Wolf-Women and Phantom Ladies Wolf-Women and Phantom Ladies : Female Desire in 1940s US Culture

Provides encyclopedic coverage of female sexuality in 1940s popular culture. Popular culture in the 1940s is organized as patriarchal theater. Men gaze upon, evaluate, and coerce women, who are obliged in their turn to put themselves on sexual display. In such a thoroughly patriarchal society, what happens to female sexual desire? Wolf-Women and Phantom Ladies unearths this female desire by conducting a panoramic survey of 1940s culture that analyzes popular novels, daytime radio serials, magazines and magazine fiction, marital textbooks, Hollywood and educational films, jungle comics, and popular music. In addition to popular works, Steven Dillon discusses many lesser-known texts and artists, including Ella Mae Morse, a key figure in the founding of Capitol Records, and Lisa Ben, creator of the first lesbian magazine in the United States.--Publisher website. Contents ......Page 8 Acknowledgments ......Page 10 1. Introduction: Sexual Visibility, or, The Duel in the Sun ......Page 12 2. Diana Trilling, Female Desire, and the Study of Popular Culture ......Page 30 Adolescent Sex and the Adult Male Film Critics ......Page 31 Margaret Mead and Cultural Patterns ......Page 38 Diana Trilling in the 1940s and Beyond......Page 44 3. The Waiting Room: Female Desire in Women’s Wartime Fiction ......Page 56 Substitute Sexuality in Till the Boys Come Home ......Page 59 Kathleen Winsor’s Bosomy Feminism ......Page 68 Wartime Psychology and the Attack on Women......Page 75 4. He-Wolves and She-Wolves: From Tex Avery to Jackson Polloc......Page 82 Wolves and Wolfing ......Page 83 Tex Avery, Al Capp, and Cartoon Wolves......Page 86 The Female Animal from Cat People to Tiger Girl ......Page 92 Philip Wylie, Vardis Fisher, and the Female Human......Page 104 5. Phantom Ladies: On the Radio and Out of the Closet ......Page 116 Radio Bodied and Disembodied......Page 117 Ghosts and Goblins in the Heterosexual House ......Page 129 Queer Radio ......Page 145 6. White Female Desire Wearing the Masks of Color ......Page 150 Gene Tierney, “Half-Breed”: Sexual Star Making at Twentieth Century-Fox......Page 151 Ella Mae Morse’s Sultry Voice: Cultural Blackness and Blackface at Capitol Records ......Page 166 7. What Young Women Want: From High School to College ......Page 188 Teenage Girls: The Crush and the Billboard ......Page 189 Professor Bowman, Stephens College, and the Education of Female Desire ......Page 200 8. The Power and the Horror: Male and Female Cultural Spaces ......Page 218 Measuring the Patriarchs: Men’s Magazines, Spicy Pulp, and Paperbacks ......Page 220 The Ladies’ Home Nightmare: Soap Operas, Confession Magazines, and Women’s Magazine Fiction ......Page 235 Conclusion. Two Phantom Women: Ruth Herschberger and Elizabeth Hawes ......Page 252 Notes ......Page 262 Secondary Criticism......Page 312 1940s Fiction......Page 318 1940s Nonfiction and Miscellaneous Books......Page 319 1940s Studies of Popular Culture......Page 320 1940s Gender and Sexuality......Page 321 Cartoons and Comics......Page 322 Films......Page 323 Records Released by Capitol......Page 324 Radio Programs......Page 325 Index ......Page 326 2015 CHOICE Outstanding Academic TitlePopular culture in the 1940s is organized as patriarchal theater. Men gaze upon, evaluate, and coerce women, who are obliged in their turn to put themselves on sexual display. In such a thoroughly patriarchal society, what happens to female sexual desire? Wolf-Women and Phantom Ladies unearths this female desire by conducting a panoramic survey of 1940s culture that analyzes popular novels, daytime radio serials, magazines and magazine fiction, marital textbooks, Hollywood and educational films, jungle comics, and popular music. In addition to popular works, Steven Dillon discusses many lesser-known texts and artists, including Ella Mae Morse, a key figure in the founding of Capitol Records, and Lisa Ben, creator of the first lesbian magazine in the United States. "Popular culture in the 1940s is organized as patriarchal theater. Men gaze upon, evaluate, and coerce women, who are obliged in their turn to put themselves on sexual display. In such a thoroughly patriarchal society, what happens to female sexual desire? Wolf-Women and Phantom Ladies unearths this female desire by conducting a panoramic survey of 1940s culture that analyzes popular novels, daytime radio serials, magazines and magazine fiction, marital textbooks, Hollywood and educational films, jungle comics, and popular music. In addition to popular works, Steven Dillon discusses many lesser-known texts and artists, including Ella Mae Morse, a key figure in the founding of Capitol Records, and Lisa Ben, creator of the first lesbian magazine in the United States." -SUNY Press Introduction. Sexual visibility, or, The duel in the sun Diana Trilling, female desire, and the study of popular culture The waiting room: female desire in women's wartime fiction He-wolves and she-wolves: from Tex Avery to Jackson Pollock Phantom ladies: on the radio and out of the closet White female desire wearing the masks of color What young women want: from high school to college The power and the horror: male and female cultural spaces Conclusion. Two phantom women: Ruth Herschberger and Elizabeth Hawes.