The gender power asymetry is a controlling force in cinema and constructed for the pleasure of the male viewer, deeply rooted in patriarchal ideologies and discourses.
-- Laura Mulvey
Dorothy Arzner was the only female director in Hollywood in 1940 (Ida Lupino would not direct her first film until 1950) and Dance,Girl,Dance is an impressive critique of "the male gaze." Maureen O'Hara plays Judy O'Brien, who decides she will never be a good ballet dancer after seeing a rehearsal of a serious ballet with lead dancer Vivian Fay; her friend Bubbles (Lucille Ball) gets Judy a job as part of Bubbles's burlesque act: Judy plays a stooge who dances classical ballet, leading the male audience to demand the return of Bubbles. Judy finally gets fed up, stops her dance and speaks directly to the audience: "I know you want to see me tear my clothes off so you can look your fifty cents worth. Fifty cents for the privilege of staring at a girl the way your wives won't let you." Throughout the film the dancers are watched and leered at by the men who decide what jobs they will get and what they will do. There is some beautiful choreography by Arzner's longtime lover Marion Morgan, who finds beauty in both nightclub dancing and classical ballet, though power in both cases is dominated by males.
I don't mean to make the movie sound particularly didactic; the critique of "the male gaze" is going on somewhat beneath the surface of an enjoyable musical, with Judy and Bubbles competing for the same man and eventually battling it out on stage and in court. Arzner cleverly undercuts the usual traditions of musicals, with the most authority going to Judy's ballet teacher Madame Lydia Basilova, played by Maria Ouspenskaya, and the males being mostly leering fools, with the exception of Steve Adams (played by Ralph Bellamy), who takes Judy and dance seriously.
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