Domestic Melodrama as Genre (2010 Discussion)

Molly Haskell

1. Group 3: What three types of women does Haskell find in the woman's film? Who would be a recent example of each type?
2. What are the woman's film's four main themes? Do you see them operating in the two melodramas we've viewed: Ordinary People (Group 4:) and Imitation of Life (1934--Group 1:)?
   • How about in a recent American film?
3. Group 2: How is hostility toward children expressed in the woman's film? Have you seen it in a recent American film?
4. All Groups: What impact does the issue of race have on the woman's film? Compare/contrast the white and black mothers (Bea and Delilah, respectively) in Imitation of Life.
5. All Groups: What theme does Haskell see that entwines the domestic and the romantic?

Christine Gledhill

1. Group 4: How did melodrama become "respectable" in academic circles? In particular, what does it mean to "read" a film "against the grain" (p. 6)?
2. Group 1: What four "points of tension" does Gledhill see in 1970s film criticism about melodrama?
3. Group 2: Gledhill discusses Coma, Witness, and The Color Purple as melodramas descended from silent melodrama such as Way Down East (1920). What key aspects of melodrama does she see in these newer films? Can you think of recent films or TV programs that also contain these aspects?

Juno (Jason Reitman, written by Diablo Cody, 2007)

1. Compare/contrast Juno with Imitation of Life? How does Juno use (or not) themes from 1930s melodrama?
   • How are mothers represented?
   • How is the theme of sacrifice represented?
   • How is the conflict between domestic love and romantic love represented?
   • How is the iconography of the middle-class (or UPPER middle class) home represented? What does it mean?

External links

1. Juno illustrations.

Bibliography

1. Molly Haskell, "The Woman's Film," in From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies (New York: Penguin, 1974; revised edition 1987) 153-188.
2. Christine Gledhill, "The Melodrama Field: An Investigation," Home is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and Woman's Film, ed. Christine Gledhill (London: British Film Institute, 1987) 5-39.