A blog on homosexual relationships in the time of King James I was published today by our own Dr Fiona McCall in the Conversation.
Fiona teaches the second year UoP option Underworlds: Crime, Deviance and Punishment in Britain, 1500-1900 which looks at sexual offences and attitudes in the early modern period. Her research looks at the relationship between sex and religion during the interregnum (amongst other things).
In this blog post, third year student Sophie McKee reflects on her poster presentation at the recent ‘Marginalised Histories’ conference at the University of York. We were excited when the conference came up and encouraged our students to apply, working with them on their proposals and securing funding to support attendance. This was a great chance to disseminate their research, experience another aspect of the world of the academic historian, and gain value experience to enhance their employability. We were therefore delighted that Sophie was accepted to present a poster, based on her dissertation research.
Fiona McCall has asked me to write a blog post about attending conferences. Now, I have only attended one conference, but within a few weeks that number is going to be pushing to two, so I thought now might be a time to reflect on the one that has been, and potentially psyche myself up for the one that is coming.
I study the AIDS crisis in 1980s and 1990s America. Often that elicits lots of questions, the most popular of which at the moment is: “have you seen the film Philadelphia?” to which I sigh heavily and say yes because I am well aware of the lack of representation on HIV/AIDS in popular culture. So, when the opportunity came up, to go to a conference on marginalised groups in history at the University of York I jumped at the chance. I am of the opinion that the AIDS crisis is one which not only is not academically investigated enough but is also not particularly known about in the UK. While the first cases of AIDS in the UK started around the early 1980s like in America, by the time that AIDS rose to national prominence in 1987 with the famous “AIDS: Don’t die of ignorance” campaign, there was a lot more information known about the disease.
For the conference, I was invited to present a poster. My dissertation examines the social and economic diversity of activists during the AIDS crisis. Many of the leading AIDS activists were middle class, white gay men who had previously been able to live within the closet and enjoy the privilege of “passing” as straight within the deeply homophobic social environment of 1980s America. Due to the physical manifestations of the disease, AIDS often forced people out of the closet and out of these powerful structures of privilege, forcing them to be marginalised. Modern discussions of this race and class element can often be problematic. At times, some voices online have attempted to apply their own ideas of diversity to the subject, when as we know, history doesn’t have the best track record of being the most equal. The “middle class, white gay man” trope can be used negatively and incorrectly when really, the men who were part of these organisations actively subverted expectations of privilege and class and fundamentally changed the way that the American Pharmaceutical companies tested and released AIDS medication to the market. While they do not conform to modern ideas of diversity, that does not mean that anyone is allowed to negate their achievements, for this is how history can be forgotten. This is what I was going to discuss in my poster.
One thing I loved about this experience was exactly what I have just done above. By being able to engage with my research, it gave me the opportunity to realise just how passionately felt about it. Lecturers, family, and friends would ask me what I was doing for this conference, and slowly but surely I had whittled down all this information that I had in my head to a few lines of a minute or so that I could succinctly explain what I was talking about and hearing it come out of my mouth made me feel more confident, I KNEW what I was talking about, it gave me pride in my work.
I will tell you this with love and for free. Academic posters are boring. They don’t have to be, we are studying some of the most fascinating things in the world but my goodness we don’t half make a boring poster. My poster was NOT going to be boring it was going to be COOL and FUN and MAKE A STATEMENT. Jokes aside, I was incredibly proud of the hard work I had put into it, so yes, I made it bold and hot pink and used the same font that AIDS activists used on their posters. This is because unlike a presentation, a poster needs to be eye-catching, and on the day of the conference, many people commented on the way it looked. (All of that thanks needs to go to my friend who helped me make it. Thanks, Bren!)
Mark Cleverly, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on the 1960 ‘New Wave’ film Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) for the Introduction to Historical Research module. Mark discusses how the film reveals much about changing social attitudes in the ‘swinging sixties’. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth.
The proverb ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ is certainly a cliché in the modern era, but it superficially highlights the value that can be found in visual sources. If a still image can muster this level of inquiry, then what of film and motion picture? The power of feature film to influence the classes and disseminate national culture was highlighted in the 1936 Moyne Committee Report, with it concluding that “[t]he propaganda value of the film cannot be over-emphasized.” [1] Jeffrey Richards identifies that there are three stages of investigation needed to use film as evidence, at least from a historian’s perspective. Firstly, “how its themes and ideas are conveyed by the script”. [2] Secondly, why it was made. Thirdly, how it was received. This blog will follow this process in reference to Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (hereafter Saturday Night). Looking at the messages in the film, the cultural shift that guided its production, and the censorship that influenced what was released to the audience are all of great value to the historian wishing to understand how great a cultural change occurred during the 1960s.
In order to understand the messages within the film’s script it is first necessary to be aware of the British ‘New Wave’ of cinema, the socially realistic “slice of life” that gained great appeal during the sixties. [3] It worked against the more common ‘collective experience’ and favoured characters that were ‘unique’ within their social group, as was Arthur Seaton in Saturday Night. [4] The idea of the documentary film can also be linked with the ‘New Wave’ and thus Saturday Night, as it emphasised “working-class or ‘problem’ subjects”. [5] This was very different from the escapism that previously dominated the cinema. [6] The film itself follows an episodic narrative of key moments that develop the character of Arthur Seaton. [7] As Brian McFarlane notes, “he is aggressive, crudely heroic in the face of a system bent on grinding him down; and there is the gloss of adventure and danger on him despite the oppressiveness of the system.” [8] Arthur is an anti-social rebel against the system, possibly one to be idealised by the audience. [9] As the story develops it becomes clear, through Arthur’s interaction with an ‘old-timer’ of the working class, that Arthur is more a common example of the new breed of working-class male than the ‘unique specimen’ that would be indicated by the film’s opening narration. [10] The final scene corroborates with this idea of a shared working-class experience when it pans to a “couple in shot [that] are not Arthur or Doreen but another unknown and anonymous pair,” giving the impression that the film was not solely based on the experiences of one man but rather can apply to many within the labouring classes. [11] It must also be noted that the opening narration is given (to begin with) over shots of the whole factory floor, further reinforcing the idea that this story is universal and that any one of the men could live through it.
Considering the realism of the ‘New Wave’ it is rather unsurprising that the film represents a very imbalanced dealing of consequences for the characters in the film. Arthur, who is someone who deserves to be taught a lesson, has very little in the way of comeuppance for his actions, whereas Brenda has to deal with an unwanted pregnancy as punishment for her deeds. [12] The film addresses this inequity of aftermath with only one line, “You’re getting off light, aren’t you?”. [13] Arthur Marwick reveals that the novel, from which the film was based, had a far more powerful feminist message that did not make the film’s final cut, perhaps due to censorship (the focal point of the next paragraph). Arthur’s beating and the successful termination of Brenda’s pregnancy were also left on the cutting-room floor, more evidence of outside influence impacting the message the film was attempting to promote. [14] In contrast to McFarlane’s suggestion that Arthur did not learn his lesson from the events of the film, the final scene shows his submission to the system that for the previous hour and a half he had rejected. [15] As Lay rightly concludes, Arthur accepts his fate, despite his throwing of a rock and promise to throw more seeming contrary to this concept. [16]
The censorship by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), as shown in the previous paragraph, in fact hindered the comeuppance of Arthur in order to comply with the four topics highlighted by the BBFC as an issue (those being language, sex scenes, the abortion, and the violent beating-up of Arthur). [17] Richards argues that John Trevelyan, Secretary of the BBFC from 1958 to 1971, allowed “adult films to deal with adult themes in a responsible fashion,” which suggests that the initial approach of Saturday Night in tackling these topics underlined by the BBFC was in no way responsible. [18] Unlike the film Alfie (1966), the danger of the abortion was not emphasized enough to comply with what the BBFC wanted, and therefore it did not appear in the release. [19] Contrary to what the censorship would suggest, the film itself was very different to what was produced in the previous decade; perhaps best shown by Sue Harper and Vincent Porter when they note, “[t]he differences between the structures of feeling in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and those in The Blue Lamp indicate the widespread change that took place”. [20]
As a visual source Saturday Night and Sunday Morning follows the ‘New Wave’ of films that dealt with issues of class and ‘problem subjects’ in a very different and contrasting way than had been done before. [21] It is for this reason it has great value in both understanding the social and cultural shifts that had occurred during this period, and seeing the impact of these shift on institutions such as the BBFC and on film. This is not unique to Saturday Night as the majority of films from the early days of the Silent era to the modern blockbusters from Hollywood shed light on contemporary issues and cultural changes. Furthermore, the meaning of older films can change as time passes, with new interpretations emerging from audiences, historians and critics alike. As stated by Richards “[i]t is a truism that films change their meaning with the passage of time, with changes in the nature and assumptions of the audience” and it is this that gives film as a visual source a self-renewing sense of place in historiography. [22]
NOTES
[1] Jeffrey Richards, “Film and Television: the moving image”, in History Beyond the Text: A Student’s Guide to Approaching Alternative Sources, ed. Sarah Barber and Corinna Peniston-Bird (London: Routledge, 2010), 74.
[2] Ibid., 76.
[3] Samantha Lay, British Social Realism: From Documentary to Brit-Grit (London: Wallflower Press, 2002), 5.
[4] John Hill, Sex, Class and Realism: British Cinema 1956-1963 (London: British Film Institute, 1986), 138.
[5] Julian Petley, “The Lost Continent”, in All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema, ed. Charles Barr (London: British Film Institute, 1986), 101.
[6] Lay, British Social Realism, 62.
[7] Andrew Higson, “Britain’s Outstanding Contribution to the Film: The documentary-realist tradition,” in All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema, ed. Charles Barr (London: British Film Institute, 1986), 93.
[8] Brian McFarlane, “A Literary Cinema? British Films and British Novels,” in All Our Yesterdays: 90 Years of British Cinema, ed. Charles Barr (London: British Film Institute, 1986), 138.
[9] Arthur Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy, and the United States, c.1958-c.1974 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 133.
[10] Hill, Sex, Class and Realism, 155.
[11] Ibid., 137.
[12] Lay, British Social Realism, 72.
[13] Marwick, The Sixties, 133.
[14] Ibid., 131.
[15] McFarlane, “A Literary Cinema?”, 139. See also; Lay, British Social Realism, 71.
[16] Lay, British Social Realism, 73.
[17] Marwick, The Sixties, 131.
[18] Jeffrey Richards, “British Film Censorship,” in The British Cinema Book, ed. Robert Murphy (London: British Film Institute, 1997), 174.
[19] Marwick, The Sixties: Cultural, 131.
[20] Sue Harper, and Vincent Porter, British Cinema of the 1950s: The Decline of Deference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 248.
[21] Petley, “The Lost Continent”, 101.
[22] Richards, “Film and Television”, 75.
Rachel Savage, a second year History student at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog entry on letters sent between author Charlotte Brontë and her friend Ellen Nussey, for the Introduction to Historical Research module. Rachel reveals how personal sources like this can be used to gain insight into the emotions of women living in the 19th century Britain. The module is co-ordinated by Dr Maria Cannon, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Portsmouth.
Charlotte Brontё was born in 1816 and grew up in a society which compelled her to conceal her gender with the pseudonym Currer Bell in order to initiate her successful writing career. [1] The suppressive lives women experienced in the Victorian period led Charlotte to form a close relationship with Ellen Nussey. [2] It is the closeness of this relationship that will be explored in this blog, as some historians, such as Rebecca Jennings, believe their relationship to have been a romantic one. [3] The primary sources used to debate this question are two letters that Charlotte wrote to Ellen in 1836 and 1837. [4] The analysis of these letters is crucial to this question and the extent to which these letters are useful as a piece of historical research will also be discussed.
It is evident from these letters that Charlotte cared greatly for Ellen as there is an abundance of emotive language which expresses Charlotte’s honest feelings, for example, “what shall I do without you?”, and “I long to be with you.” [5] Rachel Fuchs and Victoria Thompson argue that these expressions are not evidence of a romantic relationship, as in this time period women would form very close bonds and their letters would contain the topics of “their joys, their loves and their bodies.” [6] Therefore, the intimate nature of these letters may be evidence of how two friends felt they could truly be honest with each other rather than being evidence of a romantic relationship. However, it is interesting to consider that Charlotte herself was concerned that her letters to Ellen were too passionate and might be condemned. [7] This suggests that their relationship was a romantic one. Arguably one of the most passionate sentences in the 1837 letter – “we are in danger of loving each other too well” – could suggest that Charlotte and Ellen were on the brink of a romantic relationship and were in fear of that relationship developing. Because Victorian women were expected to have no sexual desires, the idea that two women could be having a romantic relationship was completely unacceptable to society. [8] Thus, Charlotte and Ellen may have feared the consequences of a romantic relationship developing.
These letters further highlight the context of Victorian society in which men were perceived to be superior. This limited the possibility of Ellen and Charlotte ever living together, most clearly captured in the lines, “Ellen I wish I could live with you always”, and “we might live and love on till Death without being dependent on any third person for happiness.” [9] Here Charlotte refers to a third person being a man, as in Victorian society women were completely dependent on men economically as they were the sole earners and therefore for women in a same-sex romantic relationship they faced economic barriers when it came to establishing a home together. [10] Consequently, for “novelist Charlotte Brontё and her lifelong romantic friend, Ellen Nussey, a joint home remained an unattainable dream.” [11] The fact that Charlotte and Ellen desired to live with one another suggests a romantic nature to their relationship. This is further emphasised when Ellen’s brother Henry proposed to Charlotte in 1839; Charlotte considered accepting in order to live with Ellen, but ultimately she could not accept the proposal. [12] The mere fact that Charlotte considered the proposal suggests her immense desire to live with Ellen, although as she writes in her 1836 letter that she wanted to live with Ellen without the dependence of a third person. Subsequently, this may have led her to decline the proposal. [13] As well as this, Jennings suggests women feared “that marriage would limit their independence further and restrict their access to their female friends.” [14] This was certainly the case for Charlotte when she married Arthur Bell Nicholls in 1854, as he prevented Charlotte and Ellen meeting on occasions and he read all of Charlotte’s letters before she sent them to Ellen. [15] Furthermore, the significance of Charlotte rejecting Henry’s proposal in 1839 suggests that the desire to live with Ellen in 1836 was still a dream to which Charlotte clung.
It is also important to illuminate the positives and limitations of using these letters to gain a true historical representation of Charlotte Brontё. The use of letters for historical research is helpful because, as Miriam Dobson suggests, they offer a true representation of the authors feelings. [16] It is unlikely that Charlotte would have been dishonest with Ellen especially as they had such a close relationship, whether it be romantic or not. However, Alistair Thomson argues that “every source is constructed and [a] selective representation of experience.” [17] Subsequently, although Charlotte is likely to be honest within this source she would also have been selective in what she wrote. This is especially significant to these letters. If Charlotte did have a romantic relationship with Ellen, she had to be careful how explicitly she expressed her love for her, for if someone other than Ellen had read these letters they could both face social exclusion from society. It is this selectivity that causes historians such as Jennings, Fuchs and Thompson to debate whether Charlotte and Ellen actually had a romantic relationship. Although, these letters offer a clear insight into the personal life of Charlotte Brontё and her thoughts and feelings, it is also important to remember that letters are a response to a previous interaction. [18] Consequently, these letters cannot be considered in isolation, as Ellen’s responses are also important to the creation of Charlotte’s image and presentation of herself.
In summary, by considering these letters historians can gain a deeper insight into the personal relations that Charlotte had and how she constructed her self-image to Ellen with the influence and constraints placed on her in society in which she could not openly express her love for Ellen. It is certainly clear that Charlotte would be honest and express her deepest thoughts and desires with Ellen. The question of Charlotte’s lesbianism is in no way conclusive, as more letters would need to be analysed especially those by Ellen. However, it is likely they may have desired a lesbian relationship, but the social constraints were too restricting to do so.
Notes
[1] Dinah Birch, “Charlotte Brontë”, in The Brontёs in Context ed. Marianne Thormählen. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 65.
[2] Eugene Charlton Black, “Sexual Roles: Victorian Progress?”, in Victorian Culture and Society ed. Eugene Charlton Black. (London: Macmillan, 1973), 385.
[3] Rebecca Jennings, A Lesbian History of Britain: Love and Sex between Women Since 1500 (Oxford: Greenwood World, 2007), 51.
[4] Charlotte Brontё, “C.Brontё letters to Ellen Nussey, 1836”Alison Oram and Annmarie Turnbull, The Lesbian History Sourcebook: Love and Sex Between Women in Britain from 1780-1970 (New York: Routledge, 2001), 60-61.
[5] Brontë, “C. Brontë”, 61.
[6] Rachel G. Fuchs and Victoria E. Thompson, Women in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 38.
[7] Jennings, Lesbian, 53.
[8] Fuchs and Thompson, Women, 40-41.
[9] Brontë, “C. Brontë”, 61.
[10] Jennings, Lesbian, 51.
[11] Jennings, Lesbian, 51-52.
[12] Jennings, Lesbian, 53.
[13] Brontë, “C. Brontë”, 61.
[14] Jennings, Lesbian, 53.
[15] Jennings, Lesbian, 53-54.
[16] Miriam Dobson, “Letters”, in Reading Primary Sources: The Interpretation of Texts from Nineteenth and Twentieth Century History ed. Miriam Dobson and Benjamin Ziemann. (New York: Routledge, 2009), 60.
[17] Alistair Thomson, “Life Stories and Historical Analysis”, in Research Methods for History ed. Lucy Faire and Simon Gunn. (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), 102.
[18] Dobson, “Letters”, 69
Rory Herbert, final year History student and President of the History Society at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog on the 1980s AIDS crisis and the homophobic behaviour it triggered. Rory is a Gale Ambassador at the university and contributes to The Gale Review Blog. The role of the Gale Ambassador is to increase awareness of the Gale primary source collections available to students at their university. The University Of Portsmouth Library hosts a large collection of Gale primary sources which History students can use when undertaking archival research for their dissertations and other research projects.
During the early 1980s, AIDS became an ever-growing concern in the minds of Americans, and brought to the fore the deep-seated tensions and homophobic tendencies that plagued the nation’s media and political institutes. Gale’s Archives of Sexuality & Gender provides access to a wealth of sources that help us to understand the issues and struggles experienced by these long-oppressed and ignored members of society during a particularly trying period.
To read the rest of Rory’s blog, click here.