I'll Be Seeing You (1944), which we covered in this previous post, and also in this one, features this scene of Ginger Rogers and Spring Byington cleaning the living room.
Can you think of any other classic films where the characters are seen doing everyday housecleaning chores -- who don't happen to be servants, just housework in their own home?
4 comments:
Charlie Ruggles as a millionaire trying to make a bed in It Happened on 5th Avenue is a hoot!
Mrs. Hardy and Aunt Milly are often seen puttering about the kitchen in the Hardy family movies.
Elsa Lanchester as the mom in Lassie Come Home did a lot of wiping and swiping in their tidy cottage.
Good eye for the housecleaning, CW. The thing I especially liked about I'LL BE SEEING YOU is pulling out the couch cushions and vacuuming. No mention of finding coins in between the cushsions, but I like to think Ginger found a nickel or two.
I am thinking of the significance of portraying women doing household chores in these films. Was it done deliberately to portray the ideal woman as one who takes care of the house? I guess that this was done to assign specific gender roles to males and females.
I suppose in the case of this particular character, it's used to show her desire to be part of the simplest, most every day aspects of life and freedom from prison - a "normal" life which she thinks she will never have now. Interestingly, Hollywood may have touted the homemaker as the ideal woman, but it never glamourized her; it shone glamour on all the career women in films instead.
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