Educational Media Reviews Online

Anyone who has indulged in the guilty pleasures of goofing off in the Internet Moving Image Archive should be familiar with the joys of what redoubtable "film archaeologist" Rick Prelinger has termed "ephemeral films." These were short, non-theatrical films produced largely between 1940 and 1970—a heady and often strange cinematic stew of educational and moral instruction films; commissioned promotional and industrial films; public service announcements; propaganda; commercials; and other non-fiction oddities. The films in question were generally efficient, no-frills works aimed at specific audiences and intended to serve specific social, political, religious, or commercial functions. Prelinger has called these films "ephemeral" because their lifespan was never meant to be long; they served their purpose for a number of years, and then quite often ended up, literally, on the scrapheap of history. Prelinger's genius and gift to us all has been to preserve many of these fleeting films, and to focus attention on the unique insights they provide into the zeitgeist, particularly the prevailing (and often head-spinning) societal notions of gender, class, and race.

Kino's How to Be a Woman is one of many DVD compilations of ephemeral films currently available for purchase in the home video market. The Kino set focuses on fifteen diverse films produced between 1948 and 1977 aimed largely at instructing, inculcating, and indoctrinating "gals" concerning the secrets and obligations of womanhood. The films range from the fairly straightforward bit of biological/gender determinism, You're Growing Up (1955); to the American Dairy Association's pitch for healthy teen living (and milk consumption), Girls Are Better Than Ever (1967). There's the 1960s You're the Judge, a thoroughly weird explanation of why girls are better cooks than boys (because they're smart enough to use Crisco, naturally); to a grim bit of social realism concerning the perils of too-early marriage (Worth Waiting For [1962]). Moody Institute of Science (!?) explains The Wonders of Reproduction (1958), which must have made the squirmy 12-year old guys sit up straight, until they discovered that the focus is exclusively on Siamese fighting fish. ("Strange as it may seem, it's the father who raises the babies and cares for the family"). Reproduction also figures centrally in Growing Girls (1949), a British production which somehow manages to make sex completely sexless, as only the British know how. ("The vagina, you realize, faces downward.") I appreciated the fact that Let's Make a Sandwich (1950) was sponsored by the American Gas Association, and enthralled by the culinary advice offered therein. ("Mother is a great believer in the aesthetic value of parsley.") There are sensible and persuasive arguments for good manners ( Improve Your Personality [1953]), which made me both wistful and nostalgic, given the almost complete the present day lack of such. In As Others See Us (1953), another manners discourse, we're set straight about the far from obvious fact that "In every age, it's still a man's world when it comes to giving the [restaurant] order." Finally, in the cautionary Attack (1966), girls are given vital lessons in self-defense in a film narrated by a guy in a glen plaid suit who looks disturbingly like Ernie Kovacs, if Ernie Kovacs were a child molester.

While a number of these films are freely available as open-source downloads from the Internet Moving Image Archive, the Kino compilation would still be useful for larger cultural studies or gender and women's studies collections. And divorced from their more serious academic uses, these films are just plain, campy fun to watch.