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Chapter 15
Women, Politics, and Film: All About Eve?
The purpose of this chapter is to explore the role of women in politically overt and
socially reflective popular films, arguing that the most unambiguously political films
with prominent women characters equate political viability with sexual virtue and
circumscribed behavior. Socially reflective films complicate the politics of gender with
respect to their depiction of women and social power and this chapter paints the
changing face of woman as different types—from the femme fatale to the blonde
bombshell et al.—surge and fade from view in the decades surveyed. Focus falls on white
middle-to-upper-class women, Hollywood’s most common portrait.
Objectives for Chapter 15:
1. Describe the history of women in the early days of the film history as directors,
screenwriters, and in other positions not commonly understood.
2. Identify early repeated depictions of women wielding power political in its effect,
including Cleopatra and Salome.
3. Establish the better known power dynamic in popular American films in which men
direct the camera at the object of fascination, fear, and desire: woman packaged as
part of a commodity sexuality.
4. Introduce the largely overlooked early director, Lois Weber.
5. Chart the changing popular image of women from the New Woman and her various
incarnations as the vamp, the femme fatale, and the flapper, to shop girl and
“hussy.”
6. Describe and analyze the few politically overt films of the era: Her Honor the
Governor, The Gorgeous Hussy, The Farmer’s Daughter.
7. Chart the changes in the representation of women during the WWII era as women
took the place of men in the workplace and slowly but surely integrated government
institutions like the military.
8. Examine the film noir genre of WWII and the immediate post-war era and the
femme fatal often at its center.
9. Look at what happens to the popular image of woman during the intense
corporatization and suburbanization of the post-war era.
10. Examine the return of the femme fatale type during the politically conservative
Reagan era and what Susan Faludi dubbed the era’s backlash against feminism, a
movement that had made strides for the emancipation and empowerment of women
in the previous three decades.
11. Describe and analyze the star persona of Michael Douglas in the 1980s and early
1990s as he represents the male victim of the contemporary femme fatale in three
key films: Fatal Attraction, Disclosure, and Basic Instinct.
12. Note the trend of women masquerading as men in films like Baby Boom even as
men literally play women in films from the same era like Tootsie. Both trends
suggest the performative nature vs. innate quality of gender roles.
13. List the revenge fantasy films about sexual assault, including Ms. 45 and the
similarly themed though politically milder Thelma and Louise.
14. Describe and analyze overtly political films of the late 20th and early 21st century
including Primary Colors, The Contender, Iron Lady and Game Change.
Discussion Questions for Chapter 15:
1. How were women left out of the histories of early cinema?
2. Who are some of the important women figures early in the history of cinema and
what did they do?
3. How do the various incarnations of the recurring femme fatale figure compare and
contrast from the 1910s, the 1940s, and the 1980s, for example?
4. In what ways do the political “pure” films include prominent women characters?
What behaviors equate with political power?
5. Watch Working Girl, keeping in mind what the title refers to. Why is it so important
to the film’s plot and messaging to make its two central women characters enemies
of one another?
6. Screen Thelma and Louise. Does it still seem “anti-male” or has its gender politics
faded into something more commonplace and unremarkable?
Assignments for Chapter 15:
1. Research government propaganda that promoted images of women working, like
the famous Rosie the Riveter campaign at
www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/126_rosi.html#posters. Research film posters from the
same era. How do the two different promotional campaigns compare and contrast?
Do films compensate for or perpetuate the depiction of working women as strong
and important? Is there a film version of Rosie? Why or why not, do you think?
2. Perform a study of the films that invoke directly and indirectly the political persona
of Hillary Clinton. How and why is she such a sensitive barometer of public attitudes
toward women and political power?
