Betrayed by blondness: Jiřina Štěpničková between authenticity and excess – 1930–1945

Abstract

The blondness of female stars is invariably associated with glamour, sexuality and wealth. But not much attention has been paid to stars articulating different sets of values attached to fair hair found in artistic, national and religious discourses. This article focuses on the Czech star Jiřina Štěpničková and her star image from the 1930s to the mid-1940s. I argue that, while blondness heavily contributed to her status as a national icon and dedicated performer, it also resulted in a complex set of negotiations between her star qualities and the national rural characters she performed. On the one hand, Štěpničková was labelled the ‘Czech Madonna’, the perfect embodiment of heroines defined by loyalty, self-sacrifice and chastity. On the other, she was questioned as too beautiful and elaborately styled for the parts she was cast in. Analysing formal elements of her image and reconstructing the promotional and critical discourses surrounding her allows me to present Štěpničková under three categories – as a celebrated actress, as an ideal woman and as an ‘inauthentic’ star – for which her blondness played a key role.

Keywords:

• blonde
• Czech
• Štěpničková
• stardom
• authenticity
• performance
• national

Notes

1. The concept of heritage cinema addresses the ways in which various national film industries use particular historical moments for representing the idealised visions of the past. My definition of heritage cinema is also infused with notions of homeland/heimat cinema as witnessed in the Austrian, German and Swiss film production between the 1930s and 1960s. Such films are usually set in rural exteriors, narrated in a sentimental way and characterised by polarised morality (town versus village, younger versus older generation, tradition versus progress). For more on heritage cinema, see Vidal (2012).

2. This article follows standard practice by using the term ‘Czech’, as opposed to ‘Czechoslovak’, film industry and film culture because, prior to World War Two, Prague served as the centre of film production, distribution and exhibition. See, for example, Szczepanik (2009, p. 14).

3. See also Tremper (2006).

4. For more on topic of nineteenth-century celebrated actresses and the nature of their fame, see Sochorová (2006, pp. 155–170).

5. For example, Adina Mandlová for the purposes of German-speaking film production turned into Lil Adina, Nataša Gollová became Ada Goll or Hana Vítová transformed herself into Hana Witt. However, these pseudonyms were used only rarely in Czech critical discourse.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Šárka Gmiterková

Šárka Gmiterková is a PhD candidate at the Department of Film and Audio Visual Culture, Masaryk University Brno, Czech Republic, where she is completing her thesis on pre-war versus post-war Czech film stardom. She served as a guest editor of a special issue of the Czech Film Studies journal Iluminace devoted to this topic in 2012.