Crying for Flicka: Boys, Young Men, and Emotion at the Cinema in Britain in the 1930s and 1940s

Abstract

Abstract This article re-visits contemporary surveys of the cinema in the 1930s and 1940s to explore the implications that the cinema’s role as an “emotional frontier” between everyday life and the imagination had on the emotional lives of boys and young men. It makes a novel contribution to the history of youth and emotions, arguing that for boys and young men who were disconnected from social life, the cinema was an “emotional refuge,” a space of heightened emotional encounter, in which conventional assumptions about masculinity could be fractured and “feminine” sensibilities otherwise difficult to express publicly could receive cathartic release.