Look at all the different fashion style transitions... Rich, then Working Class, then Successful.
Beginning with our Stardom book, Herzog and Gaines discuss the intricacies of fashion in the film industry (specifically the during the 1920's & 30's), and also about film's fashion effect on the mainstream public. Our authors open with the idea that there are times, as in Letty Lynton (1932), that a single dress in a film can have further reaching effects than any other aspect of the film. One might not remember the film's story as much as that beautiful dress they saw. This concept contributed, according Herzog and Gaines, to an inevitable movement of Large-scale fashion being heavily influenced by film and females stars during this time period. The film industry recognized the power that they could wield with this, and subsequently did so in an attempt to "draw women into the theaters." -- (It was interesting to see that during one incident the film promoters exaggerating the reproduction of over 500,000 dresses in order to manipulate consumers to buy buy buy what was in style)
Bridging now to Dyer's assigned reading, we see an almost perfect arena for highend film-fashion within our consumption based capitalist system. Dyer's brings to light the idea of "success" and it's manifestations within what people desire to see in film. Hence, we see expensive fashion in film, as a result of our desire to view the excess or useless prestige-producing products we desire but cannot have ourselves. All of this breeds the necessity of "Idols of Consumption", as coined by Dyers. Our films heros turn into what are values dictate (The Good Joe/Tough Guy/The Independent Women) in order to sell more. To close the summation it is important to discuss the "Independent Women." According to Dyers and some feminist theory, this is the woman who takes on the heroic qualities of the ideal white man. The discussion that takes place in dyers book in this area is fascinating and I would like to discuss it as I analyze Mildred Pierce.
Looking at Mildred Pierce...
The Independent Women
Dyers quotes Molly Haskel in saying that women are allowed to be strong throughout an entire film, but in the end they fall weak to the temptation of maternity and love in the last two minutes. Mildred Pierce did this is effect. The character that Joan Crawford played was strong and independent through out the entire film, but in the end she loses her self-made successful business to men, her own daughter is tempted away to a life on money and murder, and Mildred herself is ready to commit suicide. And all for what? All in the end they show the strong Mildred's inevitable return to her pillar of an Ex-Husband. It is almost screaming the message don't leave your stable husband and become independent.
Fashion
The opening scene of Mildred Pierce illustrates an interesting case for fashion. In this scene Mildred is seen wearing an expensive outfit. Specifically her coat, which has a similar strong shoulder as was made famous by the dress Joan Crawford wore in Letty Lynton. However, after this moment of majesty, Mildred is reduced to wearing dull housewife apparel during a flashback a moment later. The rest of the movie really reveals Mildred's struggle to get back to this rich/lavish place for her daughter's sake, but really ironically for herself also if one follows the ordering of scenes. In other words, if one was to watch the movie with the sound off we would see a rich women reduced to rags, and then fights and works her way back to her riches. Furthermore, by turning the sound back on we can see another message too. This message creates a dichotomy between people who work hard for their money (Mildred) and people who are born into (Mildred's Daughter). The message about these two groups is that if you work hard to can still maintain hero-like qualities, whereas without hard work evil sprouts as with the daughter character.
Once considering this point of view we can illustrate an idea that Herzog and Gaines talk about, and this is the idea that some women who would go to see these films would want to see their favorite stars in glamorous dresses no matter how none glamorous the character's role. One quote promoted by the industry was "Be Glamorous" or "Be Nothing." Furthering this, most viewers according the Herzog and Gaines article, don't want to see the "sweaty armpits" of the traditional housewife uniform. So, given the very nature of capitalism (not everyone can be equally rich, because that would mean everyone is also equally poor and leaves nobody to do the dishes) we are left to dream. In the Herzog and Gaines article, we saw people would be willing to purchase cheap knockoff dresses that were similar to the ones they had seen in their favorite movies just to get at that dream. Even though everything went to hell at the end of Mildred Pierce, there is definitely something to be said about the fact that we probably all enjoy watching a person work up from nothing; It gives us at the bottom hope, and reinforces our belief that we can do it also. It reinforces what we believe are country is founded on; A ladder we can climb.
3 Question:
1) Are people every entirely masculine or entirely feminine?
2) What does the fashion of Mildred Pierce say about our society?
3) Are depictions of independent women in films always reduced to more traditional subservient depictions in the final two minutes of a film?
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