December 20, 2024

• director dorothy arzner, one of two prominent female directors of this time, was a lesbian!!! she spent 40 years of her life with choreographer marion morgon!!!

• with this in mind, i would say there is some delightful queercoding in this (particularly helen, who spends her run time studying and expressing her distaste in boys, though it's also blatant in bow's character, despite the entire film being about her relationship with a man). i al… read the rest.

• director dorothy arzner, one of two prominent female directors of this time, was a lesbian!!! she spent 40 years of her life with choreographer marion morgon!!!

• with this in mind, i would say there is some delightful queercoding in this (particularly helen, who spends her run time studying and expressing her distaste in boys, though it's also blatant in bow's character, despite the entire film being about her relationship with a man). i also think that, despite many typical tropes, you can feel the woman's touch radiating from this (particularly in how the women interact, and how the school itself was built by a woman despite what people said of her).

• dorothy arzner is credited as the inventor of the boom mic!!! she put a microphone at the end of a fishing rod to allow clara bow to move around more on set!!! A LESBIAN INVENTED THE BOOM MIC !!!

• speaking of clara bow, this is her first talkie!!! and as much as i know she hated talkies, i love her voice so much. your accent is adorable, sorry queen!

• also because this is such an early talkie, there are SO many silent film aspects in this, like title cards, and long shots on bow that allow her to do a lot of the acting she's used to. yes, it means a lot of this movie is clunky, but it makes it very endearing too.

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