Precocious Charms : Stars Performing Girlhood in Classical Hollywood Cinema

In Precocious Charms , Gaylyn Studlar examines how Hollywood defined and constructed female stars as especially young--as juvenated--during its long half century as the most influential and popular media influence on America's cultural imagination. Precocious Charms is about stars and their films but also about the aesthetic, cultural, discursive, ideological, industrial, and psychological processes that led to the varied construction of juvenated femininity in six female star personas: Mary Pickford, Shirley Temple, Deanna Durbin, Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Jones, and Audrey Hepburn. Child stars are part of this study, but so too are adult actresses who created motion picture masquerades of youthfulness. This study reveals the unexpected intersections between American film and culture, from nineteenth century sentimental art to New Look haute couture fashion, children's literature to the impact of psychoanalysis, Victorian domestic family rituals to radio comedy. To consider juvenated femininity is to look at how classic Hollywood cinema constructed gender and sexuality beyond the general category of "woman," leading to a new understanding of how Hollywood spoke to and created pleasures for its audiences from the 1910s into the 1960s.

In Precocious Charms, Gaylyn Studlar examines how Hollywood presented female stars as young girls or girls on the verge of becoming women. Child stars are part of this study but so too are adult actresses who created motion picture masquerades of youthfulness. Studlar details how Mary Pickford, Shirley Temple, Deanna Durbin, Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Jones, and Audrey Hepburn performed girlhood in their films. She charts the multifaceted processes that linked their juvenated star personas to a wide variety of cultural influences, ranging from Victorian sentimental art to New Look fashion, from nineteenth-century children's literature to post-World War II sexology, and from grand opera to 1930s radio comedy. By moving beyond the general category of "woman," Precocious Charms leads to a new understanding of the complex pleasures Hollywood created for its audience during the half century when film stars were a major influence on America's cultural imagination.

In this book Studlar examines how Hollywood presented female stars as young girls or girls on the verge of becoming women. Child stars are part of this study but so too are adult actresses who created motion picture masquerades of youthfulness. Studlar details how Mary Pickford, Shirley Temple, Deanna Durbin, Elizabeth Taylor, Jennifer Jones, and Audrey Hepburn performed girlhood in their films. She charts the multifaceted processes that linked their juvenated star personas to a wide variety of cultural influences, ranging from Victorian sentimental art to New Look fashion, from nineteenth-century children's literature to post-World War II sexology, and from grand opera to 1930s radio comedy Introduction -- Oh, Doll Divine: Mary Pickford, Masquerade, And The Pedophilic Gaze -- Cosseting The Nation, Or, How To Conquer Fear Itself With Shirley Temple -- The Little Girl With The Big Voice: Deanna Durbin And Sonic Womanliness -- Velvet's Cherry: Elizabeth Taylor And Virginal English Girlhood -- Perilous Transition: Jennifer Jones As Melodrama's Hysterical Adolescent -- Chi-chi Cinderella: Audrey Hepburn As Couture Countermodel -- Conclusion. Gaylyn Studlar. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 289-298) And Index. Examines how Hollywood defined and constructed female stars as especially young - as juvenated - during its long half century as the most influential and popular media influence on America's cultural imagination. This study reveals the unexpected intersections between American film and culture.