Classical Hollywood Cinema, Sexuality, and the Politics of the Face

The representation of iconic female faces in the golden age of Hollywood, such as Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson, and Elizabeth Taylor, is explored in Classical Hollywood Cinema, Sexuality, and the Politics of the Face. It examines the gay male fetishization of these faces and the disciplinary society that privileges a hermeneutics of gaze. The study includes an analysis of D. W. Griffith and blackface, the Stonewall riots, and the emergence of rival standards of beauty, both female and male, in figures such as Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Rock Hudson, and James Dean.

Format: Hardback
Length: 184 pages
Publication date: 24 December 2020
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

The representation of iconic female faces in the golden age of Hollywood, such as Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson, and Elizabeth Taylor, has been the subject of much scrutiny in the field of film studies. Classical Hollywood cinema is characterized by an aesthetic and ideological struggle between two rival scopic economies: an erotics of "to-be-looked-at-ness" and a hermeneutics of "to-be-seen-through-ness." While the latter emerges triumphant, the legendary female faces of Hollywood resist, in their different ways, a coercive and normalizing knowledge that is the source of the gay male investment in them.

A disciplinary society privileges a hermeneutics of gaze, which seeks to understand the meaning and significance of images and objects through the interpretation of symbols and signs. In contrast, the iconomic female faces of classical Hollywood cinema demand an erotics, which is a more sensual and bodily approach to understanding the power and allure of images.

This study explores the tension between these two scopic economies through detailed readings of several key films from the early and mid-century cinema and culture. For instance, it analyzes D. W. Griffith and blackface, the Stonewall riots and the coming-into-voice of the modern gay subject, several major films by Hitchcock, Citizen Kane, and the emergence of rival standards of beauty, both female and male, in figures such as Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Humphrey Bogart, Rock Hudson, and James Dean.

The study is an important contribution to the fields of queer theory, film theory, and history, as well as gender and sexuality studies. It offers a new perspective on the representation of female faces in classical Hollywood cinema and the complex relationship between sexuality, gender, and power. By examining the ways in which these iconic female faces are fetishized by gay men, the study sheds light on the ways in which cinematic images can shape and influence our understanding of gender and sexuality.

In conclusion, Classical Hollywood Cinema, Sexuality, and the Politics of the Face is a groundbreaking study that offers a fresh and insightful perspective on the representation of female faces in the golden age of Hollywood. It challenges traditional understandings of cinematic aesthetics and ideology and provides a valuable contribution to the fields of film studies, gender and sexuality studies, and queer theory.

Weight: 470g
Dimension: 243 x 159 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367482282