America's Lollipop Licking Tease: The Eroticization of the Female Child in 1930s Film

This dissertation examines the eroticization of female children in film during the 1930s as a mechanism for concealing troubling realities of the Great Depression in the United States. The repressed sexuality embedded in the plots of Post Hays Code movies featuring Shirley Temple and characters such as Stella Dallas, Dorothy Gale, and Scarlett O'Hara serve to suture over a crisis of masculinity triggered by changing roles in gender, race, and class. By attempting to invoke the image of a "little girl" in place of that of a grown woman, some films (such as Gone With the Wind, and Bright Eyes) do a better job of masking these abruptions than do other others (such as Stella Dallas and The Wizard of Oz).

Name thesis:degree_name

PhD

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2014

Author dc:creator

• Lantz, Susan Jennings

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dennis W. Allen
• Laura Brady
• Anna Elfenbein
• John B. Lamb
• Janice S. Spleth

• American studies
• Film studies
• Gender studies

Identifier

https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/461

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:researchrepository.wvu.edu:etd-1464