Hollywood glamour: sex, power, and photography, 1925-1939

Abstract

"Hollywood Glamour: Sex, Power, and Photography, 1925-1939" historicizes the growth and development of "glamour" into the single most powerful ideology for women in the twentieth-century United States. It investigates glamour's introduction, popularization, and dissemination through an historical analysis of publicity materials associated with the Hollywood motion picture industry, including fashion and fan magazines, news periodicals, and photographic reproductions. This dissertation argues that the ideal of "glamour" -- overtly sexual feminine beauty -- became fixed in the American consciousness in the late 1920s-early 1930s through the powerful influence of Hollywood. Having discovered a new means of selling their products through sex, photographers, producers, directors, publicists, designers, and stylists promoted a new model of femininity through still and motion photography. The "glamorous" model, which redefined beauty as visually, obviously sexual, circulated through Hollywood imagery and offered powerful, visual directives for gender roles and sexuality.

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