Uzbekistan- Child slaves pick cotton

Gidget as traditional

Byrnes, P 2007 Movies that conjure an endless summer. Sydney Morning Herald Viewed 7^th July 2011 <http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/movies-that-conjure-an-endless-summer/2007/12/25/1198345008852.html>

Gidget as radical

SARCASTATHON3000, 2010, Make It A Date: Gidget, Viewed 7^th July 2011 http://dangerrampling.wordpress.com/2010/08/

Gidget as childlike

Seablanket. 2007 {Style Crush: Sandra Dee as Gidget} Viewed 7^th July 2011, http://seablanket.blogspot.com/2010/07/style-crush-sandra-dee-as-gidget.html

References:

Berry, S (2000) Screen Style: Fashion and femininity in 1930s Hollywood. University of Minnesota Press, USA pp 1-46.

Booth, D, 1996, Surfing Films and Videos: Adolescent Fun, Alternative Lifestyle, Adventure Industry University of Otago journal of sport history volume 23 number 3, fall 1996.

Campbell, N, 2004, American Youth Cultures, Edinburgh university press, UK pp237, 238, 242, 259.

Gidget, 1959, motion picture, Columbia pictures corporation, California. USA.

Gordon, D, Gidget Girls. Newsweek, 00289604, 8/19/2002, Vol. 140, Issue 8

Granat, K. 2002 Golden State, Golden Youth: The California Image in Popular Culture, 1955-1966. May, University of North Carolina Press.

Lewis, P, 1978, The fifties, the cupid press, Woodbridge, UK. Pp 42-64.

Nash, 2002. "Nowhere Else to Go": Gidget and the Construction of Adolescent Femininity.

Feminist Media Studies November 1, 2002 p. 341-357.

Gidget and the ‘new’ representation of femininity

Charles Eckert famously argued that ‘Hollywood arguably gave modern consumerism its distinctive bent. Please present ONE example of a link you have found between film and the consumption of fashion. This can be an individual star of any cinema in any decade past or present; or it may be a particular film that you believe influenced fashion in some way or genre (e.g. detective)

Your essay MUST be analytical, rather than descriptive.

During the 1950s, women were proud to have their identity built around being a wife and a mother, following direction from the writings of Dr Bowlby and Dr Spock. However, the findings of Dr Kinsey with their revelation about women’s sexuality, revolutionized social dynamics. Stars like Monroe and Bardot personified these findings. Playboy began being published. The sentiment of housewives waned toward the end of the ‘50s, when they sought relief from boredom. The Feminine Mystique was being written, to ask, “Is this all?” During the same period, rise in youth power was a demographic fact, with films earlier in the 50s, representing this fear of the rise of youth and delinquency. At the intersection of this ambivalence in identity regarding traditional and new femininity, and child versus adult, came the film Gidget.

Gidget was Hollywood’s first surf film, and was heralded as creating a new feminine icon, a girl with a ‘can do’ attitude, who defies stereotypes, and makes it as one of the boys. Gidget made surfing popular, and showed girls that it is not just a boy’s terrain. It had potential to be a feminist text, where the ‘active men, passive women’ gender binary was challenged. However, on closer analysis of the film, it does more to reinforce traditional social values than it does to revolutionize the way women are portrayed. This essay will analyse Gidget’s adolescent, childlike, radical female, and traditional female representations. Gidget is an important film in regard to the way it shaped the fashion f adolescent female identity. Gidget is constructed as: part of the adolescent culture, a naïve childlike girl unable to assume a façade. She is depicted as a brave woman standing up in a man’s world, yet this radicalness is undermined by her resumption of traditional 1950s dress and gender roles.

Adolescent and Childlike

In the mid 1950s, Hollywood began producing films centered around the adolescent, capitalizing upon the societal fear of the rising power of delinquent youth. Films including Rebel without a cause, (1953) Blackboard Jungle, (1955) Juvenile jungle (1958) and Dangerous youth (1958) exemplify this. Gidget represents a new kind of filmic teenage representation. The film breaks away from the delinquent representation of youth, toward a cleaner, more saccharine image. She is portrayed as an innocent teeny bopping tomboy. Gidget tackles issues relevant to teenagers of the time, however she is also portrayed in an immature, childlike manner.

The theme of youth culture is established in the film when the opening song says ‘She acts sort of teen age,’ later her parents call Gidget a ‘teenage daughter.’ Gidget was produced at a time when the first generation of post WWII baby boomers reached adolescence. She represented the consumerism of the group, with her car, surfboards, swimsuits, and leisure time. There were sexual elements to beachside representation; women were dressed scantily in bikini, and muscular men were topless in tight shorts. Gidget was the start of a wave of surf movies, and rise in popularity of surf music. This influenced youth style. Bleached blond hair and goatees, T-shirts and striped Pendleton shirts, narrow white Levi jeans and Ray-Ban sunglasses were worn, instead of greasy hair and pegger pants. (Booth 1996. P.315) Surfing also influenced the argot of teenagers, “like wow,” “daddy-o,” and “strictly squaresville” are examples of popularized phrases. Surfing popularized a free, idealistic, fun. Attitude (Booth 1996. P.315)

However, to make the film more palatable: offensive but accurate aspects of adolescence, which were in the Gidget book, were eschewed from the film. This included references to Playboy, marijuana, and words like ‘Bitchin’” (Kirse 2002) There was also concern about how much media power to grant adolescents, and what the ramifications would be. (Nash, 2002) Concern about teenagers influencing the adult world was shown in magazines like Esquire, and books like Teenage Tyranny. They saw teens as ‘retarding agents upon American civilization’, which was in danger of becoming a ‘teen-age society’, with thought, culture and goals no more advanced than the teenage level. They saw American society as ‘growing down’ (Grace Hechinger and Fred M. Hechinger 1963: x).

Gidget’s teenage representation borders on childlike; she is shown as naïve and unable to assume any deceptive façades. Contrasted to the other girls around her, and previous swimwear film stars like Esther Williams; Gidget’s beach wear is unstructured, with her costume sagging over her body in a child like manner. This lack of sartorial sophistication is intensified by her large snorkel and flippers. Her arms are skinny and gangly, and she fiddles uncomfortably with her swimsuit. Her skin is very white, contrasted to the tanned, weathered men at the beach. This further positions her as innocent and childlike. Gidget’s high-pitched voice and emotive, melodramatic, rambling script further possess her as child like and unsophisticated. This could be perceived as giving her authenticity as a good, innocent girl who is unable to assume a façade. Her unsophisticated persona is also represented by her loss of composure when asking her father for money. “Gee I’d be extra super careful…oh please? Now honest surfing is out of this world, you just can’t even imagine the thrill of shooting the curl…Honest to goodness mother this surfboard is a gilt edged guarantee to a summer of sheer happiness.”

She has the same character trait at the beach with the girls. When contrasted to her friends, who carefully construct an attractive persona around the boys, Gidget is again seen to be naïve and authentic when she is clumsy around the boys. At the start of the film, she reminisces about previous summers, where the girls were not ‘manhunting.’ The lyrics of the title song say ‘She’s just a baby.’

The male surfers make jokes and talk about her sexual attractiveness; but she is constructed as too naive to understand, thinking they are just talking about surfing. One of the guys says, “Hey, some pull out, huh” Speaking of Moondoggie (Jeffrey) bringing Gidget out of the ocean. She thinks they are talking about riding the wave in, and says “yeah, wasn’t it!” She also doesn’t understand the meaning of the word orgy. In her initiation surf, she squeals and is dependant upon Moondoggie to do the surfing for her. Moondoggie introduces her to a lady “this is the kid I was telling you about” She later says “will you fellas stop treating me like an infant!” The Kahuna emphasises her childlike qualities by contrasting her. He has a deep voice, is cool and together, speaking in short, clear lines. He calls her pet names, like angel, in a friendly, yet macho and patronising way. This is exemplified in the scene where she rambles and begs to go to the luau; he calls her baby doll and asks if she ever gives up. She goes on a rant about working hard for something that you want. The Kahuna concisely replies “Oh, it’s no skin off my nose what you do” Her authenticity and naivety are also shown by her later conversation with Kahuna, where she pushes her own point of view and lacks understanding about how what she says will influence him. She says “Well everybody is, is working in life toward some sort of goal, well I mean, I mean [sic] you don’t have a goal.” This clearly makes him uncomfortable, and he changes the subject.

Radical female

Gidget is established as a tomboy who doesn’t fit the social norms. Her friends take her to the beach on a ‘manhunt,’ she begrudgingly attends but spoils their image in front of the men. The representation of women contrasts the representation in swimwear films starring Esther Williams. Williams in films including Million Dollar Mermaid, Neptune’s Daughter, and Dangerous When Wet, plays a career driven woman who treats eligible men brusquely. The men persist and she finally gives in. However, in Gidget, her peers make themselves available to men, but the men are disinterested. Their swimsuits are used as a tool to attract men. Gidget contrasts her desperate friends by wearing a demure swimsuit. She makes her friends look unattractively desperate and high maintenance. This espousal of the low maintenance look can be linked to Brigitte Bardot’s style legacy. Bardot and Gidget are both more underdressed compared to their peers, yet they are the ones the men find most desirable. Providing social context is the character Kahuna, an ex WWII pilot who now spends his life surfing and living on the beach. There is an Esther Williams style pin up on the wall of his hut, suggesting that he is attracted to women who are fit and active, like Gidget. This suggests that society is moving away from the traditional 1950s feminine ideal of a conservative woman in New Look style dress.

As Anne Taylor Fleming observed: Gidget was a transitional figure from 1950s femininity to the 1960s women’s movement. She achieved this through her perky demeanor, which still made her seem cute and innocent, yet masked her assertiveness. Cuteness allowed her to get her way, while still seeming feminine and submissive to patriarchs. (Nash 2002)

Surfing in Malibu in the 1950s was rough and competitive, regardless of gender. The girls were required to be strong and stand their ground against men who would cut in on their wave. One of the main reasons women didn’t surf as much was that the redwood surfboards were 60 pounds (Gordon, 2002) The men in Gidget claim it is ‘too dangerous for girls.’ This description of the subculture makes it admirable that Gidget fought her way in. Her defiance of convention has been described as legendary, particularly given what her nickname represents. Gidget is a portmanteau of girl and midget. Gidget is shown to be brave and headstrong when she attacks Moondoggie’s lady, saying, “you’d better get out of the sun before you melt!”

Gidget’s challenge of submissive feminine modes is not confined to the beach. Her contrast to the traditional feminine modes is seen when she keenly offers to mow the lawns, a traditionally men’s job. Later, her dad yells at her to turn off her music the ‘infernal racket’, and she mutters “infernal racket, no wonder they call them the lost generation.” Gidget manipulates her parents into providing funds for her surfboard. She even talks to the vendor about getting credit, representing the rise in economic power of the adolescent. Her authentic and naïve disposition is challenged when she goes to the luau. She has a blunt conversation with her parents, who are offended that she is going to a party where she is not welcome, and has used bribery to get in. Gidget is upset by the conversation, and finishes it with the suggestion that she will also give the man sex as a payment. Gidget finds that, paradoxically, Moondoggie is filling in for the man she paid to be her date, to make Moondoggie jealous. Her manipulative, constructed side is revealed as she feigns wanting to make the Kahuna jealous. She is confident, and womanly and makes Moondoggie think that she will find someone else to do the job, if he does a bad job at pretending to be interested in her.

The issue of premarital sex is acknowledged in a scene where she goes with Kahuna to a house. There are severe ramifications from the parental generation for this action. A neighbour calls the police, who are active in disciplining this behaviour. They tell Gidget’s father; “just a tip sir, kids need some supervision, a little parental interest in what they’re doing.” This demonstrates the conservativeness of the parental generation, and difficulty for youth to break free of these expectations.

Gidget drives herself home, which alludes to films with powerful females, such as Neptune’s daughter where Williams drives herself home. Later in the film, Gidget’s father arranges a date for her, with the man who turns out to be Moondoggie. Frances has changed in demeanor. She appears more sophisticated as she is unhappy and speaks in a low tone, in considered sentences.

The radical message of the film in counteracted, as shown in deeper analysis. The way Gidget got into surfing is that she had been snorkeling, and got caught in a patch of kelp. Moondoggie came to her rescue, putting her on his board and surfing her in to shore. This hardly constructs her as a tough tomboy looking to break free of constraining modes of femininity, instead, as helpless, reliant on men, and child-like. Despite some feminine agency shown, the film depicts Gidget’s battles as easily won. All she has to do for the money is to plead with her daddy, helped by her mother. The boys were willing to help her generously in learning to surf, and she is taken under the wing of Kahuna, the most respected surfer. The film shows that all she had to do to become a good surfer was to read books and practice on a waterbed.

For the power the film gives its star, it also takes a lot away. Gidget is represented as silly and chaotic. She is ridiculed and subordinated as young and female. Overall, the film positions girls as politically harmless, but sexually enjoyable. Gidget is under the control of a triple pronged patriarchy- lover, father, society, The feminine radicalness is softened by the fact that at the end of the movie, she makes her parents happy by dating a man of their choice who is set to go to college. The twist is that this man was the one she had fallen for while surfing during the summer. Moondoggie was a ‘well of Princeton man masquerading as a beach bum, fulfilling both the teenage and the adult ideals.’ (Kirse, 2002, p75) There is sharp contrast between the young, cool beach image, and the conservative ‘New look’ style dress in front of her parents.

Hollywood created a consumer item out of the subculture, making surfing mainstream, and no longer radical. The nonchalant mindset of the true surfer girl is described in this quote, but it is questionable whether Gidget personifies this. Her desperate actions to get Moondoggie, and fit in, typecast her as more of a self-loathing Ophelia than a tough surf girl.

“In an age of popular panics about self-loathing ‘Ophelia’s’ and competitive ‘queen bees,’ the new surfer girl’s mental health appears stable and secure, guaranteed by sports activities…keeps intact her femininity, meaning she does not denounce her ‘girl-ness’ and, in effect, insists that girl-ness be valued, taken seriously.” (Campbell 2004 p. 238)

Traditional female

The man as viewer, woman as spectacle binary is established in the first beach scene where Gidget’s friends strip down and parade in their swimsuits in front of the admiring, cheering boys.

The traditional modes of femininity are represented in the home, where Gidget’s mother gives her father a massage as he has a headache, and Gidget offers to get him his pipe and slippers. Gidget shows respect for her parents, and when she does lose her temper, she is remorseful. When Gidget (Frances) talks to her mum about her lack of desire to date, her mother does not say that it does not matter if she becomes a single, self-sufficient woman, rather, telling her to wait. This suggests that there is no other option than the traditional role of the woman as a lover and mother. Her mother later reaffirms the social norm that men must take the first step in love. “One of the advantages of being a girl is that its not up to you, It’s up to the young man.” Her mother snuffs out the sense of Gidget’s feminist fire by reinforcing these traditional stereotypes.

Despite her comment ‘this is the way I like it, just kids horsing around,’ her role within the surfing group becomes a romantic one. She is seen in her room doing exercises, which supposedly increased bust size. She sees this as her ticket to getting to the luau. Any agency she showed in daring to fit in with the surfers is marginalized by her desperation to win Moondoggie at the luau. The method she plans to woo him is unconventional, and manipulative by making him jealous and hiring another date.

The final scene reinforces the traditional social values and shows resumption of adult responsibility. (Kirse 2002. P 76) The couple are dressed in formal clothes walking along the beach, Kahuna has given up the ‘beach bum’ lifestyle, and Moondoggie and Gidget are returning to their studies. He wears a suit; she wears a New Look style white dress. Kahuna is knocking down his beach shack, a symbol of letting go of this lifestyle. His bags are packed as he has taken a job as a pilot. He took this job because Gidget got him thinking, he says that she is quite a woman. Gidget refers to her grandmother’s embroidery, which says ‘to be a real woman is to bring out the best in a man’. This implies that ‘bringing out the best’ in Kahuna meant encouraging him to relinquish his surf bum lifestyle, and take a respectable job. This contradicts the glorification of the freedom of surfing that the whole film has stood for. The lyrics of the song ‘Gidget’ reinforce the traditional expectations placed on her. “Although she’s not king size, Her finger is ring size.”

Gidget’s story is marked with conformity to traditional roles, despite her membership in a mildly rebellious surfing clique. (Kirse 2002 p. 76.) The film was successful because of its saccharine representation of youth, at a time when delinquency was of great concern. Though Gidget had potential to represent a new type of femininity, empowering women to compete in the leagues of men, the conclusion of the film adheres to traditional feminine stereotypes, reinforcing existing ideals. However, Gidget’s legacy did focus on the idea of empowerment of women. It was the first film of its kind, on the vanguard of surf girl filmic representation. Though its representation of strong women may not have been ideal, Gidget paved the way for a new train of though about 1950s adolescent women. Gidget signifies the transition to the fashion of tough femininity of the 1960s. Gidget taught women that as long as you act cute, you can be tough, and get what you want without being offensive.

fashademic: The Incorporation of Bloggers Continues

Finding this post on Fashademic today made me think of our class discussion yesterday. Having bloggers bought out by a larger company verifies this idea that it is rare to find things that have no commercial spin!

fashademic: The Incorporation of Bloggers Continues: "Industrie Magazine Bryanboy, Fashion Toast, Style by Kling and the Industrie Magazine blogs are all now being hosted by a new platform, NOW..."