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SEEING THE SEVENTIES: PHOTOGRAPHY AS FEMINIST LABOR By LAUREN BURRELL COX A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2018 1 © 2018 Lauren Burrell Cox 2 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my committee Dr. Barbara Mennel and Dr. Leah Rosenberg for all of their guidance and support. I would also like to thank my writing group: Leila Estes, Peter Gitto, Lauren Pilcher, and Cristina Ruiz-Poveda for all of their feedback throughout writing this thesis. I thank Min Ji Kang for listening to me and supporting me through this process. I thank Dr. Susan Hegeman for helping me develop the topic of this thesis in her class. Finally, I thank my parents for helping me follow my dreams. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................3 LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................5 ABSTRACT .....................................................................................................................................6 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................8 2 STEPPING INTO STEPFORD: THE WHITE SUBURBAN HOUSEWIFE AND THE FAILURE OF ARTISTIC LABOR ........................................................................................11 3 A PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST AS A YOUNG WOMAN: CLAUDIA WEILL’S GIRLFRIENDS (1978) ............................................................................................................25 4 FAILING SIGHT, FAILING MOVEMENTS: EYES OF LAURA MARS .............................38 5 CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................49 BIBLIOGRAPHY ..........................................................................................................................51 FILMOGRAPHY ...........................................................................................................................53 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .........................................................................................................54 4 LIST OF FIGURES Figure page 2-1 Joanna takes photos of the man and the mannequin ..........................................................17 2-2 Joanna puts away her camera .............................................................................................17 2-3 Joanna's first trip to a New York Art Gallery ....................................................................19 2-4 Joanna's artistic breakthrough ............................................................................................21 2-5 Joanna in the darkroom ......................................................................................................21 2-6 Joanna's photographs .........................................................................................................22 2-7 Joanna's uncanny robot double ..........................................................................................23 4-1 Laura's photoshoot stance ..................................................................................................46 5 Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts SEEING THE SEVENTIES: PHOTOGRAPHY AS FEMINIST LABOR By Lauren Burrell Cox May 2018 Chair: Barbara Mennel Major: English This thesis examines the 1970s women’s movement in the United States through the lens of female photographers in film. What can the close study of these representations illuminate about the successes and failures of the movement? How do these films trace the development of the movement from 1963 with Betty Friedan’s “the problem that has no name” to the commercialization of the movement by the end of the 1970s. Chapter 1 investigates the housewife’s attempt to define herself outside the domestic sphere and enter the professional world through Bryan Forbes’ 1975 cult classic The Stepford Wives. Chapter 2 takes up the question of the young struggling female artist in Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends (1978). Chapter 3 focuses on Eyes of Laura Mars (1978). Through the character of Laura Mars, the film foreshadows the downfall of the women’s movement of the 1970s, which coincided with commercialization of mainstream feminism. This is the time to revisit these 1970s films because more than forty years later American society is still confronting the issues raised by the women’s movement. American society today is trying to control the “nasty woman” for daring to be independent. The current women’s movement, as seen by the Women’s March, demonstrates that the reigniting of issues of 6 representation and work in society is not only timely but crucial for women’s dire need for social progress. 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Jordan Peel’s horror-comedy film Get Out (2017) centers its narrative around a black photographer’s ill-fated trip to visit his white girlfriend’s parents. The film perfectly skewers white liberalism in the Obama era through its mélange of amusing dialogue and commentaries on the history of the black man’s experience in America. The film immediately infiltrated the United States’ social consciousness and became a critical and commercial hit through its clever use of the horror genre. Part of Peele’s deft analysis of contemporary culture stems from the main character’s profession: photography. While at first this film’s employment of a photographer main character may seem a clever nod to scholar Laura Mulvey’s notion of the gaze, examining photographers and the labor of artists reveals deeper truths about social progress movements and the failures and shortcomings of these movements, which is especially true in the current political climate. Photography as a medium and photographers as an artistic profession present a particularly fecund area of research because of its intersection with art and technology as well as its very impulse to document. Therefore, studying the representation of photographers in film has much to reveal about social movements of the 20th century. This thesis examines the 1970s women’s movement in the United States through the lens of female photographers in film. What can the close study of these representations illuminate about the successes and failures of the movement? How do these films trace the development of the movement from 1963 with Betty Friedan’s “the problem that has no name” to the commercialization of the movement by the end of the 1970s. The thesis explores the housewife’s attempt to define herself outside the domestic sphere and enter the professional world, the young woman as an artist struggling for recognition in the art world and control of her 8 own work, and finally the successful woman photographer who must contend with the consequences of her work. Chapter 1 entitled “Stepping into Stepford: The White Suburban Housewife and the Failure of Artistic Labor” analyzes the 1975 cult classic The Stepford Wives, a B-horror film directed by Bryan Forbes and starring Katharine Ross based on the 1972 Ira Levin novel. Even though this film not successful financially or critically, it has infiltrated the popular consciousness with the term “Stepford wife.” This chapter investigates the clash in the film between the traditional role of the housewife in the domestic sphere and the efforts for her to be recognized and taken seriously as an artist in the professional world. How do these ultimately unrealized dreams of the protagonist reflect the failures of the film itself, and by extension the shortcomings of the women’s movement regarding suburban housewives? The chapter also examines the invisible labor of art and the potential for the failure of this labor. Chapter 2 “The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman: Claudia Weill’s Girlfriends” takes up the question of the young struggling female artist. Girlfriends is a 1978 independent comedy by Claudia Weill. This chapter links the film to the 1970s women’s movement and its connections to women’s activism in the art world. At this point, many of the ideals of the women’s movement of the 1970s have taken hold and are beginning to mature, just as the young photographer in the film does. A central question of the chapter is the photographer’s pursuit of control not over her art but over her own life. In the Chapter 3 “Failing Sight, Failing Movements: Eyes of Laura Mars,” the woman artist is now fully formed and incredibly successful. Eyes of Laura Mars is a 1978 Hollywood mystery-thriller film directed by Irvin Kershner from a spec script written by John Carpenter and stars Faye Dunaway as Laura Mars, a successful New York City fashion photographer. The 9 photographer in this film is an extremely successful fashion photographer known for her violent and sexual photographs, until her life begins to fall apart when a psycho-killer begins using her photographs as inspiration to murder her colleagues. Through the character of Laura Mars, the film foreshadows the downfall of the women’s movement of the 1970s, which coincided with commercialization of mainstream feminism. Although this grouping of films runs the gamut from B-movie to independent comedy to slick Hollywood thriller, they all share a similar aesthetic.

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