Politics and the Star Persona of Katharine Hepburn

hepburn returns to hollywood and sets out to startle the rustics eccentricities of the new star become the talk of the town arrives at studio one day in luxury car and wearing patched dungarees later seen driving in battered truck and wearing expensive fur coat over dungarees picturegoer magazine 1937. from the minute catherine hepburn arrived in hollywood in 1932 she didn't seem very interested in following the rules of stardom she didn't want the press she didn't want the glamour and she definitely didn't want to blindly obey anyone's instructions before long these real-life qualities bled into her star persona to the point that her characters seem to espouse similar political beliefs her own and sometimes even became a meta commentary on events in her actual life the most famous meta-commentary example was her starring role in the philadelphia story which i covered in depth in my video about ginger rogers oscar win i'll link it below in case you want to watch it but in this video i want to focus on that first part specifically in the 1930s and 40s how did kathryn hepburn's political and social beliefs manifest in her star persona how did shifts in mainstream political thought affect the representation of her persona and finally how did her everyday rebellions shatter the illusions made by her films thank you skillshare for sponsoring this video skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes that anyone can join later in this video i'll tell you a bit more about how i use skillshare for a future project and how simply clicking the link in the description below can make skillshare work for you let's rewind a little bit and get some context for the world in which katherine hepburn's movies were first released the 1930s were an odd time for feminist thought some of you are probably thinking well sure it was the 1930s i mean was there even feminist thought well yes asterisk to give the simplest overview possible prior to the 1930s the united states saw mass mobilization on behalf of feminist causes the 19 teens were particularly active with various groups organizing to lobby for the ratification of the 19th amendment which ultimately gave women the right to vote in 1920. although the 1920s lacked the uniting political mission of previous decades the new woman otherwise known as flappers radically challenged the traditionalism of american culture and embraced lifestyles of decadence and pleasure as heather gilmore writes in her article marriage divorce and gender in the hollywood comedy of remarriage women participated in sports drank smoked and for the first time developed their own youth culture and then everything changed when the great depression attacked which is where things get a little more complicated the 1930s were a decade of contradictions on the one hand as gilmore writes during the depression feminism fell from importance as economic and individual concerns took precedence in the public's view poll after poll confirmed a common belief americans thought that a woman's prime responsibility was domesticity at the same time because the country was under such dire economic stress more women had to enter the workforce to support their families from 1930 to 1940 the number of employed women in the united states rose 24 from 10.5 million to 13 million marriage rates also declined 22 percent between 1929 and 1939. so when catherine hepburn arrived in hollywood for her first decade as a movie star america was quietly slowly changing the 1930s may have lacked a cohesive women's movement so to speak but decades of work by previous generations had planted the seeds of progress the role of women was not necessarily a mainstream conversation but millions more women were in a position to question what role marriage or work could play in their lives catherine hepburn was the perfect star to tell their stories why [Music] [Applause] turns out catherine hepburn had a front-row seat in some of the most significant feminist circles of the 19 teens and 20s her mother catherine houghton hepburn or kit was a major figure in the suffragette and contraception movements leading connecticut toward votes for women and even co-founding the group that eventually became planned parenthood an avowed leftist she appeared in dc to testify before congress and to lobby the president she took catherine to sub for jet marches and at home famous figures like margaret sanger and emilyn pankhurst joined the hepburns for dinner like her mother catherine attended college at bryn mawr originally to become a doctor like her father before returning to acting the hepburn children were encouraged to speak their minds to form opinions to enact change and to engage with radical thought this upbringing afforded catherine a level of privilege that affected how she approached her career in hollywood she had the assurance that should her career not work out she could return to a safe and welcoming environment she could feel more secure with her father helping her manage her finances which he did until the day he died and with a college education she could feel more comfortable taking risks more confident in negotiating the terms of her contract in other words she was naturally bold and independent but more importantly she had the means to be bold and independent and boy was she in each aspect of her life she moved with such self-assuredness that she appeared physically untethered by norms of femininity or stardom her own desires and taste dictated everything from her hobbies golf tennis avoiding the press to her attire ah yes the infamous pants now obviously it seems absurd that this would be anything worth noting but we don't live in an era when women could be arrested for wearing pants in public because they were masquerading as men the norms were slowly changing thanks in no part to stars like catherine greta garbo and marlena dietrich but as bianco and john's wrote in vanity fair unlike her fellow trouser wearing thespians garbo and dietrich whose androgyny according to biographer william j mann projected an undeniable erotic allure hepburn's was angular and sexless it was attached rather to her personal sense of autonomy and comfort not to glamour this sexlessness a pure form of androgyny beyond clothing style is idiosyncratically hepburn her questioning and subversion of gender expectations extended beyond her wardrobe as well marriage and children didn't interest her in fact she hid and ignored the fact that she'd ever been married and instead lived with her constant companion and roommate laura harding as a contract player hepburn charted her own path behind the scenes through her formidable business savvy she achieved a degree of control over her career that few other stars could match and consistently negotiated excellent contracts for herself indeed her contract for her first film included a salary virtually unheard of for an unknown actress years later another example she bought the rights to woman of the year guaranteeing herself a starring role and her choice of co-stars writers and director frank miller at tcm writes hepburn sold the script to mayor not telling him it had been written by two virtual unknowns she not only got them a hundred thousand dollars the highest fee ever paid for an original screenplay but pocketed an 11 000 agent's commission for selling the script she could be equally as bold on set now there are plenty of examples that i could point to here but because it's on youtube and you can see it with your own eyes i'm going to direct you to her interview with dick cavett for a couple of reasons first of all it's iconic men who are all the same and all well and second of all based on everything i've read about her it seems like a fair glimpse at how she conducted herself behind the scenes she arrives in the studio for a test and suggests that they just do the interview right then and there with no audience preparation or tv's usual bells and whistles she immediately then takes the lead and it's so fun to watch you know this is haven't you got something put off yeah nail it down like a butterfly yeah maybe whose idea was that what color was it two minutes of this and you understand why director dorothy arzner once said something along the lines of you have to remind catherine hepburn that she's not in charge politically like her family she leaned left in 1934 as studios mobilized to defeat the democratic candidate for governor of california upton sinclair more on that in my make video catherine was named as an example of actors who were being intimidated for their support of the candidate in 1938 she urged the women's clubs of america to write their state censorship boards and insist on more liberal attitudes in film picking up on her mother's activism she was very vocal about a woman's right to choose throughout her life and continually attributed her professional success to her choice not to have children i s there was a receiving line and you me said hello to the president yes you and do you remember what you said to him what did i say yes some terrible thing that he was fighting uh women's rights women's rights of abortion and i thought it was shocking and i think it is shocking her most overt political act was her 1947 speech in favor of progressive party presidential candidate henry wallace i won't cover the aftermath of that speech in depth here just to keep things relatively focused but it did affect her higher ability and her standing in public opinion there's an episode of you must remember this specifically about this moment which i'll also link below but while we can credibly call katherine hepburn political or at the very least opinionated i don't think it'd be correct to call her an activist celebrity in the modern sense an intensely private person she was not the political rabble-rouser who'd put herself on the front lines in the vein of jane fonda for example her advocacy occurred largely in organized settings removed from the general public like in speeches or in the everyday rebellions of her personal life so in a way it could be said that a large part of catherine hepburn's activism was simply being katherine hepburn having a strong and sure enough persona that when shared with the world allowed women to think of or envision themselves differently the 1930s were by no means catherine hepburn's most successful decade as an actress after she shot to stardom in 1932's a bill of divorcement her home studio rko had trouble finding the right vehicles for her stifling her vivacious energy in period pieces and pairing her with co-stars who she had zero chemistry with that being said we need to give credit where credit is due because even if rko gave her atrocious roles like trigger hicks and spitfire letting the world's come over you trigger ain't you got no sense at all go on in and i'll put you in bed beside him your bullying granddaddy seriously what is she even saying the studio was able to pinpoint the parts of her personality that would make for a compelling star persona and immediately incorporated those ideologies and traits into her characters her athleticism appeared on the golf course and bringing a baby in joe's leaps and bounds in little women and babby rallying women to throw stones at soldiers and little minister her androgyny appeared in sylvia scarlett who sheds her locks and disguises herself as a young boy named sylvester to evade the police catherine's dismissal of the norms of stardom was interpreted as arrogance and entitlement by the press and many of her film roles try to reckon with her audacity either by apologizing for it or knocking her off her pedestal as in stage door but her films most often explore the status of being a woman or the tension between a woman's ambitions and the expectation that she should have to marry or have children do some sleuthing on imdb and you might notice that the vast majority of heparin's filmography from this period was written by a woman or is based off of a novel or a play written by a woman joe march is again a great example here joe yearns to write acts even joined the army but feels the weight of her gender slowly bearing down on her cynthia darrington from hepburn's second film christopher strong is another great example in aviatrix cynthia begins the film racing the car down the highway unconcerned with the conventional paths for women i've always wanted to fly and moreovers my flights were usually alone that may be the reason i've never met the man i might be in love with a woman rebels reflected catherine's progressive political views she plays pamela thistleweight an aristocratic woman who becomes a magazine editor and advocate for women's rights crucially a woman rebels is a period piece so although it espoused ideas relevant to women of the 1930s it presents 1930s society as enlightened because it had progressed past the victorian era so in this sequence for example pamela is seeking a job as a secretary shocked the interviewer rejects her application and says my dear young lady girl as a secretary why the whole idea so startling so you audiences of the 30s would have considered being a secretary stereotypically a woman's job so because the victorian man cannot conceive of that we learn she's forward thinking enough to know like we do that she could do it and aren't we so proud of ourselves for having come so far what's interesting about this sequence is that it only uses jobs women could conceivably and easily get in the 30s as examples sorry can't be done a sales girl in the shop unthinkable no doctors no architects she doesn't want to be president the film dreams exactly as far as 1936 would allow and no bigger which to me is a humbling reminder that our understanding on these issues is always evolving what seems progressive today may not seem so tomorrow rko had the right ingredients of a katherine hepburn movie but they didn't really have the recipe most of her movies there weren't great the press didn't like her and as i mentioned earlier the zeitgeist wasn't really with her either still audiences understood that catherine hepburn's characters much like catherine hepburn marched to the beat of their own drum they had ambitions and would fight to take their place in the world they had physical freedom and were unafraid to question convention hepburn ii was aware that she was typed as a strong woman and that the example set by her personal life affected her star persona you know i think the reason people have an affection for me now is that in a kind of a way i must have lived a life that a lot of women think would be a nice life to have lived yes they think it's dignified but they think it's free and they think it's uh i've done what i wanted to the united states entrance into world war ii brought issues of women's equality back into the national conversation because the government needed women to take jobs previously reserved for men women became the subject of propaganda campaigns that encouraged them to participate in the war effort ruth milkman writes wartime conditions radically transformed the position of women in the workforce virtually overnight the economic mobilization produced changes that advocates of gender equality both before and since have spent decades struggling for and with much more modest results the warrior offered living proof that a more egalitarian gender system was viable even in the context of advanced industrial capitalism guess who narrated a short film penned by eleanor roosevelt on this very subject american women are alert to the dangers which threaten our democracy today women trained in science are testing and observing and working to discover new ways to meet this threat suddenly the persona catherine hepburn had fostered at rko became much more appealing american women on the home front were actively thinking about work about independence about what it meant for them to support each other now at mgm after her comeback in the philadelphia story again watch the ginger video the studio built upon the elements of her persona established at rko but added commentary on equality and patriotism that better suited the 1940s themes of equality were best explored in her on-screen partnership with spencer tracy the heparin tracy films often scripted by husband wife teams established a careful push and pull between equals each besting the other in a gentle and evenly matched game of wits the most potent example of this is of course 1949's adam's rib hepard and tracy play a married couple amanda and adam bonner lawyers who take opposite sides of an attempted murder case amanda takes the case for its political symbolism and potential to set a legal precedent may it please the court i submit that my entire line of defense is based on the proposition that persons of the female sex should be dealt with before the law as the equals of persons of the male sex to be honest the details of this case barely make sense and the double standard amanda highlights isn't one i think a lot of women would go to bat for but it's fascinating to see such an unapologetically feminist stance in the context of a 1940s romantic comedy her persona was also blatantly politicized in films that addressed duty to one's country keeper of the flame for example weaponizes her free thinking against fascism the key to robert forest's fascist organization because they didn't call it fascism they painted it red white and blue and called it americanism were it not for her independence and her husband's lack of control over her thoughts and actions the country might have fallen into the wrong hands dragon seed a film which is quite difficult to watch for many reasons but particularly for its use of yellow face is also interesting to view in this context the film serves as anti-japanese propaganda by setting its story during the second sino-japanese war when a peaceful chinese village is invaded by japan the nation must rally to defend itself the japanese march toward us these are two pictures of what the japanese are doing they are doing it now while you sit here and watch these very things are happening this wartime context also adopts language about equality in marriage but here is another thing women do not think as men do women should not think at all they're not equal to oh my wife jade is equal to it our protagonist and hero is considered equal to men because she joins the fight against japan catherine hepburn as forward thinking and free as she was for a woman of the 1930s and 40s was still a woman of the 1930s and 40s so even though she served independent fantasy on screen she too was limited not just by the narrowness of society's imagination but also more specifically by the censorship of the haze code the haze code was essentially a rule book that determined what could or could not happen or be depicted in a movie it governed how films portrayed everything from race relations to marriage to violence and every film had to meet its standards before it could be released so films from this era usually have a certain baked in logic that dictates what will happen to characters who stray too far from the norm so for example the code says adultery is immoral you can't make it look like a viable option in a person's life so any woman who cheats on her husband in a movie is probably going to die in a car accident or get sick or fall victim to some other cosmic punishment that would ostensibly discourage audiences from making similar choices catherine hepburn's characters were subject to this logic too cynthia darington may be an admirable high-flying aviatrix but because she has broken society's rules about adultery she must commit suicide for the sake of the greater good in keeper of the flame she's a hero but she has to die to become one after all causing your husband's death even if he is plotting to turn the united states into a fascist dictatorship apparently is not a crime the code could ignore again and again her films end ways that seem like attempts to cut her down to size even if she doesn't die she's proved wrong or insufficient somehow perhaps the most famous example of this occurs in 1942's woman of the year tess harding is by many standards one of the most remarkable female characters of the 1940s she speaks multiple languages she glides effortlessly through social situations she's an influential journalist she gives political speeches i mean hell she's literally woman of the year the film wrestles with her hyper-competence how does a woman like that fall in love how does she fit into the conventions of marriage toward the end of the film tess decides that she's going to be a good wife and make sam played by spencer tracy some breakfast to prove it only she can't she's hopelessly lost in the kitchen now i'll admit part of me has always liked this sequence because i'm exactly like that in the kitchen relatable content and also like great she was too booked and busy to learn how to make a waffle good for her but i'll be the first to admit that isn't the film's intention it's meant to humiliate her she may be woman of the year but how much of a woman is she really if she can't make her husband breakfast tess harding like many of catherine's characters was written to empower women but not too much catherine herself acknowledged this in later days who were you and tracy on screen well i think we were the perfect uh male and female of that era american style in what sense well the woman coming into her own and the man tried to blockade her get a blockader this is of course disappointing but at the same time i don't think this ending or really any similarly annoying ending ever actually accomplishes what it sets out to do who leaves woman of the year thinking tess harding is anything less than a superwoman audiences know that katherine hepburn plays characters that reflect her life and ideals and they know that her career never came second to any marriage her own persona undercuts and subverts the believability of the ending janet thuman points out this paradox in her paper on hepard's star persona the happy endings are revealed by the insistent presence of hepburn's own professional example for the fictions they are the persona emphasizes the unreality of the happy ending this is how the illusion is shattered the code may have had control over what happened to tess harding but it didn't have control over catherine hepburn and every single audience member knew it that conflation of the real catherine and the scream catherine makes her a stronger figure a stronger star one capable of defying and outshining the code's limitations katherine hepburn's films can be really fun and sometimes empowering to watch even now this isn't to say that her films are some picture-perfect representation of 2021 feminism they aren't exactly that complex and there's barely a consideration of racial intersectional thought until guess who's coming to dinner in 1967. if you choose to watch them for the first time there are probably parts that will make you cringe but they offered an interesting glimpse into how feminist depictions have evolved over time and how star narratives can inform and even subvert the text of a film catherine hepburn was an extraordinarily successful actress so while i don't cover the whole timeline of her career here i hope i made you interested enough in learning more so we can talk about her down the road thank you for watching and go watch a katherine hepburn movie now i don't want to give too much away but there may or may not be a video in this channel's future that may or may not have something to do with the 1980s and 90s i've been thinking about what i might do to add a little visual interest to the video and i thought why not add some effects to jazz up the intertitles a little luckily i have a subscription to skillshare meaning i have access to classes that can teach me exactly how to do that right now i'm taking jake bartlett's vhs look in after effects the instruction is super straightforward and the lessons are much more clever and interesting than anything i would have done on my own skillshare is an online learning community with thousands of classes covering dozens of creative and entrepreneurial skills premium membership gives you unlimited access so you can join the classes and communities that are just right for you whether you want to fuel your creativity curiosity or even career skillshare is the perfect place to keep you learning and thriving especially when in-person classes and workshops aren't available but you still want to use your time productively the good news is skillshare is incredibly affordable an annual subscription is less than ten dollars a month because skillshare is sponsoring this video the first 1 000 of my subscribers to click the link in 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Channel: Be Kind Rewind

Views: 180,956

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Id: eAi8-vqslVU

Length: 27min 50sec (1670 seconds)

Published: Fri May 14 2021

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