ABSTRACT
The topography of the cinema as a venue is not a theme often visited in film historiography, notwithstanding the increasing significance attached to ‘spatiality’ in social film history. 1 Studies that analyze the movie theater as a marker of social difference often focus on class (for instance, in relation to seating arrangements) and ethnicity (such as racial segregation integrated into the architecture of cinemas, as in the Jim Crow Southern United States). 2 The question of gender with regard to the spatial configuration inside the cinema theater has attracted little research interest. 3 In fact, it is difficult to investigate given that the empirical evidence on historical audience composition is problematic: seating arrangements leave hardly traces. 4 However, an eccentric twist in events can occasionally challenge cultural assumptions that have been previously taken for granted but that are confusing for a present-day reading. This chapter examines an incident in the peripheral Dutch municipality of Rucphen that raises questions about the limits of Catholic control over cinema audiences, with specific regard to the regulation of gender relations inside the cinema theater itself.
