Posted on 03/03/2018 3:05:22 PM PST by nickcarraway
Time’s 2017 Person of the Year was “The Silence Breakers,” a growing contingent of women who have been speaking out about sexual harassment by men in positions of power.
But the sexual exploitation of women is hardly something new. As Time observed, the #MeToo movement “has actually been simmering for years, decades, centuries.”
In order to prepare for a course I’ll be teaching next fall about working women in 1920s and 1930s films, I’ve been watching a lot of movies from the period. And I’ve been repeatedly surprised by how much casual sexual harassment – a term that wouldn’t exist until decades later – was depicted on screen during those years.
(Excerpt) Read more at wtop.com ...
As Jimmy Durante used to say; “Everybody wants to get into the act!”
Hollywood INVENTED and PERFECTED their “casting couch” explotation of women... and the cover-ups as far back as Fatty Arbukle’s accusations of murder in the 1920’s.
The first man who was seduced and betrayed by Stanwyck was played by the young, unknown John Wayne.
Colleges used to teach Plato and Shakespeare. Now they teach “Me too” on the silver screen. I don’t think that’s a step forward.
The whole thing is dumbsville.
Well, I wouldn’t say he was innocent. Just not guilty of that crime. He was still doing a lot of unsavory things.
Prior to "THE CODE", some movies dealt with all kinds of social "problems" and everyday life in a rather open ( considering the time ) way. These were movies made for ADULTS.
I've already posted a wee bit of film "history". :-)
A lot of pre-code films played up sex (prostitution, gigolos, adulterers and love triangles, unmarried mothers, etc.).
They cover the male boss who hits on the bright eyed woman who comes to work at the office and the dominating woman who runs the company herself and has competing suitors.
But to a Stalinist, history always begins “today” and the written record means nothing.
Psst, those filmmakers knew that they could show an hour of sin as long as the sinners got theirs by the last reel.
Same game at play in Reefer Madness, Cocaine Fiends, et al. Skinny dipping, white slavery, VD, on and on. But it’s a “cautionary tale” (wink wink).
Some films (by the “other” Hollywood) even had two versions of scenes (one tame and one “hot”, like women in lingerie reading the same lines). Cities and states had their own local censors you had to get to pass your film (Baltimore had one into the 80s or 90s, John Waters had to deal with her numerous times). Sometimes the promoter would screen one print for the city fathers and then screen another at night (or even change up reels after the “heat” left the theater).
Urging morality WAS NOT THEIR GOAL.
It’s melodrama.
Good grief! Men use power to get sex. Women use sex to get power.
History and sociology courses complete!
There are numerous early films on YouTube by searching for Pre-Code. Interesting. One film showed a younger Joel McCrea — and his looks, acting and voice were so “modern” when compared to the early 1930’s actors around him. He’d be a star even today.
“Moviegoers in the early 1930s watched films about such sexual aggression on a regular basis, suggesting the degree to which this behavior was known, if not tacitly condoned, by film producers who were, of course, all male. The Production Code certainly tamed such blunt plot lines.”
How does this author see this as condoning such behavior?
Have you seen "BABY FACE"? Oh sure, Stanwyck turns into THE WHORE WITH THE HEART OF GOLD", due to the "LOVE OF A GOOD MAN", but she isn't "punished" in any way.
"THREE ON A MATCH"? Okay, that's a bit into "CODE" territory, but it's still "racey".
Look at the early films staring Warren William, Kay Francis, and Norma Sheara, even in the early days when THE CODE was begun!
And as far as "racey" goes, the nudity in the silents beats the heck out of the "racey" talkies, where the women were at least wearing something !
Yes..."CAUTIONARY TALES"; these predate the invention of movies and has been used in books and plays for centuries, if not millennia.
Trailer for a documentary about roadshow films titled Sex & Buttered Popcorn (hosted by Ned Beatty)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZ3eNqY3fnc
Some student’s video about Pre-code Hollywood (major studios)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAWouAAEMGA
Today we call that prime time TV! Nothing new under the sun!
I saw Chubby Checker a few years ago. He did the song The Hucklebuck. He says he got in trouble for showing the dance back in the day. “They said it was dirty, today I can do it. EVERYTHING is dirty!”
Push your partner out
Then you hunch your back
Have a little movement in your sacroiliac
Wiggle like a snake
Wobble like a duck
That’s the way you do it when you do the hucklebuck
(a lot of pelvic thrusting at your dance partner)
“The sacroiliac joint or SI joint (SIJ) is the joint between the sacrum and the ilium bones of the pelvis, which are connected by strong ligaments. In humans, the sacrum supports the spine and is supported in turn by an ilium on each side.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeNPzU5ib54
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