I figure...

I don't even know if anyone bothers reading this, but I figure I might as well update it. I'm in a film class right now, as I mentioned before. So, I'm just going to post a small portion of my paper I wrote for class on here. It's discussing Pre-Code films.

Baby Face (1933) is intriguing in its treatment of both race and gender. While in many ways catering to the ideas of proscribed gender and race roles, the film simultaneously functions to undermine the legitimacy of those same roles. Take, for example, the character of Chico, Lily’s African American maid. One can easily see the standard race roles of the time in this arrangement (Chico is in a servile role, a servant much like the traditional slave role for African American women). However, from the moment the two women are shown together on-screen, it is clear to the audience that their relationship is distinct from the norm. This is clear when Lily’s father attempts to fire Chico, to which Lily responds vehemently, “If Chico goes, I go,” and “If I stay here, Chico stays too.” She does the same later in the film when one of her suitors suggests she gets rid of Chico.

In Pre-Code Hollywood Doherty says, “In more civilized quarters, the byplay between master and servant or mistress and maid often breached the boundaries of race and rank with an affectionate informality” (277). This breach of boundaries is quite clear throughout Baby Face in the way the two women interact and Lily’s profound loyalty to Chico throughout the film. Of this particular relationship Doherty states, “Likewise, the one redeeming quality of the ruthless Lily in Baby Face (1933) is her loyalty to her black companion Chico (Theresa Harris)” (277). It is true that the relationship between Chico and Lily is close, almost sisterly, and it is also true that this affection of sorts shows Lily to be more human than would otherwise be suggested by her behavior throughout the film. However, one must take issue with Doherty’s characterization of Lily as “ruthless” and as being without any other redeeming quality. Clearly, Doherty is projecting personal sentiments about the character of Lily into his otherwise objective discussion of race in pre-code era film. One must wonder, if an author in 1999 could maintain such negative views of such an intriguing and unique character as Lily, what would audiences have thought of her in the 1930s? Or even further, what would censors have said? Clearly this film was by its very concept a violation of the code, not to mention would have been a major problem for the Legion of Decency and other such agencies. The Legion of Decency Pledge from 1934 states, “I condemn absolutely those salacious motion pictures, which, with other degrading agencies, are corrupting public morals and promoting a sex mania in our land” (287). Because Lily goes through the film following the encouragement of a friend and Nietzsche to “use men” to get what she wants from life, which essentially means to use her body and sex to her advantage, this film from beginning to end would be a thorn in the side of the Legion of Decency.