The temptation of performing cuteness

Shirley Temple’s birthday parties during the Great Depression

Bibliographic Data

ID12690232
AuthorsNatalie Ngai (0000-0001-8942-5053, University of Michigan, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume23
Issue7
Pages3091-3105
Publication date2022-07-13
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFeminist Media Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1468-0777 • E-ISSN: 1471-5902
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14680777.2022.2098800
OpenAlexW4285086948
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited21

This study uncovers the national deployment of cuteness in the multi-year birthday celebrations of the enormously popular child star Shirley Temple during the Great Depression in the United States. These widely publicized media events promoted the ideology of consumerism through Shirley Temple’s brand cuteness, addressing the prevailing anxieties about poverty and patriarchal capitalism in the 1930s. Moreover, Shirley’s brand of cuteness necessitated material protection for the child by promoting that if the little girl is “cute”—––innocent, pure, vulnerable, and loyal to the father figures–––, the adult would love her and indulge her with material abundance. Shirley Temple epitomizes girly cuteness and embodies the hope of girls and women for being rewarded by patriarchy. I use archival research and textual analysis to investigate how Fox film studio packaged Shirley’s stardom around her birthdays in her movies, media profiles, and publicity stunts between 1934 and 1940. The primary sources include Shirley’s movies, mainstream newspapers, women’s magazines, fan magazines, and the motion pictures trade press. This study fuses cuteness theories with girls’ studies to discuss the temptations for girls and women to perform cuteness

Anger · Art · Disgust · Ideology · Literature · Mainstream · Media studies · Newspaper · Political science · Politics · Romance · Sociology · Temptation · Cinema and Media Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Psychology · Social Psychology

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