How Did the Cinema Affect the Lives of Women and Children in 1930’s?
How did the cinema affect the lives of women and children in 1930’s?
Labelled the ‘golden age of Hollywood’ the 1930’s was arguably a decade of turmoil. This led to many people attending the cinema to escape from reality. Among adults, women tended to go to the cinema more often than their husbands, and this finding was echoed by rowntree, who found that 75 per cent of cinema-goers in New York during the late 1930’s were women[1]. With large numbers of children attending these types of pictures, parents and adults began questioning the effect the movies had on their children. As one 1930s screenwriter, Dudley Nichols, put it: "Our exposure to the theatre is either helping us to resolve our own conflicts and the conflicts of society by making us understand them, or it is engendering more conflicts." Many studies were soon undertaken[2].
Throughout Britain’s towns and cities, the growth of the cinema was spectacular. Liverpool had 96 cinemas in 1939 compared with 32 in 1913, whilst Birmingham’s cinemas grew in total from 57 to 110 over the same period. Nationally, there were already around 3,000 cinemas in Britain by 1914. The influence of Hollywood was clearly evident in the streets, shops, offices, cafes and dance halls of Britain’s towns and cites throughout the 1930’s and 1930’s[3]. The cinema effected many aspects of women’s lives, and one of these was the fashion they borrowed heavily from Hollywood. As well as women adopting the styles and fashions from their favourite Hollywood stars, young boys fashion was also heavily borrowed from Hollywood. In particular, ‘gangster’ styles fitted the importance traditionally attached by youths to notions of masculine strength and aggression[4]. Due to the cinema promoting ‘gangster’ films, it was seen to be glamorizing crime and eroding respect of the law. However despite attempts to blame an apparent increase in juvenile delinquency upon the cinema, research failed to establish any clear links between cinema
Labelled the ‘golden age of Hollywood’ the 1930’s was arguably a decade of turmoil. This led to many people attending the cinema to escape from reality. Among adults, women tended to go to the cinema more often than their husbands, and this finding was echoed by rowntree, who found that 75 per cent of cinema-goers in New York during the late 1930’s were women[1]. With large numbers of children attending these types of pictures, parents and adults began questioning the effect the movies had on their children. As one 1930s screenwriter, Dudley Nichols, put it: "Our exposure to the theatre is either helping us to resolve our own conflicts and the conflicts of society by making us understand them, or it is engendering more conflicts." Many studies were soon undertaken[2].
Throughout Britain’s towns and cities, the growth of the cinema was spectacular. Liverpool had 96 cinemas in 1939 compared with 32 in 1913, whilst Birmingham’s cinemas grew in total from 57 to 110 over the same period. Nationally, there were already around 3,000 cinemas in Britain by 1914. The influence of Hollywood was clearly evident in the streets, shops, offices, cafes and dance halls of Britain’s towns and cites throughout the 1930’s and 1930’s[3]. The cinema effected many aspects of women’s lives, and one of these was the fashion they borrowed heavily from Hollywood. As well as women adopting the styles and fashions from their favourite Hollywood stars, young boys fashion was also heavily borrowed from Hollywood. In particular, ‘gangster’ styles fitted the importance traditionally attached by youths to notions of masculine strength and aggression[4]. Due to the cinema promoting ‘gangster’ films, it was seen to be glamorizing crime and eroding respect of the law. However despite attempts to blame an apparent increase in juvenile delinquency upon the cinema, research failed to establish any clear links between cinema