Appendix 3.1: Analytic methods - 6 films from 1954
age, class, race, nationality, occupation, and these are
indeed the categories routinely called on in representing the
self or the other in many discursive modes, including fiction.
In this group of films from 1954 the issue of race does not
occur; while this fact is clearly of interest in itself and
the absence of definition by race noted, the issue need not
concern me further with respect to this group of films. I
shall, however, maintain it as one of the queries in my
analyses of the major sample group. For the present I am left
with three terms, age, class and occupation which may be used
in my examination of the characters in these films.
These three terms, 'modes of definition', are all drawn upon
in establishing characters in all of the four groups, but
their importance varies: generally the characters in groups 1
and 2 are defined in more complex ways than those in groups 3
and 4. I shall consider first how these different definitive
modes are deployed in the four groups, and then discuss how
narrative development is signified in these terms.
Female Roles / Occupation
There are two questions to be considered here. Firstly, how
frequently are female characters defined by their occupations?
(I consider the character to be so defined if at any point the
audience may know what her occupation is). Secondly what
occupations are represented in this group of films - in other
words, when we see women working on the screen, in what forms
of work are they engaged?
Of the ten characters in groups 1 and 2, four have no apparent
occupation: these are Helen in The Glenn Miller Story, Helen
Mary in Rob Roy the Highland Roque, Portia in The Million
Pound Note, and Stella in Doctor in the House. In addition
the occupations of two more characters in these groups are
only tenuously defined. Margaret in Rob Roy is the mother of
the clan chief and maintains the large house which symbolises
this position. She also, crucially and by virtue of her class
position, engages in a limited amount of political intrigue on
behalf of her class - defined in the film as the aristocracy
of the general group 'Highlanders' opposed to the general
group 'English'. Edie Doyle in On the Waterfront is home on
holiday, for the duration of the film's action, from the
residential college where she is training to be a teacher. At
the end of the film she decides not to return to her studies,
thus implicitly giving up her possible future career. This
leaves four characters whose occupations are clearly defined.
Three of these are Maggie Hobson and her sisters Vicky and
Alice in Hobson's Choice and they all work in the family shoe
business: Maggie manages the shop and her two sisters are
sales assistants, both emphatically defined by their
reluctance to work. The fourth character is Joy Gibson in
Doctor in the House who is a nurse.
In group 3 definition by occupation is a factor for about half
the characters: examples are the wife of the restauranteur in
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