Frozen in Time
Gender, Fan Culture, and a Young Widow’s Icy Terrain
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12918395 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christine Scodari (Florida Atlantic University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 1 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 143-162 |
| Publication date | 2008-06-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Communication Culture and Critique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1753-9137 • E-ISSN: 1753-9129 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1753-9137.2008.00016.x |
| OpenAlex | W2054956440 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
In the opening scenes of Douglas Sirk’s 1955 melodrama All That Heaven Allows (Hunter & Sirk, 1955), the precocious, college-aged daughter of the movie’s heroine describes the ancient Egyptian custom of “walling up the widow alive in the funeral chambers of her dead husband along with his other possessions, the theory being that she was a possession, too.” When she adds that “it doesn’t happen any more,” her widowed mother, played by Jane Wyman, asks wryly, “Doesn’t it?” As the film depicts, metaphorical walls still circumscribe the cultural and economic spaces inhabited by widows. This occurs in particularly telling ways for those whose late husbands, and/or the manner in which they died, are public and iconic. According to Bird (1992), supermarket tabloids sanitized the image of the late President John F. Kennedy after revelations of his marital infidelity, preferring to render him as the “heroic lover” while
Art · Art history · Heaven · Literature · Possession (linguistics · Cinema and Media Studies · History · Media, Gender, and Advertising · Music History and Culture · Philosophy
| Highly cited | No |
|---|