Omitting a Classic

Over the last few weeks (while researching my final paper and writing my midterm), I have been drawn back to Gaines' discussion of the omission of women filmmakers in 1970s feminist film theory. I have been researching Where Are My Children? (1916), Lois Weber's film that was recently added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry and, after reviewing primary source material, I have become astutely aware of the incredibly accepted place that Lois Weber held in the film culture of the early 1910s. As someone who had studied feminist film theory and gender throughout my undergraduate work, I was as shocked as Gaines to hear (then to find out for myself and then hear again from Mark G. Cooper) that women did, in fact, play quite significant roles in the silent film industry. It was equally as amazing, then, to find articles from as late as April 9, 1936 which cite Lois Weber's films as "classics" (E.V. Durling for the Los Angeles Times).

Why would a movement dedicated to discussing women in the film industry ignore such reviews? Why would these aspects not be celebrated? The answer seems to be, in Gaines' words, "a question of what [feminist film theory of the 1970s] needed to achieve." This presents a rather significant claim and an argument that is inherently related to Fischer's discussion of fallacious activity.

Yet, even within Gaines' argument, we are presented with contradictory possibilities. By presenting us with the idea that the feminist movement had left out women filmmakers to "achieve" something, Gaines points us towards an understanding of 1970s feminism as deceptive. At the same time, however, Gaines also discusses the possibility that feminism may have lacked knowledge regarding silent-era women filmmakers because of a historical deficit of information (discussed as a "map of cinema history"). Although Gaines doesn't present us with a clear-cut answer to the apparent fallacies at work in 1970s feminist film theory, she reminds us that it is vital to closely examine any and every source rather than accepting common conceptions or claims as correct. While my own research has (thus far) worked to substantiate Gaines' argument, I have found the idea of cross examination and breadth of sources crucial to a comprehensive understanding of a director that, according to Gaines' interpretation, never existed in the eyes of 1970s feminist film theory.

-Russell Sheaffer