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The Photoplay Or the Pickaxe: Extras, Gender, and Labour in Early Hollywood Author(S): Denise Mckenna Source: Film History, Vol

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The Photoplay Or the Pickaxe: Extras, Gender, and Labour in Early Hollywood Author(S): Denise Mckenna Source: Film History, Vol The photoplay or the pickaxe: extras, gender, and labour in early Hollywood Author(s): Denise McKenna Source: Film History, Vol. 23, No. 1, Art, Industry, Technology (January 2011), pp. 5-19 Published by: Indiana University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/filmhistory.23.1.5 . Accessed: 15/06/2011 09:03 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iupress. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Indiana University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Film History. http://www.jstor.org Film History, Volume 23, pp. 5–19, 2011. Copyright © John Libbey Publishing ISSN: 0892-2160. Printed in United States of America The photoplay or the pickaxe: extras, gender, and labour in early Hollywood The photoplay or the pickaxe: extras, gender, and labour in early Hollywood Denise McKenna hen he published his history of the unioni- by Keystone over a three month period in 1917.3 zation of Hollywood in 1941, Murray Ross Despite evidence that film work attracted men in Wwas struck by the “general belief that extra great numbers, the male extra has been overshad- work is a feminine occupation”, despite the owed by the image of young women thronging the greater number of men working as extras.1 The iden- studio gates for a chance to break into the movies. tification of women with extra work traces back to the The ascendance of the extra girl was made early years of the film industry, with the “extra girl” possible by several factors: the developing connec- emerging as a distinct type in the 1910s. Public tion between the motion picture and its female audi- fascination with the young women who sought fame ence; public interest in the plight of working women; and fortune in motion pictures resonated with the gendered associations with non-skilled labour; and studio system’s growing reputation as a fantastical recurring scandals that situated the female extra at space that transformed dreams into reality. At the the heart of decadent studio practices. Shelley same time, the intense interest in the extra girl could Stamp suggests that the intense focus on the would- raise awkward questions about studio culture and be actresses arriving in Los Angeles revealed deep screen labour: What happened to these young anxieties about women’s economic and sexual inde- women in their quixotic quest for fame? How were pendence during the 1910s, and at the same time they treated in the studios? And what happened if obscured the substantive contributions that women they failed?Apowerful combinationofprurientspecu- made to the film industry in many different areas.4 lation and social anxiety greeted the apparent on- The fantasy of a process by which anyone slaught of movie-struck girls who descended on Los could break into the hierarchy of silent screen acting Angeles in ever-increasing numbers. was fostered by the necessary anonymity of the But the lure of motion picture work was never on-screen extra, whose main purpose was to provide limited to women. Extra work’s appeal to men and background for a scene. The promise of fame under- women from all walks of life was often celebrated in scored the success stories of famous film stars who early accounts of the film industry in Los Angeles, began their careers as extras, undermining the cau- and by the 1920s many more men worked as extras tionary tales that warned of the perils of motion than women. Citing data from the Central Casting Bureau, Ross notes that between 1926 and 1941 the Denise McKenna received her doctorate from the number of men employed as extras was nearly dou- Cinema Studies Department at New York University ble the number of women.2 While there is no corre- and currently teaches at the University of California, sponding source of data for the 1910s, a snippet of San Diego. Her dissertation is called The City That Made the Pictures Move: Gender, Labor, and the Film information from Mack Sennett’s payroll sheet shows Industry in Los Angeles, 1908–1917. that twice as many men as women were employed Email: [email protected] FILM HISTORY: Volume 23, Number 1, 2011 – p. 5 6 FILM HISTORY Vol. 23 Issue 1 (2011) Denise McKenna picture work.5 These tales were most often directed that followed the behind-the-scenes adventures of at women, and were often couched as warnings to “Ella, the Extra Girl”.9 Reportedly based on real inter- the movie-struck girl that the on-screen fantasy did views, Kingsley’s series offered a glimpse into the not necessarily translate to real life. Yet these warn- everyday life of the studio – on the one hand deflating ings about the film industry existed in tension with a the spectacle of studio life with Ella’s homespun wealth of material that celebrated the growing film wisdom and on the other reinforcing the variety and world.6 As Stamp has argued, appealing to women glamour of film work. As a character, Ella plays was central to the film industry’s drive for cultural against the extra girl type; she is respectably married legitimacy during this period – although expanding and down-to-earth, enjoys her work as an extra, and female patronage posed certain challenges and ex- is successful because she is realistic about studio posed a contradictory understanding of femininity. life. Most importantly, she consistently downplays For instance, attempts to lure the movie-struck girl any desire to be “discovered”, one of the central into the theater in order to bolster cinema’s social and tropes of the contemporary extra girl narrative. Al- economic standing often had less to do with moral though she moves up through the ranks of extras, uplift then with the appeal of adventure serials, “white Ella’s sense of achievement is more profoundly tied slave” films, and other subject matter not considered to her husband’s successful transition from delivery- traditionally “ladylike”.7 In addition to courting a fe- man to working actor. male audience in the theater, women were often the These “interviews” with Ella reinforce the con- primary focus of attention in stories about the film nection between extra work and women’s work. At industry, which ranged from the latest scandals and the same time, they rewrite the image of the delu- behind-the-scenes exposés to more sedate topics sional and transient extra girl into a character who such as skin-care and fashion advice. This rich and reconciles domestic responsibilities with a satisfying wide-ranging discursive field consistently reinforced work life. However, the salacious association be- the association of women with the motion picture. tween women and screen work was dramatically Like the movie-struck girl, the extra girl literalized the highlighted in the early 1920s, most famously in the association between the motion pictures and an scandal surrounding “Fatty” Arbuckle’s trial for the expanding female fan base, but the extra girl narra- death of Virginia Rappe, an actress and model tive takes her to the studio gates. Both “girls” were whose fate became a cautionary tale for the moral bound up with an emerging mythology of moviemak- hazards of working in Hollywood. Heidi Kenaga ing’s powerful appeal to women; but while the movie- traces the impact the Arbuckle scandal had on the struck girl was a national phenomenon, the extra girl treatment of female extras through the expansion of was a character produced in and by the emerging the Hollywood Studio Club and the organization of studio system in Los Angeles. the Central Casting Bureau, established to alleviate the exploitation of extras. Earlier efforts to address Movie madness and the popularity the problems associated with female extras had of extra work been more haphazard. The Hollywood Studio Club By the mid-teens, the extra girl was already estab- opened in 1916 as a resource for women arriving in lished as a type – a character inspired by her love of Los Angeles looking to break into the movies. But as movies, her confidence that she is as pretty as Mary Kenaga argues, expanding the Hollywood Studio Pickford, or the desire for an easy life – who travels Club in the mid 1920s provided more than just a to Los Angeles to break into motion pictures. After “redemptive space” for the women it housed; it was her arrival, however, the extra girl narrative moved in another attempt to transform the image of the ex- a more sinister direction. Local newspapers detailed ploited extra girl into a respectable “studio girl”. More charges against directors and managers who took importantly, updating the Studio Club helped the advantage
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