Meringue

utangs

Dee Wells

Popcorn Venus Marjorie Rosen (Peter Owen £6.50) We can, I think, do without the preliminaries about woman's lot and simply assume that all men with an IQ over 80 and/or a modicum of commonsense agree that women have had a less than just deal. However, men are slippery customers capable of wriggling out through the tiniest loophole and it is, therefore, a mistake to present any part of the case against them unless it is airtight and backed up by irrefutable evidence. Much as1 enjoyed and admire film critic Marjorie Rosen's book about women's roles in Hollywood, and Hollywood's role in shaping American mores, it has an anti-male slant that perhaps is not entirely justified.

To begin with, it's doubtful that men could have got away for so long with their disgraceful treatment of women (not only in the film industry, everywhere) had they not had all along the line a good deal of whole-hearted collaboration from women themselves. Especially from key women. Successful women. Women such as Miss Rosen's film stars.

This I'm-all-right-Jacqueline side of women is unattractive and women writers tend to skate over it nervously, but it is certainly there in this book like the spectre at the feast. As Mike Nichols and Elaine May said about lepers, you can't just lump them all together, but the overall impression left by this sociological survey of Hollywood's women is of an incredible number of narcissistic meringueutangs who cared a great deal about money and not much else.

If the fantasies acted out by glamorous stars had a disastrous effect and made Americans staunch believers in ickle-dickle women and fairy tales, everyone was to blame — not just the men who made movies. Granted, the industry was heavily male-dominated. From scriptwriters and directors to the popcorn person at the Hixville Palace, men were in charge. But men alone could never have made films that, by 1929, were taking $2 million a day at the box office. For that, they needed women. Sex. Romance. Wife vs Secretary. The Story Of A Love So Passionate It Could Not Be Told Till Now. No matter what disservice to the reality of women these pictures would do, at every stage of every one of them theremust have been women who agreed to help make them. "From -Yes. sir. I'll type it." To "Yais, dollink. huf course 1 vill play ze lead.

I cannot believe that for upwards of fifty years, all the way from Mary Pickford as America's simpering, curl-twisting Sweetheart to the Doris Day virginal goody-goodys, leading ladies had to have their arms twisted before they'd agree to co-operate. Nor does Miss Rosen suggest much arm-twisting was ever needed. The crux of the matter is, they agreed. Consented. Went right along with it. If the treatment they got was callous, witless, male chauvinist piggery at its very worst, it was nonetheless treatment they not only agreed to, but connived in.

After all, they could have rebelled. They were in a position of great power. Without them there would have been no films, and no movie mogul was likely to have let that happen. Had they banded together in mutual support and walked out, the ogre-men could have been defeated. But, they didn't. Perhaps it never even crossed their minds to at least try. Or perhaps they just didn't give a damn what they did, so long as the swimming pool never dried up and the white Rolls Royce never ran out of gas.

If that sounds harsh, it is not meant to. Film stars (and men, too) are as much victims of the times they live in as anyone else, and yesterday's women were obviously not as angry or as wary of men as women are now. Nonetheless, there were always ways Hollywood women could have shown solidarity with other women, had they wished to. Undoubtedly some were generous, but they must have been very quiet about it because Miss Rosen doesn't seem to have the details. She does mention though that, in 1917, Mary Pickford earned $350,000. Which gives an idea of the kind of money they made when an average person's wage was what? $1,000? Less? But we are not provided with any clue about what portions pt Hollywood's vast salaries were donated to women's causes. To the suffragettes, say. Or Margaret Sanger's birth control campaign. Or women's colleges. It may be they didn't realise the influence they could have been. Or, again, maybe not all that many of them cared.

In all truth, neither the men who made films nor the women who acted in them deserve the ultimate blame for the saccharined slops the American public was fed. The real culprit was American prudery and its avenging angel, the Hays Office censor. In the movies, virtue always won; the good girl always got a husband. Which was, according to the movies, all any girl could want. The bad or unsubmissive girl always lost. All young women were beautiful, good or bad. All older women were fluttery fools or foghorn-voiced scolds or, occasionally, wise old crones. That matter. Thea false picture of real life did not

The Hays Office morality code was almost as hard on men, but not quite. Crime had to be shown not to pay. The good guy could win or die, the bad guy could only die. But it was still a man's world and only men were free to choose their fate. In the last reel, he could kiss the girl, or the horse. He could say (Wings in the Dark, 1935) to a woman pilot who wanted to do a solo flight, -It's too hard. Too dangerous I wouldn't like to see any woman do it." He could even sleep around, then marry the heroine, then walk out on her, and still be the hero. ("My dear, I don't give a damn." Remember?) She

simple.

It Not and be the heroine. It was that

It seems a long time ago, the day of the black and white movie — and black and white morality. And they have their charm, the Astaire-Rogers musicals, Bogart thrillers, the great Marlene and Garbo, and even poor old King Kong up on the Empire State building stopping, or at any rate deflecting, bullets. But Miss Rosen is right about it being a bad time for women, and it has taken a long time for them to inch back towards the truth.

Despite what the thought of Linda Lovelace's

remarkable epiglottis does to Lord X and NI rs V. It and even the goings-on atop waterbeds in

X-rated movies come much closer to the truth about male and, indeed, female sexual fantasies than Claudette Colbert in Clark Gable's pyjama top ever did. Of course there is more to life thaii love, marriage, and sexual fantasies (but not, come to think, very much more — except work and war, which are no fun) but as this is the area movies have always concentrated on — and always will — it's high time they told it like it is. Thank goodness then for the emergence of Liz Taylor and the other brave ladies (and men) who have pioneered the comeback of honesty. It is still the best policy, no matter how it shakes things up.

Dee Wells has most recently written Jane, a novel, which is now being made into a film.

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