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Glamour In Contemporary American Cinema, Shauna A. Maragh

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

American cinematic glamour shapes hegemonic notions of femininity, beauty, performativity, sensuality, and sexuality for both female actresses and viewers. In addition, glamour has an economic component in encouraging women to buy products, such as clothing and makeup, to help them emulate their idols from cinema. Glamour is more than beauty and notoriety: it is achieved through careful stylization of tangible aspects—hair, clothes, makeup—and intangible, cinematic elements—performance, dialog, lighting, and camera techniques. In Classical Hollywood, traditionally white standards of beauty were often exalted as glamorous, and many leading roles were played by racialized white actresses; however, actresses of color were frequently …