Arias for an Untold Want: The Queer Desire of the Diva Film

2021 ◽  
pp. 121-148
Author(s):  
Dolores McElroy
Keyword(s):  
Female Voice ◽  
History Of

This chapter defines the diva as a specific cultural type that has been shaped by long-held ideas about the female voice, but has moved beyond the narrow category of the female singer, and grown to encompass many non-singing women and characters who are understood as a “public success” but a “private failure.” Using the operatic history of the term “diva,” the chapter defines the type not by its reception in queer circles, but by its foundation in a “doubly feminine” relation of desire. Via close readings of the films Rapsodia Satanica (1917), Funny Girl (1968), and Queen Christina (1933), it explores the queer valences of female “narcissism,” and argues that a transhistorical “diva genre” of film is defined by a queer feminine “doubling,” which manifests in scenes featuring the spectacularized longing of the female lead.

scholarly journals Honey, You Know I Can’t Hear You When You Aren’t in the Room

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-78
Author(s):  
Rosanne Welch
Keyword(s):  
Women Characters ◽  
First Century ◽  
Female Voice ◽  
Qualitative Case Studies ◽  
Joan Didion ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
Dorothy Parker ◽  
History Of ◽  
Female Writers ◽  
Anita Loos

The need for more diversity in Hollywood films and television is currently being debated by scholars and content makers alike, but where is the proof that more diverse writers will create more diverse material? Since all forms of art are subjective, there is no perfect way to prove the importance of having female writers in the room except through samples of qualitative case studies of various female writers across the history of film. By studying the writing of several female screenwriters – personal correspondence, interviews and their writing for the screen – this paper will begin to prove that having a female voice in the room has made a difference in several prominent films. It will further hypothesise that greater representation can only create greater opportunity for more female stories and voices to be heard.  Research for my PhD dissertation ‘Married:  With Screenplay’ involved the work of several prominent female screenwriters across the first century of filmmaking, including Anita Loos, Dorothy Parker, Frances Goodrich and Joan Didion. In all of their memoirs and other writings about working on screenplays, each mentioned the importance of (often) being the lone woman in the room during pitches and during the development of a screenplay. Goodrich summarised all their experiences concisely when she wrote, ‘I’m always the only woman working on the picture and I hold the fate of the women [characters] in my hand… I’ll fight for what the gal will or will not do, and I can be completely unfeminine about it.’ Also, the rise of female directors, such as Barbra Streisand or female production executives, such as Kathleen Kennedy, prove that one of the greatest assets to having a female voice in the room is the ability to invite other women inside. Therefore, this paper contributes to the scholarship on women in film and to authorship studies. 

The Social Origins and Provenance of the English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II

1959 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 51-79
Author(s):  
K. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Social Background ◽  
Early Career ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Origins ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Edward Ii ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complete Study ◽  
History Of

During the last twenty or twenty-five years medieval historians have been much interested in the composition of the English episcopate. A number of studies of it have been published on periods ranging from the eleventh to the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. A further paper might well seem superfluous. My reason for offering one is that most previous writers have concentrated on analysing the professional circles from which the bishops were drawn, and suggesting the influences which their early careers as royal clerks, university masters and students, secular or regular clergy, may have had on their later work as bishops. They have shown comparatively little interest in their social background and provenance, except for those bishops who belonged to magnate families. Some years ago, when working on the political activities of Edward II's bishops, it seemed to me that social origins, family connexions and provenance might in a number of cases have had at least as much influence on a bishop's attitude to politics as his early career. I there fore collected information about the origins and provenance of these bishops. I now think that a rather more careful and complete study of this subject might throw further light not only on the political history of the reign, but on other problems connected with the character and work of the English episcopate. There is a general impression that in England in the later middle ages the bishops' ties with their dioceses were becoming less close, and that they were normally spending less time in diocesan work than their predecessors in the thirteenth century.

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