Skidmore College Creative Matter MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019 MALS 5-16-2015 Suffering Saint, Asexual Victorian Woman, Or Queer Icon? Cinematic Representations of Eleanor Roosevelt Angela Beauchamp Skidmore College Follow this and additional works at: https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/mals_stu_schol Part of the American Film Studies Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Beauchamp, Angela, "Suffering Saint, Asexual Victorian Woman, Or Queer Icon? Cinematic Representations of Eleanor Roosevelt" (2015). MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019. 98. https://creativematter.skidmore.edu/mals_stu_schol/98 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the MALS at Creative Matter. It has been accepted for inclusion in MALS Final Projects, 1995-2019 by an authorized administrator of Creative Matter. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Suffering Saint, Asexual Victorian Woman, Or Queer Icon? Cinematic Representations of Eleanor Roosevelt By Angela Beauchamp FINAL PROJECT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN LIBERAL STUDIES SKIDMORE COLLEGE April 2015 Advisors: Thomas Lewis and Nina Fonoroff Suffering Saint, Asexual Victorian Woman, or Queer Icon? Cinematic Representations of Eleanor Roosevelt Skidmore College MALS Thesis Angela Beauchamp 4-13-2015 2 Contents lntroduction ................................................................................................................................................... 5 Defining Herself and Being Defined .............................................................................................................. 9 Early Moving Images ................................................................................................................................... 16 Normative, Devoted Wife and Mother ....................................................................................................... 19 Equal Partnership: The Ideal Feminist Marriage ......................................................................................... 39 Sexualized, Inconsequential Woman ............. : ............................................................................................ 46 An Incomplete Woman ............................................................................................................................... 49 Bad Mother ................................................................................................................................................. 55 "Colored" ..................................................................................................................................................... 59 Asexual Victorian Woman ........................................................................................................................... 62 A Queer Independent Life ........................................................................................................................... 70 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 92 Filmography .......................................................................... .............. .................... ........... .......................... 94 Bibliography........ ......................................................................................................................................... 99 Fig ure 1 Eleanor Roosevelt signing in on "What's My Line?" (1 953) https:l/vimeo.com/12500281 9 3 Abstract This critical discourse analysis examines representations of Eleanor Roosevelt in a wide range of biographical, docudrama, and documentary film and television from 1945 to 2014. By focusing on the figure known by many as the most important woman of the twentieth century, and one who appears as a character or subject in over eighty movies and television programs, I investigate recurring discourses around heteronormativity and cultural constructions of gender and sexuality for American women over time. These filmic portrayals reveal attempts to normalize Eleanor's life, framing her accomplishments and motivations through lenses of marriage and family, or they "queer" Eleanor's legacy by calling attention to difference. This includes themes that create an image of a lonely woman who must find fulfilment outsideof a failed marriage, an asexual Victorian persona, or more recently, a very independent woman with a personal lifeoutside of home and family. Today's Eleanor is not merely an extension of her husband, the eyes and ears of the President of the United States, nor his jilted wife, or even a saint. Acknowledgements Thank you to Dr. Beck Krefting at Skidmore College and Nina Fonoroff at the University of New Mexico for their time and care on this journey, and to my advisor, Dr. Thomas Lewis at Skidmore, for his support. Most of all, I would like to thank Caroline Hinkley forbeing there every day. 4 Introduction On inaugural eve 1933, Eleanor Roosevelt and Associated Press reporter Lorena Hickok convened in a bathroom on the train fromNew York to Washington, the only place where they could find enough privacy to conduct an exclusive interview introducing the new First Lady to the nation. The next day, Americans read about Eleanor's role as President Franklin Roosevelt's "eyes and ears," explaining her wide range of activities in light of a husband with limited mobility. Thus, the savvy Roosevelt political team, of which "Hick" was a crucial member, preempted some of the criticism of an activist Eleanor by couching everything she did in terms of an extension of FDR and merely a wifeand helpmate, not a woman with ambitions of her own. The country now marvels that the ordinary person did not know that polio-stricken Franklin could not walk, but this was not the only illusion engineered by the Roosevelts. Eleanor, a woman whose marriage was a complicated fa<;ade, characterized herself in heteronormative terms, allowing her to participate in what was largely a man's world of public policy. This persona became so widely accepted that as filmand television assumed the role of the dominant means of storytelling, biographical films, docudramas, and documentaries all replicated the image repeatedly without interrogation. Eleanor Roosevelt, known by many as the most important woman of the twentieth century as she expanded the public's idea of what a woman could be, appears as a character or subject of over eighty movies and television programs, from Great Day (1945) to The Roosevelts: An In timate History (2014). Yet despite her appropriation by the feminist movement and a "post-feminist" era when women are much more prevalent in the public arena, most of these portrayals continue to frame her in terms of marriage and family-interpreting her motivations, ambitions, and accomplishments through the lenses of stereotypical gender roles and sexuality. Representations of "the most liberated woman of this century," as noted historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. called her in 1971 (Foreword, xiii), are often 5 undercut by ongoing discourses that place her contributions in the framework of wife and mother. In addition, although her sexual identit� would become a matter of public interest after her death, Roosevelt's image in popular culture felloutside the normative long before these revelations and questions became widely known. Portrayals seek to either normalize her within expected patterns of familylife and a woman's place within heteropatriarchal structures, even as a feminist icon; or they "queer" Eleanor by calling attention to difference, in both positive ways by celebrating her rather non-traditional legacy, or in negative ways, as the canonical Eleanor and Franklin (l 976) did by creating a long-lasting public image of a sad and lonely woman whose existence is outlined by her husband's rejection and a need to find fulfilment outside of a failed marriage. This study is a critical discourse analysis of a broad selection of films and television programs featuringEleanor (alternately called "ER," as she signed her letters), located in the context of contemporary cultural and political movements and events. This includes fictional biographical films and docudramas that become a part of public history and audience · understandings of people and events from the past, and documentaries cast as non-fiction, but involving many of the same themes as their fictional counterparts. These constructions of a life also reflect the time of the film's production and the contemporary cultural context. As cultural texts, biographical films about women tell us about assumptions or tensions around gender roles and expectations in a given time period, and few American women rival Eleanor Roosevelt in the number of films in which she appears as a character or documentary subject. The loving wife in Sunrise at Campobello (l 960), the suffering saint of Eleanor and Franklin (l 976), the asexual Victorian woman in Biography "Eleanor Roosevelt: A Restless Spirit" (1994), and the queered Eleanor of Hy de Park on Hudson (2012) all indicate how adjustments in public memory of this 6 historical figure coincide with recurring discourses around heteronormativity, feminism, and the problems presented by women in the public sphere. Filmic primary sources forthis analysis include the following, plus review of additional filmsto enrich contexts of