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‘Hollywood is a Woman's Town’: Masculinity and the Leading Man in American Fan Magazines of the 1930s
Author(s) -
Sharot Stephen
Publication year - 2023
Publication title -
gender and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.153
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-0424
pISSN - 0953-5233
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0424.12597
Subject(s) - hollywood , masculinity , persona , audience measurement , hegemonic masculinity , gender studies , sociology , art , advertising , art history , humanities , business
Abstract In their address to a predominantly female readership, fan magazines of the 1930s asserted that Hollywood was one place in which women were not subordinated to men as female stardom was superior to that of male stardom. The magazines’ representations of male actors were both compliant with, and resistant to, the tough‐guy image of hegemonic masculinity. The personas of most ‘leading men’ who led the supporting casts of female stars were represented as softer forms of masculinity than that of the majority of male stars. The on‐screen hard forms of masculinity of male stars were softened by the magazines’ reports of their off‐screen personas, and the personas of some actors were presented as a bipolar masculinity that combined soft and hard forms.