Mark Pizzato wonders:





> Could anyone provide a brief definition of "woman's melodrama" as opposed to

> other types of melodramatic films in the 40s (and today), including film

> noir?  I've been rereading E. Ann Kaplan's MOTHERHOOD AND REPRESENTATION:

> THE MOTHER IN POPULAR CULTURE AND MELODRAMA.  But as a theatre historian,

> it's difficult for me to understand why in film studies the term "melodrama"

> is so often reserved for woman's films of the 40s.   Aren't Westerns and

> gangster films, as well as films noir, also melodramas--with clear-cut good

> and evil characters, and with the triumphant violence of the hero over the

> villain justified in the happy ending?

>

> Is that still the paradigm for woman's (or maternal) melodramas, although

> such films speak from a woman's position rather than a man's?





The term "melodrama" is indeed problematic and is frequently used in

film criticism alone in rather different ways to describe rather

different objects. Thomas Elsaesser discusses some of the historical

context of the term in "Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations of the

Family Melodrama" (in Barry Keith Grant, FILM GENRE READER II) but even

then uses the term for a group of films rather broader than the

"women's film" as such.  Thomas Schatz in HOLLYWOOD GENRES also uses

the term rather broadly (as "family melodrama") but focuses on examples

of the 1950s, including such things as PICNIC.



Molly Haskell, in FROM REVERENCE TO RAPE, has a whole chapter on "the

women's film" (aka "tearjerkers," "weepies," et al.)  Haskell moves

away from the use of "melodrama" as such and defines the "woman's film"

thematically, within four categories involving sacrifice, affliciton,

choice, or competition.  These cases, it can be noted, often end

somewhat short of the kind of clear-cut characters and triumph of good

over evil described above. Andrea Walsh in WOMEN'S FILM AND FEMALE

EXPERIENCE: 1940-1950 sees "melodrama" as one of many generic subsets

within "women's film."  That, I suppose, does not make the definition

of "melodrama" any easier.



That being said, I think that Haskell's definition is as good as any of

a certain historically-based type of film that involved certain

marketing techniques and certain stars (Davis, Crawford, Stanwyck,

etc.).  If a western or gangster film was "melodramatic" in form, it

would still be interesting to see how popular (and industry?) usage

directed the term instead toward this specific type and how the term

evolves to or diverges from the more recent emergence of the

"chickflick" as a particular type.



Don Larsson



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Donald Larsson

Minnesota State U, Mankato

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