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• 1 media/Littlewoman2.jpg 2018-03-04T06:00:37-08:00 Little Women (George Cukor 1933) 50 Tomboyism: Negotiating and Celebrating a Strong, Sprited Woman in the Great Depression plain 2018-03-11T17:36:11-07:00  
  
   
  Dyer notes that films and the textual construction of star images reflect the times in which they are produced. Katharine’s second film, “Little Women” was released at the height of the Great Depression. This was a particularly difficult time for women because they were expected to work both inside and out of the home yet they were also expected to step aside and give their jobs to unemployed men. Films during this time period, often had leading ladies who were strong, smart, “fast-talking” dames, who basically told it like it was (Sklar 170-172). Released in the fall of 1933, “Little Women” is  not only one of the earliest full length features after the advent of sound, but is the perfect construction of a “Woman’s film.”  “Little Women” was breaking Radio City Music Hall’s box-office records, with more than 20,000 fans still storming the theater weeks after the opening, and Katharine stood alone at the top of the Marquis (Variety, December 26, 1933). Solidifying her star power, Variety crowned her the second most popular female star in America (Mae West was first) (Pierpont).
  
  Hepburn's Jo both reinforces and contradicts the social ideals of the Great Depression time period. Hepburn’s spirited, strong Jo provides a character that young women in the Depression could model their behavior after. Even when the film reverses gender roles, at least temporarily, Hepburn’s Jo is still a woman necessary for the hardships of the Great Depression.
  
  Set in the Civil War, like the Great Depression women in the audience, Jo March is smart, authentic, and kind-hearted. Except for stingy, rich Aunt March, the family does charity work, and she is one of the first to give up her Christmas breakfast to an ill single immigrant mother with starving children (something very important to a Great Depression audience). Jo also chops off her hair to ensure her mother has enough money to travel to her ill father.
  
  
  Hepburn masterfully constructs a Jo that has both feminine and masculine qualities. Jo fences, puts on self-written plays (and pants) to act the role of a mustachioed villain and the handsome blonde hero, cuts her hair like a boy, throws snowballs, climbs down walls, yells “Christopher Columbus” and talks like a boy, has the economic freedom to turn down a marriage proposal to her wealthy best friend Laurie, and moves alone to New York to pursue her writing. Jo also explicitly states that she wishes she were a man, and her long stride, rough and tough manner, physical strength and even her name highlight her masculinity.
  
  
  Yet, Jo's feminine side is equally evident. We are reminded that she is emotionally vulnerable throughout the film, and her gown for Laurie’s ball and later the opera provide young women fashion and beauty ideals. The opera scene also reminds us that, in reality, Katharine Hepburn is a stunning socialite woman.And, the film promotional campaign targets young women (and men) with the promise that they would see lovely costumes and lovely women.
  
  
  
  In contrast, the men are largely effeminate or peripheral to the story line.
  
  In the end, under an umbrella in the rain, the film reinforces the 1930s cultural value that happiness can only be found in family and marriage.  Jo’s elderly suitor, Professor Bhaer, asks her to marry him. This is a man who darns his own socks and takes her to operas and will not stand in the way of her independence or freedom. And, with not even a single kiss on screen, Jo says yes. Yet, based on the popularity of this film and the ease it negotiated gender reversal, as Susan Ware in “Holding Their Own: American Women in the 1930s” noted, the status of women was improving in the 1930s, and Hepburn’s Jo contributed to the negotiation of this new status.
  
  
  Hepburn’s star image and Jo's image both tell the story of a tomboy who wants the freedom to be an author and have a successful career, just like a man. The idea that Hepburn was the parts she played quickly became a studio gambit. Publicizing “Little Women,” Cukor announced at the time of the film’s release that she’d been “born to play Jo,” since she came from the same educated, upper-class New England family as the Marches. Kate is “tender and funny, fiercely loyal…  Kate and Jo are the same girl” (Pierpont New York Magazine).  From this film, Kate's star image of an Independent, intelligent woman with a boyish figure and masculine mannerisms would be set for her cinematic career.   The remaining three films studied will explore confirmation and contradiction of this "Jo" star image by examining construction of and identification with Hepburn's on-screen and off-screen public persona.