The difference in Representation and Performance in Gender in the Dissertation

The difference in Representation and Performance in Gender in the Musical Genre of the 1930s in contrast to that of the Popular Musicals of the late 1970s and early 1980s - Dissertation Example However, it is not as simple as it looks. The films of Hollywood in the early 1930s at times turned the Horatio Alger myth on its head. The film Wild Boys on the Road (1933) followed the youth in Depression-era as the story of the film focused on them looking for work instead of success. They usually had dashed images of hope, poverty, crime, rape and also the accidental amputation. The heroines of that time no longer got ahead by being good girls that usually married a rich husband. The film Red Headed Woman (1932) and Baby Face (1933) the women were shown with the role of selling their bodies to the highest bidder of the time or using their wiles to trade from a mailroom clerk in order to become the head of the company. Buhler believes that â€Å"the Operetta-style topic also represents the musical place in the film where both characters can exist happily together.† (Buhler, 2000:197). On the other hand the heroes of the films did show dogged determination in their way to su ccess, but some of them did give up in trying finding their desired success through the legitimate means and were usually outside the law in order to achieve their goal. The gangster films that were made were Little Caeser (1931), Public Enemy (1931) and Scarface (1932). Some other films that were made during that period implied a critique of the capitalist system that was there in some of the countries. This system showed the depicting people struggling everyday against the establishment institutions which were the government and other big businesses. Although most of these films ended up in punishing the ones who transgressed the middle-class morality or the civil law, the audience sympathy to a greater extent went with those particular individuals who were fighting against the... This "The difference in Representation and Performance in Gender in the Musical Genre of the 1930’s in contrast to that of the Popular Musicals of the late 1970’s and early 1980’s" work outlines contrast analysis of the shows of different periods and how the gender was represented at those times. The Gold Diggers of 1933 was directed by two people, Mervyn LeRoy and Busby Berkeley, the first one dealt with the plot and the latter was for the musical numbers. If the backstage story of the film was not integrated with action and if the songs were cut out completely without harming the continuity, the film could not have gained the worth it had in the minds of the audiences of that time. Even though Berkeley’s dance was had extravaganzas of the early 1930s era, it could have been impossible to settle them into the movie but on the screen they did have the origins which were dated back to the 19th century stage spectacles. These evolved from the revues that wer e popular on the Broadway in the teens and the twenties. They were not only a series of unrelated acts like vaudeville shows but were a series of the musical and comedy specialties which were structured around a loosely defining theme. These themes many only have been about the female body’s decorative display. The intimations of the chorus numbers Berkeley did on stage were shown in style, where the showgirls become more of the factory assembly lines or the airplanes which brought in more attraction for the audiences throughout the country.