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Discussion

On March 13, 1922, the All-Ukrainian Photo and Cinema Office (Ukrainian abbreviation – VUFKU – the Ukrainian state cinema corporation) was created. It laid out the foundation for the formation of Ukrainian film. Effective management and a relatively liberal state approach to the new art facilitated a faster development of the film industry in Ukraine. 

The development of the film industry came hand in hand with the Bolshevik’s indigenization policy that initiated an unprecedented national emancipation experiment. This policy provoked debate among artists about the content and authenticity of Ukrainian movies, including the women’s images on the screen. 

The contributor of Kino, the official VUFKU magazine, wrote about the women characters in Ukrainian movies the following: 

Let’s take such movies as ‘Taras Tryasylo’ and ‘Mykola Dzherya’: constantly raped, inactive, passive, she dies like a fly. As for the film ‘Taras Shevchenko’, there is nothing to talk about because there is not a single woman in the film. […] ‘Ukrasia’ is a great movie and actual event. And where is a woman? Where is the genuine woman’s character who is ready to self-saсrifice for the idea, struggle, revolution, love? They showed us some pale, grey whore, or something like that. […]  Why don’t you take our ‘Lysistrata’. Don’t women’s aspirations in villages deserve to become a ‘theme’ and a ‘problem’? [...] Isn’t it a plot? What about a village woman in communes? Her struggle, interests? What about a working woman? She is not a stereotyped modern woman, but a simple woman with her minor problems, but at the same time with a big life.

 In the middle of the 1920s, more and more women’s voices questioned women’s representation in Ukrainian cinema, complaining about the patriarchal approach to women. Meanwhile, the prerevolutionary stereotypical female characters dominated Ukrainian movies. Mainly, they were represented by four types: 1) variety showgirls, 2) ‘my darling', 3) victim, 4) vamp. Such a situation did not satisfy women’s audiences. They demanded to create a new ‘standard’ of women’s character in the movies 

The release of Dovzhenko’s movie ‘Earth’ initiated the public debate about women’s images in Ukrainian movies. The scene of the grieving naked woman added fuel to the fire, provoking the debate about the misrepresentation of Soviet women in the cinema. The audience didn’t perceive the naked woman’s body well. However, the switch to social realism ended the debate, imposing the only right image of the Soviet woman.