The Silenced Movies: The Oppression of Women in the Film Industry From the Golden Age of Hollywood to the Rights Revolution

Abstract

This Thesis explores how the major film corporations, with their financial, political, and contractual power, were able to exploit its female contract workers with impunity from the Golden Age of Hollywood through the Rights Revolution. A legal analysis of this relationship between the major film corporation executives and their female contract workers in Hollywood is derived largely through a close reading of women's contracts and the implications they had on their autonomy within the socio-political context of Hollywood during their time at the studios. The findings in this Thesis demonstrate how the studios' power, in tandem with the existing legal disabilities of women in the United States, allowed for not only the legal oppression of women, but also for the studios' illegal activities to evade culpability in the justice system over time.