Life Experience and Social Analysis

Throughout Hollywood’s existence there has always been a disparity between how men and women are treated. There were a number of contributing factors that led to the inequality of men and women in Hollywood. Even in Shakespearean times, prepubescent boys played women's roles because with their high voices they could pass as women. Women during this time period were not even being considered to perform. This shows that women were not accepted enough to play their own gender. The first time women actually performed on stage wasn’t until 50 years after Shakespeare’s death. As centuries passed, there is still the underlying belief that women cannot act as well as men. From Hollywood’s beginning women were expected to do different things on the screen than men. During early Hollywood films, it was said that in order for women to be good actresses they would have to take off their clothes to be on the screen. On screen, women were consistently cast in lesser roles than men. In a recent study, Amanda Morris found that the percentage of women compared to men in any role was consistently below 50% for all years from 1912 until now. This shows that the more often men hired other men, the less opportunities women had on screen and behind-the-scenes. 

Since the early 1900’s, there have been social expectations of women in Hollywood. During this time, women were expected to be housewives and were not supposed to have jobs outside of the home. In the 1920’s only 20% of U.S. women worked outside the household as opposed to today where 47% of women had jobs outside the home. The only time women were behind-the-scenes were during the early twentieth century for every aspect of silent-film-making. Females were directors, writers, producers, editors, and camera operators of silent films. 

Over time the perception of Hollywood actresses shifted. Actresses like Marilyn Monroe,  Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly helped to redefine the image of the female actress. Actresses began to be seen for their talent, but still women were still fighting for recognition. Women still had to fight for their rights to be seen as more than sex icons. In the article Marilyn Monroe is a Feminist Icon the author says,  “Marilyn battled for gender equality in an industry centered on male dominance. She wasn’t afraid to point out that she wasn’t being paid equally to her co-star, Jane Russell, in, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Her arguments to have her own dressing room were ignored.” This shows that even though the people loved her, it didn’t change the fact that she was a woman in Hollywood. 

Equality for men and women in Hollywood continued to shift during the middle of the 20th century. This was in part due to lawsuits against Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures. “In 1938, the Department filed an antitrust lawsuit alleging that eight major motion picture companies had conspired to control the motion picture industry through their ownership of film distribution and exhibition.” The eight major motion picture companies were Paramount Picture Inc., Twentieth Century-Fox Corporation, Loew’s Incorporated (now Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or “MGM”), Radio-Keith-Orpheum (disestablished in 1959), Warner Brothers Pictures, Columbia Pictures Corporation, Universal Corporation, and United Artists Corporation. After the trial, the district court had found that the defendants had been involved in a wide-spread conspiracy to illegally fix motion picture prices and monopolize both the film distribution and movie theatre markets. Each of the defendants entered into a consent decree with the Department.