2022 Essays

This is All About Name Dropping: Women and Uruguayan Silent Cinema in the 1910s and 1920s

Torello, Georgina

Women were involved in the cinematographic field in Uruguay since its beginnings and throughout the entire silent period. This early and sustained participation of women in the cultural sector is not surprising considering the consolidation of the modern Uruguayan State in the first decades of the twentieth century. Led from 1903 by progressive president José Batlle y Ordoñez, Uruguay was the terrain of innovative reforms at the continental level, both during Batlle’s two presidencies (1903-1907 and 1911-1915) and, subsequently, until his death in 1929 through his political affiliates, the Batllista sector of the Colorado Party. Within a broad framework of economic, fiscal, rural, and social reforms—among them, the eight-hour work day, the secularization of education, and the ability for women to file for divorce—the female population was able to carve out spaces of relative autonomy. Women participated in the debates about their position in society, fighting for their own rights and for the rights and well-being of those in need, thus taking part in direct social actions. Their many political and social crusades not only gave women more freedoms, but also a new visibility in the rapidly modernizing society. One group of women that was particularly outspoken and visible during this time was also especially active in cinema: the elite. Upper-class society ladies quickly understood the many possibilities of the medium and, unlike other groups of women (the working class, middle-class wives, or even feminists), they had the social and economic power to engage with this new field. Thus, while female participation in the cinema transcended class, as this essay reveals, the elite’s powerful position in society, with direct access to the press and time for creative endeavors, determined the group’s (omni)presence.