A. In his monograph, Universal Women, Mark Garrett Cooper aims to examine the complex course of events that lead to the displacement of female directors from Universal Film Manufacturing Company during the mid-1920s. Although no direct cause can be confirmed, Cooper utilizes trade journals, newspapers, manuscripts, corporate documents and films in an attempt to draw a path though which to understand a series of circumstances that may have lead to this demise. Cooper hypothesizes that there is no one factor that can explain this phenomenon, but rather a sequence of historical moments which resulted in a more defined division of labor that in turn ushered women out of the film studios and back into the home.
This hypothesis is assessed primarily …show more content…
One of the primary sources of evidence most utilized in Chapter 3: Universal City are articles/data/quotes provided from Universal Weekly – the trade magazine distributed by Universal that often depicted life at the studio city. These elements are key to this chapter because they provide various clues to understand the complexity of Universal City as well as illustrate its definition as a “home” so that readers can note this site as one of the catalysts for the rise and fall of female directors. Additionally, this chapter employs various film examples, archival images, theoretical frames (Gaston Bachelard, Henri Lefebvr), trade magazines, newspaper articles, and an underlying grounding in feminist geography to create the metaphor of Universal City as a home for gender experimentation. Cooper illustrates the dynamics and gender tensions of Universal City through a history of the lot’s construction, particularly its attempt of self-governing. This content is linked with film analyses to further illustrate how gender roles at Universal and the struggle to interpret sexual difference, or lack thereof, was a convention portrayed onscreen which reinforced the division of labor. While Universal initially began as a place for gender play, various factors instead caused the studio to fabricate an even more demarcated labor …show more content…
This concept is key to understanding the ability for women to hold directorial positions at Universal and is threaded throughout the remainder of the book. As Cooper transitions to part two, this theory focuses less on the corporate aspects of Universal’s landscape and is instead utilized to examine the geographical zones on-screen through
This hypothesis is assessed primarily …show more content…
One of the primary sources of evidence most utilized in Chapter 3: Universal City are articles/data/quotes provided from Universal Weekly – the trade magazine distributed by Universal that often depicted life at the studio city. These elements are key to this chapter because they provide various clues to understand the complexity of Universal City as well as illustrate its definition as a “home” so that readers can note this site as one of the catalysts for the rise and fall of female directors. Additionally, this chapter employs various film examples, archival images, theoretical frames (Gaston Bachelard, Henri Lefebvr), trade magazines, newspaper articles, and an underlying grounding in feminist geography to create the metaphor of Universal City as a home for gender experimentation. Cooper illustrates the dynamics and gender tensions of Universal City through a history of the lot’s construction, particularly its attempt of self-governing. This content is linked with film analyses to further illustrate how gender roles at Universal and the struggle to interpret sexual difference, or lack thereof, was a convention portrayed onscreen which reinforced the division of labor. While Universal initially began as a place for gender play, various factors instead caused the studio to fabricate an even more demarcated labor …show more content…
This concept is key to understanding the ability for women to hold directorial positions at Universal and is threaded throughout the remainder of the book. As Cooper transitions to part two, this theory focuses less on the corporate aspects of Universal’s landscape and is instead utilized to examine the geographical zones on-screen through