Re-Configuring the New Women - Female Screenwriters and Street Films in Weimar Republic

Abstract

 This article traces the history of early female screenwriters in Germany and highlights the influence of professional female screenwriter Ruth Goetz and her movie Die Dirnentragödie (also: Women without Men, 1927). It shows how the movie represented certain political, cultural and legal debates on the New Woman and reconfigured the myth by implementing ambivalent gender roles in the plot. Furthermore, the representation of the role of female sex workers in Weimar society in Weimar street films is described and the way of transforming cultural and political discourses about gender equality into silent movies is discussed. Ruth Goetz and her professional screenwriting work is revisited through the lens of New Film History and the importance of the early professional female screenwriters’ contribution in Weimar cinema is underlined.