She was hired to set up “a social etiquette” for the stars that came from earlier film making, and eventually found her way into screenwriting in Hollywood (Moody 96).

Hollywood was considered a male-dominated industry until Glyn’s films. She was involved in every aspect of the film, from the writing to the costumes, which was noted by the success of the films (Moody 101). She made herself available at all times for the cast and crew to as questions about the plot or just the characters. Glyn’s influence was widely felt through Hollywood, from tabloids to the stars themselves. Young stars embodied the rebellious, sensuous nature of Glyn’s characters, causing America to eventually see changes in the young women coming of age. They were daring, confident, and not lacking sex appeal. After the film adaptation of Three Weeks (Alan Crosland, 1924) was produced, Glyn was an immediate brand. Sam Goldwyn, who produced Three Weeks, considered “Elinor Glyn’s name synonymous with sex appeal (Kuhn 26).”

With this branding, came the inspiration for Glyn’s most successful film, It (Clarence Badger 1927). According to Glyn, when someone had “it”, it meant they had “a general kind of attractiveness, a strong and fascinating personal magnetism or charisma (Khun 96)…” This new characteristic symbolized a new woman of power and sex appeal. Women had just been granted the nineteenth amendment granting them the right to vote, and slowly began working for more opportunities in society. These women were considered a new breed, and a new brand.  With the emergence of this new quality, MGM searched for the perfect “It girl” to play the protagonist in the film. She had to embody all of these traits but still have the sex appeal to draw audiences in.

They found Clara Bow, a young actress who had been in a few films but not any that really put her on the map. She was born to a family of humble means and eventually found her way to Hollywood as an extra. After working her way from part to part and landing a contract with Paramount, she became branded as what we now see as the twenties’ flapper.

Bow was described as being “dynamic, resourceful, smart, poor but honorable,” and hardboiled (Moody 102). This was rarely seen in Hollywood actresses before this era of liberation. Before the twenties, American actresses, such as Mary Pickford, had the sexuality and innocence of children. During the twenties, however, more “exotic and erotic” stars made their way into Hollywood cinema, such as Greta Garbo. These women brought a high level of maturity and subtle sexuality to the screen, something Hollywood had never really experienced (Belton 108). Clara Bow had this maturity and sexuality that the new audience demanded and became Hollywood’s “it girl” of the roaring twenties.

Clara Bow throughout the film, It, shows the audience brief glimpses into the life of the new woman. An example is a scene where she transforms her simple black work dress into a cocktail dress for an evening out. The scene made a statement about the new woman’s style: the skin was meant to be shown. Flapper’s attire was often loose-fitting and easy to move in, a contrast to the previous conservative fashion trends. As Bow begins adding pieces to her outfit, we see the resourcefulness of the flapper and confidence to cut the fabric, although she could potentially ruin the outfit. This created a sense of inspiration in women, showing them that they too can make themselves over with just one cut. This enchanted audiences, giving them someone to “buy” into.

Bow was the obsession of tabloids all over America and helped shape our culture’s views of celebrity. When magazines let it slip her hair was actually red, henna sales increased exponentially since, assumingly, young women wanted to be like her (Petersen). She, as well as other actresses of the time, had the world at their feet. However, they stood on rocky ground, constantly being watched and pulled from every side. They were at the mercy of the studios who “owned” them and one false move could destroy the careers they worked so hard to build.

Although she was the “it girl”, Bow was the center of scandal all through the twenties. She was a gambler, a seductress, and an overall party queen. Bow came from a family with little to their name and had poor money management skills. She was a sex symbol, allegedly sleeping with football teams, married men, and even dogs. She was liberated and not afraid to throw outrageous parties to prove it. Not the ideal role-model for impressionable young girls and the Paramount studio heads noticed it.

As scandals broke around her, Bow slowly lost support from her studio, regardless of the headlines. She continued on to make films with Fox that slowly ended her career. She not only had to compete with the younger stars but with her own voice as sound played a prominent role in cinema now. Bow didn’t welcome the change due to her Brooklyn accent she had to try to hide for certain roles.  Although Bow eventually passed away in 1965, rumors surrounding her scandals are still remembered.  However, she wasn’t the only woman making a statement. Both Mary Pickford and Colleen Moore had their share of spotlight moments, leaving their marks on the American flapper.

Each had their own “flapper identities.” Mary Pickford was known as the young innocent woman, because of her childlike appearance. In her personal life, she constantly had her mother or another adult figure around keeping her on her best behavior. As she grew older, the pressure to compete with sexually liberated actresses, such as Clara Bow, began to weigh on her, and she retired. Colleen Moore was more of the free, lighthearted flapper who was liberated in her behaviors, but not directly in her on-screen relationships. Moore’s flapper was more of liberation from “Victorian restrictions”: smoking in public; dancing the Charleston; and drinking. She played girls looking for a taste of freedom and was the perfect mix of Pickford and Bow (Sharot 80).

With these new women controlling the jazz age and eventually stepping into the 1930’s gangster era, it was no surprise there would be a backlash. These new women had created a revolution and many people from older generations were against this new liberation. Because of the backlash and rebellious nature of stars such as Clara Bow, studios began to tread lightly with the sexual nature of their films (Greene 55). The threat of the Hollywood Production Code brought up a cause for concern, as the code would prevent sexual acts from being a selling point of any of the films. The Variety article “Producers Scrub ‘Em Clean Before Showing to Breen (1934),” published a few weeks after the new code was enacted, depicted the cause for concern among producers and filmmakers. The slow pull away from the “fleshpots” of the twenties and early thirties created what we now classify as the screwball comedy. The flapper persona still resonated on and off-screen although she was a much calmer and tamer character.

The flapper and new woman persona are still resonating throughout American culture. From fashion to lifestyle choices, celebrities and audiences are still affected by the female liberation of the twenties. There have been quite a few cycles of this liberation from the “free love” movement of the sixties and seventies, to the digital movement of the 21st century. Our obsession with the actors and actresses’ personal lives can be said to start from the early scandals of the twenties and the start of a new era. Without women like Elinor Glyn or Clara Bow, who stepped outside of the conventions of society, we may not have had the flapper, new woman, or femme fatal we know today.

Bow put it best when she said, “We had individuality. We did as we pleased. We stayed up late. We dressed the way we wanted. I used to whiz down Sunset Boulevard in my open Kissel, with several red Chow dogs to match my hair. Today, they're sensible and end up with better health. But we had more fun.” This quote by the flapper herself describes the mindset of the new woman: liberated. With the camera lens pointed on them at all times, these women represented a pivotal point in history for women.