The Spectacular Modern Woman: Feminine Visibility in the 1920s

Spectacular Woman: Visibility In the 1920s. By Liz Conor. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2004. Pp. xx+334, ISBN 0-253-21670-2) This book is a study of women and their interaction with popular culture in 1920s Australia. book focuses on the woman as a spectacle (hence Spectacular Woman), especially in postwar industrialisation with readily available magazines and newspapers and the increased disposable income for working women that enabled them to buy advertised products. About these images of women, Conor states: Visual representations of women may construct a range of meanings, imaging them as anything from willing victims of male violence to assertive feminist heroines. However, across this spectrum of meanings there remains one constant: images of women are always producing meanings of women's visibility. Consequently, feminine subjectivity has come to be increasingly performed within the visual register (xv) Following an introduction and a chapter entitled The Status of the Woman-Object, Conor arranges the book in two parts: The Scene and Modern Appearing Women, each consisting of three chapters. former discusses The City Girl, The ScreenStruck Girl, and The Mannequin, while the latter deals with The Beauty Contestant, The Primitive Woman, and The Flapper. This is followed by her conclusion, Feminine Identity and Visual Culture. One drawback of the book is that it focuses solely on Australian culture, which is not immediately made clear. At some points this research is backed by sources from elsewhere, and similar findings from other countries are held up comparatively, but by and large this book draws on images in Australian city newspapers as an interesting merge of popular culture perspectives and feminist theory. Some aspects of the book are quite unique; Australia has a complicated past in terms of their treatment of indigenous peoples which Conor addresses in her chapter The Primitive Woman in the Late Colonial Scene. Although there are historical differences, due to some possible parallels this chapter may hold interest for those studying the Aboriginal people of North America. In the introduction, Conor sets that stage for her approach in her discussion of Australian film actress Lotus Thompson. Thompson went to Hollywood in the hopes of pursuing a film career; however, she had various roles as a leg model or body double for other actresses. Apparently frustrated with her career, she poured acid on her legs in order to disfigure them, an event that Conor calls a poignant and desperate protest against her treatment within these new conditions of women's public visibility (1). Conor's ultimate point, here, is that filmmakers were often creating collages of women from several actresses, and creating unreal expectations for women (and men) viewing these images. Furthermore, women had more participation in the film scene, but their images were reproduced in a very controlled and manipulated way. Although valid points, especially for modern times when filmmakers make use of digitally enhanced images and body doubles, building on this incident is problematic because although it is legendary it may be historically inaccurate (and possibly a publicity stunt). Conor uses the term appearing, which she attributes to feminist philosopher Judith Butler. crux of the argument here is that there is more at work in these images than simply the objectification of women, that the images changed the perception of women and created a new modern woman. It seems that to say this was the start of the visual objectification of women in the mass media would be true, but folly, because certain women took these images and perceptions and used them for their own purposes and meanings much the same way we do today, creating a bricolage. …

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