The Representation of Women and Female Mobility in Hungarian Films between 1931 and 1944

Abstract

Györgyi Vajdovich’s article aims to describe the representation of female roles in Hungarian feature films of the period 1931 to 1944. The study is based on the analysis of the database that was created within the framework of the research project The Social History of Hungarian Cinema. Concentrating on the representation of female protagonists, this article first analyses the presence and prevalence of female figures in all Hungarian sound films (up until 2015). Then it narrows the scope of analysis to films produced between 1931 and 1944, and describes the typical professions and social and financial positions of female protagonists, as compared to those of male protagonists. The second half of the text examines the representation of female upward mobility in comedies – showing that according to the popular myths of the era, female upward mobility is principally realized through good marriage, with the narratives of the films rarely presenting the professional success of female protagonists and their possibilities of emancipation. Analysing the narrative patterns and gender roles in the films of the time, the text concludes that the narratives of female ascension, which mostly took form in comedies, reflected the desire of middle-class people to transgress the social and financial boundaries in society. As such, the films served to maintain and strengthen the patriarchal order of the era.