There were lots of progressive things in this movie but having an open Tomboy in the 40s was one of my favs. She was one of my favorite characters, i hated that she died so soon. I would have loved to see how she would have turned out all grown up!
shareThere wasn't anything unusual about that. A lot of little Girls were Tomboys in those Days. The only difference was unlike Today there wasn't anything made about Her sexuality, and labeling Her.
shareBut did films back then in the 40s show Tomboys like that like this film did?
shareOf course they did! In "Bright Eyes", though she's wearing pretty dresses, Jane Withers' bratty rich girl is extremely tomboyish, wanting a tommy gun intstead of a girl's toy and playing "trainwreck" with the adorable tyke Shirley (Shirley Temple) as her target. She races around much more in a boyish fashion.
Tomboys were fairly common. Often, in scenes of childhood in movies of the '30s-'50s, even into the '60s, the tomboyish girl would show up later as the pretty girl all of the guys were after. Check out "Billie" starring Patty Duke.
My sister was especially tomboyish iin the Fifties; while I wasn't quite as rough and tumble, I played with cap guns and Cowboys & Indians. She especially liked being Rin Tin Tin. *giggle* We grew up in a neighborhoodful of boys, and I know being a tomboy wasn't put down and certainly never would have been labeled the way warped minds do today. We also loved our dolls and pretty dresses, "girly stuff". BTW: My mom taught all of us, including the boys, how to embroidery, and the boy across the street was especially good at that. There were far fewer prejudices then than now, when every little thing is misjudged by screwed-up minds that see "pedos" and "gay" everywhere.
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^^Thank you! I'm going to check those movies out.
shareFor a very dramatic one, check out "The Lion" starring Pamela Franklin. She actually looks like a little boy as a child raised by her game warden stepfather and her mother in Africa.
Scout in "To Kill a Mockingbird" also is a tomboy; I don't recall if she's been mentioned already.
Anna Chlumsky of "My Girl" portrays a very tough tomboy who befriends the new girl in town in "Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain".
Someone once asked for a list of "tomgirl"/tomboyish girls films, and there were so many of them I hadn't thought of. He ended up with at least 100 movies.
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^^^Thanx!
shareOne of the most famous tomboys is Jo in "Little Women" though, because of that time period, can't be quite as rough around the edges as some might be allowed.
In "Wild Boys of the Road", the boys who have run away to find work to help their families during the Great Depression encounter a girl who is dressed as a boy in hopes of finding work, too. I guess circumstances force her to do that.
As I said before, in many films of the Thirties and Forties, they generally had the rough-and-tumble girl in childhood scenes who later grew up into the neighborhood beauty. That's popular even now, such as Winnie Cooper blossoms on the first day of school in "Wonder Years".
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^^Cool, any of them actually remain a Tomboy even after they're grown?
shareWhile Jo does fit in to society, she pretty much goes her own way. She doesn't marry till she finds exactly the person right for her.
I imagine there are women in fiction and films who would seem to be sort of grown-up tomboys. Maggie the pilot in "Northern Exposure" (TV series) is someone who could be considered tomboyish.
Calamity Jane is cited as tomboyish. Doris Day does a wonderful job in that role in the musical "Calamity Jane". There are a number of films about "Calam" or in which she is part of the story. Try films about Annie Oakley, too, including "Annie Get Your Gun" with the boisterous Betty Hutton. Debbie Reynolds start out as a scroungy wild girl in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown", and it's very funny to see her try to become a bargirl in order to make money for her family. Even as a "growed-up woman", she remains rough around the edges.
It remains popular to have a rough-hewn girl polished into "eye candy" even in modern-age movies such as "Some Kind of Wonderful", in which Mary Stuart Masterson portrays the guy's best friend, overlooked because she's not quite like the other girls. I think it's kind of a raunchy comedy, but Betsy Russell plays a girl who likes working on cars better than just about anything in "Tomboy"; even her nickname is "Tommy".
It would be interesting to compile a list of them because IMDb doesn't seem to have much of a list. There are so many stories in which girls/women don't "enjoy being a girl" as the song goes.
It makes you wonder if Mildred's youngest would finally have "gone girly" as she continued studying dancing. After all, when she did some ballet, we could see that she is graceful and will dress up as long as it has to do with dancing. Maybe it was her older sister putting on airs that made her reluctant to follow her example.
Oh! How could I forget Julie Harris as Frankie in "The Member of the Wedding" (1952)?! They filmed the story again, but it's nowhere as amazing as the original. You'd scarcely think that a woman was playing the part of that 12-year-old, rebellious, scowling tomboy.
Susan Strasberg starts out as a tomboy in "Picnic" but, after developing a crush, decides to blossom. By the end of the movie, it's uncertain is she's going to try to become more girlish or will remain the individual she is.
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Yes. It wasn't a negative thing. It was almost a badge of honor, an admirable trait, as opposed to simpering, coy, overly feminine stereotypes.
shareAnother example of a genuine tomboy is the character of "Anybodys" in WEST SIDE STORY.
I hated her though (so damned obnoxious!), and I still wish her part had been cut from the movie.
She could transition now.
sharePretty much. In this day and age her innocently saying that would be met with encouragement and excitement for her to transition immediately. Its not very progressive, actually(OP). In their eyes you're either a girly girl or a boy. Even though apparently they cant even define what it means to be a man or woman. Why cant she just be a little GIRL who likes to play and get muddy?
shareBut she shouldn't have to, and there are people in this world who will tell non-gender-conforming kids that they ought to transition, instead of being sensible and telling them that they're great the way they are.
The term "tomboy" was common back then, and didn't carry any kind of gender dysphoria connotation. It just meant girls who liked to play like and with boys, and it was usually spoken with affection. The tomboys I knew were normal girls who grew into heterosexual women.
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