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The Male-Dominated Film Industry

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To analyze Dietrich’s filmography, we compiled thirty transcripts from her Hollywood productions. These account for the majority of the films Dietrich acted in with dialogue considering that the German productions she worked on were silent films. Of these films, all thirty are directed by men while seven have at least one woman as a writer. The male-dominated field may account for the disparity between gendered terms within the scripts. The words “man” and “mr” are used much more frequently than the words “woman” and “ms,” respectively. This serves to show that although Dietrich was a star in her own right; she was still navigating a world that centered on men as the primary focus. On the contrary, the word “wife” was used much more frequently than the word “husband.” This may suggest that even if women are being incorporated into the stories, they are relegated to domestic roles. 
In addition to gender dynamics, it is also interesting to note the prominence of the terms “german*” and “america*” throughout her filmography. The two films that engage with these terms the most are A Foreign Affair and Judgement at Nuremberg. Both of these films are set in postwar Germany and are directed by Billy Wilder and Stanley Kramer, respectively. Wilder is an European emigre while Kramer is an American who frequently engaged with social issues within his work. It is interesting to note that variations of “german*” are a bit more frequent than that of “america*” in Dietrich’s work. She retained some connection to her German roots despite adopting American patriotism within her USO performances. However, her connection is a bit muddled by the fact that she plays the lover or wife of a Nazi within both of these films. Her connection to Germany, then, was still filtered in film through an American lens critiquing nazism in Germany in the postwar era. This also places a great deal of her character's intrigue in relation to men within both of these films.

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  1. Marlene Dietrich Alyssa Wheeler, Carol Cheng, Keven Michel, Kristin Snyder, and Liz Ketcham

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