Women in Film during the 1920’s and their Influence on Socie

American woman in the 1920’s began to make changes in the way they lived and in the way they were perceived by society. Their mothers saw these young women as bad girls who were loose in their principles. Young women during this time period were breaking all the rules of moral conduct. Flappers wore short, straight dresses often covered with beads and fringes, and they were usually worn without pantyhose and powdered knees. Young flappers were known to be very rebellious against their parents, and society blamed their rebelliousness partially on the media, movies, and film stars like Clara Bow.

Towards the beginning of the decade there was a widespread perception that American women were challenging the ‘natural’ constitution of masculinity and femininity both in real life and in Hollywood’s ‘screen life.’ This time was an age of emancipation and mobility between social classes, not only because of the nineteenth amendment, but also Prohibition, which led to the establishment of speakeasies. Ordinary middle class people frequented these establishments, and “nice” women began to smoke and drink in public. While these social changes were not app

Being sexually attractive had become more than just appearance; it had become a new lifestyle. This new sexual attractiveness became known as “It,” and these women wanted to have “It.” In the 1927 film It, Clara Bow plays a lingerie salesgirl who “seduced her prey at an amusement park and captured her man in the course of a boyish prance through the fun house.” Named after this movie “It” became something young woman wanted to have, “good old fashioned sex appeal.” A woman’s magazine of the time describes “it.” “It is a sort of invisible aura that surrounds your being and bathes you in its effulgence.”

Motion pictures have always tried to reflect what was going on in society, but never before in films short history had films been so influential in determining new social trends and depicting social behavior than in the 1920s. Movies offered to the women of the twenties reveal to historians something more dynamic than packaged instructions about the new femininity and new female roles. After the passing of the nineteenth amendment, women began a social movement, which transformed their worlds.

We are the Younger Generation. The war tore away our spiritual foundations and challenged our faith. We are struggling to regain our equilibrium. The times have made us older and more experienced than you were at our age. It must be so with each succeeding generation if it is to keep pace with the rapidly advancing and mighty tide of civilization. Help us to put our knowledge to the best advantage. Work with us! That is the way! Outlets for this surplus knowledge and energy must be opened. Give us a helping hand.

Women of this time were not “prim and proper” like their mothers. They displayed what it was to be youthful and active, and the movies reflected this change. The moving pictures, which vividly record the full flavor of the flapper’s personality, complete with her characteristic gestures, energy, and activism. The twenties embraced many changes that had long been developing in society. After the passing of the nineteenth amendment, women found confidence and the opportunity to make the changes in society that they felt were necessary through their power to vote. In 1922, Ellen Welles Page wrote an article titled A Flapper’s Appeal to Parents, and in that she says:

The flapper is traditionally paired with dancing new dances like the Charleston. These new dances required significant freedom of movement. These physical changes were not only present in everyday life, but were also demonstrated in these new movies. The new movie exuded above all a sense of physical freedom—unrestrained movement, a confident way of walking, flourishing energy—in contrast to the controlled and tight-kneed poses of D.W. Griffith’s heroines. Movies showed women how to use these new physical freedoms to their advantage.

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