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ABSTRACT
In this essay I explore two recent ‘reparative biopics,’ Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019) and Seberg (Benedict Andrews, 2019), which share features found in the resurgent cycle of 1960s-set ‘back studio’ films that have appeared in the wake of feminist criticism of mainstream Hollywood. Although positioned very differently in terms of genre (as biopic and counterfactual history respectively) and in their creative engagement with the cultural and political history of the late 1960s, both are notable for the way they deal with the real female stars at the centre of their stories, Sharon Tate and Jean Seberg. While each film seems to be seeking reparation for the past, their approach ultimately recuperates the women into a mythic discourse of the ‘radical sixties’ in which masculine agency and homosocial bonds are privileged. I argue that these films rehearse familiar biopic conventions to depict the blonde female star as tragic victim, not only of history but also of her own inherent frailty.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Perhaps ironically, Tate appeared in the exploitation film, Valley of the Dolls (Mark Robson, 1967), which was itself marketed as an exposé of Hollywood’s abuse of actresses.
2. For a comprehensive discussion of biopics of female stars see Dennis Bingham’s Whose Lives Are They Anyway? The Biopic as Contemporary Film Genre (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers University Press, 2010). For work on Amy Winehouse’s depiction in Amy see Hannah Andrews, ‘From unwilling celebrity to authored icon: reading Amy (Kapadia, 2015),’ Celebrity Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, Summer 2017, pp. 351–354; Bronwyn Polaschek, ‘The dissonant personas of a female celebrity: Amy and the public self of Amy Winehouse,’ Celebrity Studies, Vol. 9, No. 1, Spring Citation2018, pp. 17–33.
3. This narrative has become increasingly familiar through its circulation and reiteration within popular media and especially Hollywood’s own trade press, such as Variety. See, for example Casting-Couch Tactics Plagued Hollywood Before Harvey Weinstein – Variety
4. It should also be noted that the use of a female star’s first name as the title of such biopics and documentaries (as in Amy, Judy, Marilyn) also works to reinforce her positioning as passive or infantilised.
5. One further example of this is the 2019 biopic of Judy Garland, Judy (Rupert Goold), which combines both the tendencies I identify, although its subject is clearly not blonde in any literal sense. It is set mainly in 1969, the last year of Garland’s life and the period of her lengthy sojourn in London at The Talk of the Town cabaret, thus affording a late sixties backdrop that chimes with the revived interest noted above. The film also frames its ‘present day’ narrative within flashbacks of Garland’s bullying at the hands of Louis B Mayer as a child star in the 1930s. These devices are presumably intended to speak to contemporary consciousness about child abuse and to position Garland within that paradigm. Yet the idea of Judy Garland as the fragile victim of a brutalising studio system is itself always already a key element in the Garland myth and is even close to defining her. Richard Dyer’s essay on Garland in Heavenly Bodies (London: BFI/Macmillan,1987) is very good on this, noting that by the 1950s Garland was a star with ‘a special relationship to suffering’ (143). See also Karen McNally’s The Stardom Film: Creating the Hollywood Fairy Tale. Wallflower Press, 2021.
6. Jayne Mansfield’s pneumatic progress down a city street filled with goggle-eyed men in The Girl Can’t Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1956) is the comedic epitome of this trope, while Monroe’s performance of ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’ in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Howard Hawks, 1953) is perhaps its most essential expression.
7. For more on Hawn’s remarkable longevity as a ‘dumb blonde’ see Tincknell, ‘Goldie Hawn: An Ageless Blonde for the Baby Boomer Generation,’ in Ageing, Performance and Stardom: Doing Age on the Stage of Consumer Culture, eds. Aagje Swinnen and John A Stotesbury (Berlin and Zurich: Lit Verlag, Citation2012), 93–108.
8. Harron’s film is based on The Long Prison Journey of Leslie Van Houten, by Karlene Faith, and this source and its director’s queer and feminist credentials ensure a very different approach to the Manson story to that of Tarantino.
9. ‘Pussycat’ is based on Ruth Ann Moorehouse, a member of the Manson gang.
10. The character is based on Steve ‘Clem’ Grogan, a member of the Manson gang.
11. This is not to suggest that other stars did not share this hairstyle. Mia Farrow, another blonde ‘waif’ also associated with Polanski, was famous for her elfin crop.
12. Indeed, in Mackie’s performance Jamal is a thoughtful, sympathetic character, the film’s main mediator of political insight, and appears in stark contrast to the way he has been remembered in historical accounts. Jamal was committed to a mental asylum after two attempted murders before his conversion to Islam and name change from Allen Donaldson. He was later involved with a British model, Gale Benson, who was murdered by two of his and Michael X’s associates in Trinidad.
13. In fact, according to an article in the Los Angeles Times (Susan King, 26 February 2020) Seberg’s close female friend Diane Baker, an actress and producer, had introduced her to Jamal and remained in touch with her throughout the ordeal of FBI surveillance and smears.
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Estella Tincknell
Estella Tincknell is Associate Professor in Film and Culture at the University of the West of England, Bristol, United Kingdom. She has published widely in the areas of film, media and cultural studies, and was a Bristol city councillor between 2013 and 2021,during which time she was Cabinet Member for Culture. Her most recent publications include essays on the Bond film Quantum of Solace (forthcoming), on race, class and cultural politics in Vogue magazine (2020), and on sex crime, class and masculinity in early 1960s British cinema (2021). She is currently working on a book on masculinity, modernity and myth in British film and television crime narratives.