Femininity in the Frame: Women and 1950s British Popular Cinema
It's widely assumed that Britain in the 1950s experienced a return post-war to traditional gender roles and that popular cinema represented this era of the mythological "happy housewife" with boys-own tales of derring do. Melanie Bell challenges such received understandings with this sharply observant account of how British cinema engaged with femininity and women's roles during an important period of social and cultural change. In a lively and accessible manner, she shows that the period was...
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It's widely assumed that Britain in the 1950s experienced a return post-war to traditional gender roles and that popular cinema represented this era of the mythological "happy housewife" with boys-own tales of derring do. Melanie Bell challenges such received understandings with this sharply observant account of how British cinema engaged with femininity and women's roles during an important period of social and cultural change. In a lively and accessible manner, she shows that the period was marked by social unease and anxiety about gender roles and femininity through analyzing marginalized figures such as prostitutes, criminals and 'femmes fatales' and addressing themes of modernity, marriage and female friendship. This revealing book shows how many British films, like The Perfect Woman or Young Wives' Tale, expressed proto-feminist ideas and explored new forms of femininity in a manner that has not until now generally been recognized.
* Introduction: Women and 1950s British Popular Cinema • Man-Made Women • The British femme fatale • The Housewife and the Comedies of Marriage cycle • The Female Group film • Female Sexuality and the Prostitute as Heroine-Figure • Female Film Critics: Addressing the British Film Audience • Conclusion • Notes, Bibliography, Index *
