I'd like to be very dramatic and say: "the sexiness of American films came to a screeching halt during the 1930." Sounds pretty good doesn't? still friends, films aren't automobiles. There is always a time lag -- a period of incubation -- between action and reaction.What's more, a closer look at the sexual freedom of the 1920s shows that it was nothing more than an illusion. For example Three Weeks is the story of a woman having a very satisfying love affair and then returning to an unhappy marriage. Great! That takes care of three weeks, how about the next 80 years?And did you know that before 1929 it was taboo to depict any physical contact between Black men and women. Hallelujah was the first movie in film history to portray a kiss between African Americans -- so terrified were the White dream weavers of opening the Pandora's box of Black sexuality.And with a sleight of hand Hollywood lifted one taboo, Black physical contact, and invoked another: the 1934 Production code. This code banned all sexuality on screen. Within this motif Native American women stepped out of the shadows and into Fallen Women roles. Hollywood was still using White actresses to play Native American roles but as awful as these films were, maybe that wasn't such a bad idea. White women from this point forward would be whores or goddesses; Black women that curious mixture of goddess and servant: Mammy. Women were de-sexed. And would remain so until the 1940s.Mammy had actually emerged during the 19th century idealization of slavery: as part of the Victorian family fairytale (Paula Giddings. When and Where I Enter.) This plantation family included: Old Marsa, the stern but fair patriarch; Missy a tolerant angel of mercy; a plantation full of grinning darkies; and Mammy, the plantation nanny and nursemaid. This "family" was the slaveholders answer to abolitionists: slave owners were trying desperately to save that peculiar institution --even as slavery took it last dying breath.She [Mammy] was first and foremost asexual and consequently she had to befat (preferably obese); she also had to give the impression of not being cleanso she was the wearer of a great dirty headrag; her too tight shoes from whichemerged her large feet were further confirmation of her bestial cow-like quality.Her greatest virtue of course was her love for white folk whom she willingly andpassively served (bell hooks/ 1981/p84/ Aint't I a Woman)Mammy was the ultimate in racist, sexist mythology and prefigured the 1930s myth of Aunt Jemima; appearing in such films as Gone with the Wind (193).White actress, Mae West, was the sensation of 1933. That is until the Production Code shut her down.Her voice radiated irony, her eyes sized up potential lovers as though theywere sides of beef, and her hips mesmerized a nation (Bergman, 1971; p56).If anything, West was a parody of the fallen woman. She preferred dating wealthy men and draped her body with diamonds and furs she brought with their money. Yet despite the fact that West was a gold digger she was in control -- of her body and her finances: she could not be manipulated, refused to be solemn about her body and made it clear she liked her pleasures and like her freedom (Bergman, 1971). And her lighthearted attitude about sex reduced it social consequences to so much rubbish. When Cary Grant asks Mae: "Haven't you ever met a man who could make you happy?" her answer was liberating: "Sure. Lots of times." (Bergman, 1971; p56).Copyright Valjeanne Jeffers-Thompson 1997; 2009 all rights reserved.
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