Assimilating the Feminist Voice in Service Comedies, 1941-1980

During the 1940s and '50s, Hollywood produced "service" comedies that dramatized the ordinary civilian's adjustment to military life, a transformation necessary to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese and then to contain the communists. But the transformation was also necessary to m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inFilm & history Vol. 49; no. 1; pp. 50 - 62
Main Author Glass, William R
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cleveland, OK Center for the Study of Film and History 22.06.2019
Subjects
Analysis
Armed forces
Assimilation
Comedies
Feminism
Intelligence
Masculinity
Military personnel
Military training
Portrayals
Recruiting and enlistment
Stereotypes
Television programs
Training
Women
United States
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Summary:During the 1940s and '50s, Hollywood produced "service" comedies that dramatized the ordinary civilian's adjustment to military life, a transformation necessary to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese and then to contain the communists. But the transformation was also necessary to maintain the tenets of a conservative, masculinist culture. In the service-comedy genre, reforming a citizen into a soldier through basic training established the fundamental trope of assimilation. For men, this assimilation confirmed their status as contributing citizens. For women, however, especially with films that placed a woman at the narrative center of basic training, the assimilation of the recruit complicated the status of women, especially as feminist voices struggled to emerge from the conservative culture that the military protected. Broadly defined, a "service comedy" is a movie, novel, television show, or other form of popular culture in which humor is derived from the circumstances of life in the military
ISSN:0360-3695
1548-9922
1548-9922
DOI:10.1353/flm.2019.0008