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"They'll All Be So Fancy; Why Don't You Be Plain?" Fashion and Religious Ecstasy in 1939's The Women

www.thechatner.com

"They'll All Be So Fancy; Why Don't You Be…

Daniel Lavery
Sep 14, 2021
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"They'll All Be So Fancy; Why Don't You Be Plain?" Fashion and Religious Ecstasy in 1939's The Women

www.thechatner.com

In the last two weeks I have had occasion to show a variety of friends George Cukor’s The Women for the first time, which means that I’ve watched The Women from start to finish about every 3.5 days, a fairly good record. The Women is often remembered for its all-female cast (tagline “It’s all about men!”), although there’s a brief shot of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. on the back of a magazine in an early scene, which goes a long way towards establishing protagonist Mary Haines’ relationship to her never-seen husband Stephen as something closer to Teresa of Ávila’s ecstatic union with the divine than, say, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. Mary is

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