The Traffic In Souls

How does the film relate to the chapter in Foner?
“The Traffic in Souls” has a few elements that relate to various sections in Foner’s chapter on the Progressive Era. But more than anything, I thought the overall idea of a film portraying the struggles of some people suffering in society fit in with the goals of some progressives at the time. I felt that the film was made in the “mudraking” style which Foner describes as, “using journalistic skills to expose the underside of American life” (586). Although this was obviously not a work of journalism, it still showed the harsh realities of some women forced into prostitution, and served to put a human face on a social problem. The progressives at the time sought to expose problems in the United States in order to work towards solving them, and I think this film is an excellent example of their attempts to achieve that.

What can we learn about American culture during the time period by interpreting the film as a primary historical source?
Films are definitely a unique primary source in that we can watch actual people of the time artistically portraying the values and culture of society at the time. What I got most out of this film, other than the goals of mudraking I previously mentioned and the attitudes towards women I will discuss in the following question, is that Americans at the time really loved sensationalism in their entertainment. This really hasn’t changed much in the last hundred years I suppose, but to have such a “scandalous” subject as forced prostitution for a major hit movie shows that Americans loved to be shocked even at the turn of the century. To me, this is one of the many aspects that is ushered in by the beginning of a mass consumer culture. It still holds true today that the best selling entertainment is that which shakes the audience and slightly disturbs and excites them. I think that the success of this controversial movie shows that the love of scandal is a core aspect of modern American culture.

What does the film reveal about attitudes toward gender, class, and race? What was the most important scene in the film?
I really didn’t notice too many significant commentaries on class or race, but I think what this film says about the attitudes towards women is huge. Maybe this is just my personal interpretation, but when watching the movie I felt that most of the women were portrayed as helpless victims. They are sometimes looked at as even childish, such as when one of the captions about the kidnapping reads, “A pretty little girl disappeared in a candy store”. When Mary’s sister gets taken and locked up in the room, she spends only about ten seconds actually making a legitimate effort to escape, and the rest of the time we just see her dramatically fainting and crying about her misfortune. For this reason, I think this was the most important scene in the film for me. I think that if this movie had been made today with our contemporary views of women, Mary’s sister would have been breaking out of the window, or waiting at the side of the door to knock her captors in the head with a lamp. The idea that she would just accept her fate and sit around waiting to be rescued tells us that women were not expected to have the capacity to take care of themselves. But while this scene and most of the film shows women as being helpless, it still needs to be noted that in the end, Mary did actually play a key part in the rescue of her sister. This shows that although limited, there were some feminist attitudes beginning to form at the time.

Overall Rating
I think it’s hard to look at silent films like this as a modern movie viewer (and not an especially avid one at that!), but for the time I think it was probably a good movie. Like I said before, movies made today on the same topic are drastically different, much more violent, graphic, and arguable more exciting. However for the audience of the early 1900s I’m sure this was a sensational movie that was both entertaining and eye opening.