The Shadow Behind the Silver Screen

The Golden Age of Hollywood was revolutionary for cinema. Some of the most advanced and modern techniques were developed in the era starting in 1910 and continuing until the 1960's. When we think of the Golden Age of Hollywood, our mind runs to flashing images of lit up theatres, elaborate dresses, fashionable hair-dos and Transatlantic accents. Films progressed from black and white silent films to sepia toned pictures with sound blasting through speakers. The era is a vintage centerpiece in aesthetics, and one that is unforgettable for many. Yet, Hollywood is more than the brightly painted lips of Marilyn Monroe and the aesthetic printed posters of black and white films hanging as decor. The vintage glamour of Hollywood may be magnificent to many, but the racism and misogyny exhibited in them were far from photos to add to your Pinterest board.

Looking at the aesthetics of Hollywood glamour, it is impossible to not discuss ‘Gone With the Wind’, the 1939 film about painting the horrors of the Civil War and slavery with the alluring charms of romance. While it is undeniable that ‘Gone With the Wind’ is a commendable film, with an engaging storyline, it is necessary to pull the curtains on the underlying bigotry in this film. While ‘Gone With the Wind’ may not have been purposefully racist, the 1930’s film reflects the values of the Old South in which slavery was romanticised. The movie began filming with segregated bathrooms, despite Jim Crow being long abolished, and had harmful stereotypes of ‘happy slaves’ who enjoyed their jobs of endless servitude and torture. The introduction reminisces on the happy culture of the Old South where slaves and masters existed in perfect harmony. The romanticisation of slavery alongside the ‘Mammy’ stereotype played by Hattie McDaniels depicted an image of the Old South that was just untrue. Hattie McDaniels won an Oscar for her acting in this film, and she herself had to sit on a segregated table at the Oscars after much lobbying to be allowed in the ceremony.

This film is an old-school classic, but it also represents a shadow of the silver screen, where people looked back at the Civil War and whitewashed it and the arduous struggles of many African Americans in their path to liberation. ‘Gone With the Wind’ is not alone in the library of racist films, and ‘Birth of a Nation’ is another classic to many, but a shocking story to a contemporary audience. While many regard this film as a stepping stone in the advancement of American pictures, it’s storyline is about the ‘heroic’ Ku Klux Klan that fought to segregate African Americans in the Reconstruction era as they attempted to ‘take over’ America. This film represented racism in such an explicit manner, yet was still applauded by President Woodrow Wilson and screened in the White House. ‘The Jazz Singer’, 1927 does not fall far behind. This first ever motion picture with a recorded music score and lip-synchronous singing has been well recognized for the boundaries it broke ro4 movies, while the overt blackface done by the character of Al Jolson in the movie has been massively overlooked. Blackface has been an added technique in comedy for the majority of its existence, where white people would rudely imitate and exaggerate typically black facial features and mock them. This not-so-comedic technique represents the systemic dehumanizing approach that white people have taken against black people, and perpetuates the idea of black people being ‘inferior’. Other films such as ‘Drums Along the Mohawk’ describe Native Americans in extremely racist tones with them being detailed as ‘savages’. The idea that Native Americans are uncivilised to white people continues the ‘White Savior Complex’ in which colonizers explained slavery as a way to bring ‘humanity’ to other societies and felt it as their ‘duty’ to do so. ‘The Dragon Seed’ has also been accredited as a Golden Classic, despite the characters putting on exaggerated prosthetics and makeup to not only mock Asian people and features but also demean them as innately monstrous- linking into the Yellow Peril of Anti-Asian America, where Asian people and culture were seen as dangers to Western society. Anna May Wong was an extremely talented Chinese-American actress who was repeatedly casted as a servant or dragon lady, and denied lead Asian roles which were then given to white women (The Good Earth was given to Luise Rainer).

The dark cast that Hollywood has in it’s very foundations is not exclusive to racism, but also to power dynamics of sexual harassment and misogyny. Many studio executives and producers at MGM such as Louis Mayer and Arthur Freed have been called out for chasing women, pressuring them and exposing themselves to minor actresses. Shirley Temple recalls her traumatising experience where Freed exposed himself to her at 12, while Mayer insisted that Judy Garland sit on his lap. Many women have been victims to an unfair power dynamic where richer and more powerful men in the industry transactionally offer them roles in exchange for favors. Joan Collins recalls how she did not get the lead in the film Cleopatra because she would not be ‘nice’ to Buddy Adler: head of 20th Century Fox who had sexual harassment allegations against him. The star system, in which producers would fabricate personalities, gossip and more to create fame for actors was often inaccessible to many. Actors like Rock Hudson had sham marriages, names and more to become icons in American cinema. For many, lines were crossed and in some cases even erased in these studio-actor relationships. The contract system was a huge part of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and this system was an important catalyst to creating an unfair and exploitative power dynamic for many young women in the industry.

It is clear that the Golden Age of Hollywood is not so golden after all. It is riddled with exploitation and racism and has a dark cast over it which clouds it’s elegant cinematography. With that said, this time period provides insight into the social values and context of this era, allowing viewers to reflect on this and learn from the damaging history of cinema. Recently, HBO removed ‘Gone With the Wind’ for a short period of time so that they could add in a short historical context introduction. Whoopi Goldberg has since then spoken approvingly of keeping older films in their traditional form, but adding a short historical context to them in order to educate viewers on the society that these films were made in. It is important to ‘hold history accountable’ as Dr Todd Boyd writes, in order to overcome history and ensure the man made mistakes of the past are not repeated again. Educating people on the dark past of Hollywood allows us to move forward from it, and progress into a future where films exist in spaces of equality, rather than systemic oppression. It allows us to move into a space where audiences can enjoy vintage films, but also be able to weigh these depictions with historical context, and critique and learn from them. It allows us to move into a space where cinema has accurate, diverse and multifaceted depictions chosen in a fair manner, rather than through transactional exploitation and sexual harassment. Often we have heard that all that glitters is not gold, but sometimes all that is golden does not glitter. The Golden Age of Hollywood is not as glimmering as it may seem. There is no harm in enjoying a film alongside understanding the package of bigotry that it may or may not come with. Vintage Hollywood is in many ways iconic, glamorous and exciting and that opinion can and should co-exist with the understanding that vintage Hollywood was also in many ways racist, tone-deaf and misogynistic.

By Kaviesh Kinger 12A