Paige Brunsen
for Nineteen Twenties and the Birth of Modern America: Honors
The 1920s were a vibrant and exciting time for popular culture, especially in entertainment. With the expansion of entertainment came a newfound love of motion pictures—resulting in a multimillion dollar industry. Before the industry exploded, women and men alike were found in positions of creative leadership such as directing and producing, but once filmmaking was recognized as an opportunity for big business, women were pushed into the shadows with unfortunate long-lasting consequences.
Prior to the 1920s, many female filmmakers held positions of creative power such as director, cinematographer, and producer. This is largely due to the fact that production was mostly independent and seen as an art form; the filmmaking industry had yet to shift into the centralized studio system. According to film historian Erin Hill, these independent productions were “less formal, more holistic...systems in which women moved fluidly between different work sectors” (17). Hill claims that women were not hindered by their gender but often hired by these small production teams to learn the entire filmmaking process (17). It is quite logical that a small, independent production company would encourage its employees to learn many roles rather than specialize in one in order to maintain the ability to operate when a team member is absent. From there, filmmakers would find their niche and continue on in that specific creative role. This process furthered the art form as it trained many young artists and encouraged them to find their passions. Ally Acker, filmmaker and author, states in an interview found in the The Silent Era documentary created by Reel Herstory, that “before 1920, anybody who wanted to be part of the industry could play if you had energy and enthusiasm and desire...Nobody cared if they were getting paid or not, they just wanted to be in this new exciting medium” (Acker 20:38). Filmmakers in this era only worked to support themselves or create art, not to make large amounts of money. Women flourished in this early, art-focused and innovative film industry. In fact, “for most of the silent era, women were deeply influential in the budding film industry...More women worked in powerful positions behind the scenes before 1925 than they did at any other time during the next 50 years” (Acker 5:05). Another way young women started in the filmmaking business was by working for photography companies that began producing motion picture cameras. One such artist was Alice Guy Blaché, who was hired initially as a secretary, but created what is considered by some to be the first narrative film when she was experimenting with one of the motion picture cameras (Hill 25). Blaché went on to create her own studio and become one of the most influential directors, and arguably one of the most famous directors, of silent films. Unfortunately, with the changing economy, Blaché, like many other independent filmmakers, was forced to stop making films due to financial problems.
The 1920s were a time of prosperity for America. Consumer culture was on the rise; people felt more self-indulgent than prior generations did. As a result, leisure and entertainment, including film, became very profitable businesses. Alicia Malone, film reporter and critic, writes that “by the end of the 1920s, silent films featured complex plots, artistic cinematography, and glamorous movie stars, and attracted big audiences” (20). Not long after the film industry started to become highly commercially successful—Hollywood at this point was a $500 million business—“talkies,” motion pictures with sound, completely changed the industry (Acker 19:40). “When movies began to talk, and film became a major industry, women were faced with what is now known as the ‘Hollywood Studio System’” (Acker 00:00). Like many other industries in the 1920s, the film industry became highly centralized, favoring large corporations as opposed to small, independent firms. Five ‘major’ studios and three ‘minor’ studios seized control of the market (Acker 00:43). As these corporations had a business mindset rather than an artistic one, they became hierarchical, reorganizing the power of decision making from small, creatively independent productions to executive managers, resulting in women being pushed from creative roles of leadership (Hill 38). “Women were not perceived as being business-minded or executive material, so positions of power on a movie set, such as directing, now were given to men” (Malone 21). The fact that men were equated with having a business mindset reflects the divided and predetermined cultural idea of gender in the 1920s. As filmmaking had become an essential and popular industry in the public eye, studios began to focus on maintaining these gender roles valued by society in order to appear professional (Hill, 43). There was a shift from women being directors or producers to being “studio girls.” These ‘girls’ were only valued as clerical workers or those in the “lowest-status, most repetitive, least desirable forms of labor” necessary in order to create efficient mass production demanded by the popularity of the film industry (Hill 17). “Studio girls” were also physically separated from creative spaces, positioned on studio lots furthest from where the filmmaking or camera work occurred (Hill 55).
As the film industry became a place for large corporations, pay became reflective of the limited value society placed on working women. Despite the 1920s “New Woman” making strides for her gender in sexual expression and physical freedom, women were still expected to become mothers. Corporations justified paying them less because they were seen as temporary employees, especially when married women were often prevented from working. In contrast, men required a so-called “family wage” because they were expected to be the sole financial providers for their family (Hill 20). For example, “early female lab workers [found in post-production] received $7 to $12 a week, whereas men received $2 to $5 more” (Hill 79). Not only did pay reflect the newfound separation of gender in the film industry, but unions also reinforced this division. Unions naturally developed when the studio system became so corporation-based and centralized, and “with the unions coming in, women were very promptly shown the exit door” (Acker 20:38). With this exclusion, women were solidified as unable to have any decision making power, even over the rights of their own jobs. Hill writes that “barring the occasional ladies’ night, women could not follow their male peers into these clubs and taverns to discuss how and by whom their jobs were to be carried out” (54). All of these limitations, spurred by the consumer culture of the time, firmly placed women in the filmmaking shadows.
In the 1920s, women working in the film industry were restricted to positions considered ‘trivial.’ Women working for studios were listed as actresses, art directors’ assistants, copyists, typists, costume designers, cutters, dance instructors, dancers, film inspectors, lab workers, hairdressers, maids, servants, models, negative cutters, notetakers, nurses, pianists, readers, researchers, scenarists, screenwriters, clerks, or seamstresses (Hill 60). These departments—especially art direction, costume design, hair and makeup, and nursing—later became known as the “Pink Ghettos” (Acker 03:32). The nickname itself reflects the repressive nature of confining women to these departments. Most of the positions available to women were entry level positions, demonstrating that these women were probably not very wealthy, but looking for wages to support themselves. The fact that these women held jobs in the 1920s, a time that did not yet culturally support the idea of working women, indicates that the jobs were likely necessary for financial support. The women were plausibly middle or lower class. Some of these women probably had connections in the industry—especially since it was such a large business in California—that allowed them to receive jobs other than clerical or entry-level work, but many of these women were probably looking for work and found themselves in the industry. Perhaps some women interested in creating films entered the industry in these clerical positions as a starting point to build their careers, but it is doubtful that the majority did so when so few opportunities were available to their gender. Despite being reduced to positions considered ‘trivial’ by their male peers, women were able to find ways to become more involved in leadership and creativity in the studio system by pursuing the fields of editing and screenwriting.
Cutting film negatives and inspecting film were entry level jobs available to women due to the repetitive nature of these jobs and the fact that “women were held to be nimbler and neater than their male counterparts” (Hill 20). They were encouraged to work in these very detail-oriented positions often equated to knitting. In fact, the first cutting machine looked very much like a sewing machine, pedal and all (Malone 35). In an interview for Reel Herstory’s documentary, The Silent Era, Margaret Booth, the first person to be credited as ‘film editor,’ said that she “was given a job with all the other girls to put reels together, and that's what [they] did all day long, just assembled reels... [they] worked for hours sometimes on a close-up (Malone 18; Acker 21:42). It was easy for women to make the transition from lab workers to editors, especially because editing was a very behind-the-scenes and unglamorized part of filmmaking. Booth excelled in this field, going on to become ‘Supervising Editor’ at MGM for thirty years (Malone 36).
Similarly, women were able to work their way up to holding the position of ‘screenwriter’ in the unfavorable studio system. Many started out as ‘readers’ in the scenario department, processing, sorting, and evaluating incoming scripts (Hill 47). In a firsthand account of the position during the 1920s, Bradley King described her responsibilities: “We open all the envelopes, get ready our little cards for criticism and filing—then get busy, reading, writing criticism on rejection cards and pass anything worthwhile up to a [script] editor” (Hill 48). From there, some women were promoted to screenwriters. There were a few more screenwriters (by percentage) in the 1920s than ever before. In fact, “of the 5,189 films listed in the 1911–1920 volume of the American Film Institute Catalog, 1,077 (a little over twenty per cent) had any female screenwriting credit. Out of 6,606 titles listed in the 1921–1930 volume of the Catalog, 1,489 (a little under twenty-five per cent) had some female credit” (Slide 114). This data shows that women were not forced out of screenwriting, probably due to it being another behind- the-scenes aspect of film; “thus the literary fields—with their timeworn associations between women and typewriters—afforded opportunities for women to succeed, at the cost of effectively distancing them from the site of real creative power: the masculinized spaces behind the camera and in executive suites” (Hill 58). Hill’s words, “timeworn associations between women and typewriters” effectively speak to how defined ideas of gender were during this time period. In analyzing positions afforded to 1920s women in the film industry, it is easy to conclude that women were only permitted in areas considered ‘trivial,’ ‘feminine,’ or ‘unseen.’
It is important to note that there were two exceptions to this rule: Virginia Van Upp and Dorothy Arzner. Van Upp was the only female executive producer in Hollywood for thirty years. She started as a child film star during the silent era. Van Upp became the second in command at Columbia by writing and producing films for actress Rita Hayworth who received celebrity status as a result (Acker 03:04). Arzner, working for Paramount, went from typist to reader to cutter to editor to assistant director to, finally, director, the only American female director in the 30’s and 40’s (Acker 00:43). Commenting on this fact, Arzner stated, “Why should I be pointed out as a strange creature because I happened to be the only woman director? Intelligence has no sex. If there are no women directors, there ought to be” (Acker 02:35). In this quote, Arzner is pointing out that she should not be the only one to find directorial success; she is not the only intelligent and capable woman. It should be normalized so she is not a “strange creature.” Many have speculated why Arzner was the only female director to make it in the studio system, but there are no definitive answers. One person speculated that it was because her movies made large profits, another said it was due to the fact that she made films that appealed to women with strong and emotional female characters (Acker 1:05). Although Arzner proved herself, and her gender, worthy of being in positions of creative power in the studio system, her success was not enough to convince studios. In fact, “between 1912 and 1919, Universal had 11 female directors who regularly worked for them, and who made a total of 170 films in these seven years. But from the mid-1920s right up to 1982, the studio didn’t hire a single female filmmaker” (Malone 21). This fact demonstrates the unfortunate reality that the reduction of women from roles of creative leadership to so- called ‘trivial’ work in the 1920s had long lasting facts.
The boom of consumer culture found in the 1920s changed the film industry from independent small firms to mass corporations, pushing women from roles of creative leadership to positions considered ‘trivial’ like clerical work. It marked the end of seeing big-name female directors like Alice Guy Blaché. The fact that film unions denied membership to women also contributed to pushing women into the filmmaking shadows. While some roles like editing and screenwriting accepted women, they were denied the real positions of creative power like directing and producing. Although the 1920s “New Woman” was making strides for gender equality, women in filmmaking were set back by redefined gender roles in a culture driven by consumerism and large corporations, a phenomenon that had lasting consequences.
Works Cited:
Acker, Ally. Reel Herstory: The REAL Story of Reel Women with Jodie Foster - The
Silent Era. [San Francisco, California, USA] : Alexander Street, 2015.
Acker, Ally. Reel Herstory: The REAL Story of Reel Women with Jodie Foster - The
Talkies. [San Francisco, California, USA] : Alexander Street, 2015.
Hill, Erin. Never Done : A History of Women’s Work in Media Production. Rutgers
University Press, 2016.
Malone, Alicia. Backwards and in Heels: The Past Present and Future of Women
Working in Film. Mango Publishing Group, 2017.
Slide, Anthony. “Early Women Filmmakers: The Real Numbers.” Film History, vol. 24,
no. 1, Mar. 2012, pp. 114–121.