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Controversial Women, Attractive Voice and Erotic Appeal Katalin Karády’s On-Screen Figures and Star Persona

ABSTRACT The study aims to explore the characteristics of the phenomenon of Katalin Karády, one of the greatest stars of the Hungarian film industry between 1939 and 1944. Karády’s on-screen characters often represented modern, independent women who questioned the gender roles instituted by the strongly-conservative patriarchal Hungarian society of the time. This aspect of her characters is examined with the help of the concepts of ‘new woman’ and ‘modern girl’ widely used in contemporaneous media discourses, and compared to other types of female figures present in the Hungarian film production of the time. The narratives of her films are analysed with special focus on women’s position and male-female relationships. Some aspects of her erotic appeal, such as sensuality, nudity and an attractive voice are described with a special attention to her songs. Her star persona is analysed considering possible international models and similarities with certain Western stars. Emphasising specific elements of her private life, the study shows that her on-screen characters and her off-screen personality strongly blended in the imagination of the public, and gender ambiguity inherent to her character contributed to the birth of the ‘Karády phenomenon’.