| Chapter 1: | Sex as Cinematic Capital |
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Plate5. Louise Brooks (1926).
In the beginning of the film, the dance hall girls (Joan Blondell, Ginger Rogers, and Ruby Keeler), appear dressed as gold coins, singing “We’re in the Money,” although it is clear in the film's plot that their bodies are a kind of capital themselves; for all effective purposes they are the money. They are also valorized (in the narrative logic) for their intelligent, even heroic, attempts at gold digging which, in this instance, is seen as an admirable quality of good old-fashioned survival, thereby underscoring their status as good American girls who possess true grit.
However, the film's ending has Joan Blondell posed as a prostitute who attempts to pick up the forgotten man, (an unemployed Depression