Visions of the Maid: Joan of Arc in American Film and Culture

Representations of Joan of Arc have been used in the United States for the past 200 years, appearing in advertizing, cartoons, popular song, art, criticism and propaganda. The presence of the 15th-century French heroine in the cinema is particularly intriguing in relation to the role of women during wartime. Robin Blaetz argues that a mythic Joan of Arc was used during the First World War to cast a mediaeval glow over an unpopular war, but that she only appeared after the Second World War to encourage women to abandon their wartime jobs and return to the home. In
Visions of the Maid , Blaetz examines three pivotal films - Cecil B. DeMille’s 1916
Joan the Woman , Victor Fleming’s 1948
Joan of Arc , and Otto Preminger’s 1957
Saint Joan
- along with every other film about the heroine made or distributed in the United States, as well as a broad array of popular culture references. Blaetz is particularly concerned with issues of gender and the ways in which Joan of Arc’s androgyny, virginity and sacrificial victimhood were evoked in relation to the evolving roles of women during war throughout the 20th century.