The classic film Gold Diggers Of 1933 is based in the era of the Great Depression, the aftermath of World War I which lasted from 1929 to 1939 thus the result to World War II. The Great Depression occurred during the time when films were evolving and becoming hits, but made it hard for film producers and companies since money was tight, unless you were rich and born into wealth like Brad Roberts in the film, who could easily just loan the money to the film makers. The time period and film go hand in hand as it relates to the time where life was tough in America and money wasn’t a easy thing to have access at all times. Clearly the film Gold Diggers Of 1933 indicates the time period of American life and The Great Depression Throughout the …show more content…
Throughout the whole film you can really see how the women stand their ground and act towards men in the film, such as the girls Polly, Carol, and Trixie when they are discussing how to start Barney Hopkins film, men didn’t really listen to women’s advice but in that particularly scene Barney did listen. Carol one of the main characters, shows independence and strength and when Brad's older brother J. Lawrence professes his love to her but then gets rejected in the result of him not allowing Polly and Brad to have his consent on their marriage, Carol simply says “No” because, how is it right for them to get married but not her friend and his brother due to the fact that Polly is a showgirl as well as Carol. J. Lawrence shows how men were biased in the Great Depression and throughout the years to come, it also relates back to the title of the film “Gold Diggers” which was how Lawrence perceived women who were involved in the show business or not married. Trixie another show girl exemplified how gold diggers were during this era and she portrays a gold digger by taking advantage of Peabody the family’s lawyer and having him pay for her expenses and whatever she may want, although she does like him you can't really …show more content…
When watching this I caught on to the meaning of the storyline, and how yeah everything may be all happy and nice because everyone got what they wanted in the end, but that only fixed their problems, not the world, not the reality of what was really happening behind all the glitz and glam that was occurring in their own world. Throughout the song the scene shows American soldiers getting shipped off to war and everyone is so happy and proud that America is in the war and going to win, it then changes to the soldiers marching in the rain trying to stay strong and hold on for dear life as they get battled down. Eventually those who have made it out through the war alive, they become veterans with medals that don’t do much justice to recognize the sacrifice they have made and then turn into forgotten men of the war. I found connections with the economy and war which showed how the president failed his country even with bringing in ideas such as The New Deal that clearly did not work out according to plan. Poverty was a common thing during the depression, and reflecting back to the girls in the scene where they are in their conjoined beds due to lack of furniture and stealing milk from neighbors and soldiers
After listening to “Gold Rush Brides” by Natalie Merchant and reading its lyrics, I have come to a conclusion that this song is about the suffering of women who weren’t white during the Gold Rush era. She sings, “Who were the homestead wives? Who were the gold rush brides? Does anybody know? Do their works survive, their yellow fever lives in the pages they wrote?” This shows how women’s effort and work (excluding white women) during that time wasn’t as recognized as it should be. She also sings. “Dakota on the wall is a white-robed woman, broad yet maidenly. Such power in her hand as she hails the wagon man's family. I see Indians that crawl through this mural that recalls our history. Women at that time were insufficient in California. Men
During the Gilded Age, industrial capitalism (known as the 2nd industrial revolution) became the driving force to transforming the economies in Europe and in the United States. Industrial capitalism was also the foundation for creating a global economy. Many of the business practices and profits derived from commercial capitalism and industrial capitalism. These profits came from machinery, technology, large factories and processing plants. Even though progress and profits came with the Gilded Age, it also brought tensions, conflicts and misery. It also sparked an unbalance social and economic order for workers’ wages and working conditions. This period in history brought heavy masses of immigration to the country. In addition, continuous struggles and ongoing between labor, capital and increased growth in urbanization. Today, we see these similarities and
Movies in the Great Depression were outlets that the American people used to escape the daily hardships and struggles of their lives. Three genres emerged and flourished during this time period: comedy, musicals, and gangster films. Each genre depicted life in the Great Depression in different yet similar ways. While watching the movies, you can see that money played a large part in the plot. Justice and the law are also reoccurring themes. The treatment and depiction of women in these films is one aspect that is interesting to study and look at, as well. Women’s rights was still a hot button issue, and it is plain to see that by viewing such films as “Room Service”, “The Public Enemy”, and “Gold Diggers of 1937”.
Different documents in the Gilded Age prominently illustrated gender inequality in their portrayal of men and women within society. Many photographs in the time period by Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine did not shed light on a woman’s hardships, but rather undermined their domestic work. Society failed to give women credit for their work at home due to the common misconception that a woman’s work was easier than that of a man’s. Margaret Byington’s article Homestead: The Households of a Mill Town contrastingly gave an accurate portrayal of the distress women faced in their everyday life. The representation of women in the Gilded Age varies significantly between that in the photographs, and their domestic, weak personification, and in Byington’s article, which gives women a more accurate depiction through their domestic duties.
Throughout the play I felt that the male characters had more of the negative qualities and the female characters had more of the positive qualities. One major reason for this is because men during the 1950s were viewed as stern and the man of the house. This preconceived gender role associated with men automatically required them to come off as negative at times, where the women were more positive. The reason Hansberry had the women represent more positive qualities was due to what responsibilities women had during this era. Women were seen mostly as caretakers, which caused them to be nurturing and encouraging to their children. The roles of men and women during the ‘50s were very different and called for very different views on how to
Many women came to California to work as prostitutes or entertainers during the 1850s. They did this because there were so few women to satisfy all of the men mining in the gold fields. During this time women who chose to be prostitutes were not looked down upon because they were so desirable. Many women also came to take advantage of the possibility of marrying a rich miner and getting out of the prostitution business. Not all women however came to California to prostitute and eventually find themselves a husband. Some came along with their husbands and would earn a living by running boarding homes while their husbands would pan for gold (Wikipedia). There were many influential women that came to California during this time period. They were able to make a name for themselves, and some left an everlasting impression on San Francisco.
The reality of war changed many soldiers' lives because of nightmares from firefights and small skirmishes to bombings and atrocities. Many places from Saigon to Khe Sanh are filled with stories from many veterans. A letter from a marine fighting in Khe Sanh said to his Parents "Since we began, we have lost 14 KIA and 44 men WIA. Our company is cut down to half strength, and I think we will be going to Okinawa to regroup. I hope so anyway because I have seen enough of war and its destruction." From the death of close friends any person's emotions would crumble. A normal everyday business person in the shoes of this soldier wouldn't last a day. The experience a soldier goes through will change his view on life forever. This is just showing how it affects people. Seeing death and killing on a daily basis. The random occurrence of death would truly disturb any person. Seeing the death of friends and mangled bodies of South Vietnamese villagers left by Vietcong guerillas, the soldiers were left with the vivid visions of the bodies.
In the 1930s, several economic, political, and environmental factors caused Americans to lose hope of a future beyond the extreme circumstances in which they had to survive. America prospered during the roaring ‘20s, but the stock market crash of October 1929 set off a devastating chain of events; banks and factories closed and one out of every four Americans found himself unemployed. The sudden economic collapse began the era of the Great Depression, in which millions were jobless by 1933 and countless others wandered the country in search of work, food and shelter. “The core of the problem was the immense disparity between the country’s productive capacity and the ability of the people to consume” (Nelson). The economic downturn coupled with the ecological disaster of the Dust Bowl in the Great Plains resulted in foreclosures on farms, inflated food prices for the consumer, and the ruination of the agricultural industry. Meanwhile, the film and entertainment industry provided an escape for many Americans from the long-term struggle of the Great Depression. Shirley Temple, the dimpled, curly-haired child star dubbed “America’s Sweetheart,” was one such film star who brought hope to those affected by the Great Depression and left an enduring impression on the United States of America.
The theme that is very meaningful to me is that war hurts two different parts of a country. The first is the military, which was not really talked about, and then there is the civilians. The civilians must ration food so that the military can eat, and then they must also suffer because the bomb that was dropped was not meant for any military base but to destroy and kill a city. The theme is clear in meaning that it hurts the civilians much more than it hurts the military and that war is very, very cruel. The people that were rationing had very little to eat and that amount
Bert being the family man is actually quite lazy and useless and focuses more yard work than supporting his own family as he is unemployed which is not expected for men at the time. It was more common for women to be doing this. Wally you could say has a feminist vibe about him in that he is constantly going out of his way to help Mildred find a place for her restaurant in which he probably sees her as an equal member of society and not subordinate. And then Monte who is this big playboy could actually be considered a ‘gold-digger’, a stereotype for women who cultivates a personal relationship in order to attain wealth for their own pleasure. He is visually wealthy while virtually bankrupt and so when he marries Mildred, he acts a gold-digger in that Mildred becomes financially in dept while she is the one providing for her family, while Monte and Veda go off and do whatever fun activities they
The Gold Rush was one of the most influential times in California History. During the four years from 1848-1852, 400,000 new people flooded into the state. People from many countries and social classes moved to California, and many of them settled in San Francisco. All this diversity in one place created a very interesting dynamic. California during the Gold Rush, was a place of colliding ideals. The 49ers came from a very structured kind of life to a place where one was free to make up her own rules.
The observer can see this through the explicit cinematography of the movie and depiction of the Great Depression made by the director. However, the director left out a key aspect of the events of the depression, the stock market crash. Perhaps, this catastrophic event was irrelevant to the plot and message of the movie, but it is important to the actual Great Depression of the United States. Furthermore, the nation of 2010 is well on its way to repeating history. There are frightening similarities between that dreadful time of the 1930’s and the present that should not be overlooked, or the United States might condemn itself back into that horrific state it has so long tried to avoid.
This movie is a wonderful production starting from 1960 and ending in 1969 covering all the different things that occurred during this unbelievable decade. The movie takes place in many different areas starring two main families; a very suburban, white family who were excepting of blacks, and a very positive black family trying to push black rights in Mississippi. The movie portrayed many historical events while also including the families and how the two were intertwined. These families were very different, yet so much alike, they both portrayed what to me the whole ‘message’ of the movie was. Although everyone was so different they all faced such drastic decisions and issues that affected everyone in so many different ways. It wasn’t like one person’s pain was easier to handle than another is that’s like saying Vietnam was harder on those men than on the men that stood for black rights or vice versa, everyone faced these equally hard issues. So it seemed everyone was very emotionally involved. In fact our whole country was very involved in president elections and campaigns against the war, it seemed everyone really cared.
The song is interesting because reading the lyrics, listening to the song, and watching the music video all give different meanings about the song. Reading the lyrics suggests that the song is a depressing story about the inner turmoil the writer is feeling and how he is not sure what to do with his life. But after listening to this upbeat and happy song, it seems like it may not be as dreary as it seemed at first. After watching the music video the message can be reinterpreted to be about the internal conflicts of a soldier fighting in a war and he does not know what he is fighting for. The fact that the music completely changes how the lyrics are interpreted is interesting. Nate uses many literary techniques to make this song mysterious and open to interpretation depending on how it is experienced.
...ereotypes and patriarchal norms (Annie baking, Helen being a rich step-mom, the wedding itself), it also undermines patriarchy at the same time. At one point or another throughout the film all of the female characters go against the common conception and portrayal of women being proper and passive. They can be raunchy, drink, use vulgar language, and show they aren’t that different from men.