Gold digger

A gold digger is a person, typically a woman, who engages in a type of transactional relationship[1] for money rather than love. When it turns into marriage, it is a type of marriage of convenience.

For processes used to acquire gold metal, see Gold mining and Gold panning. For other uses, see Gold digger (disambiguation).
Lobby card for Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), an example of a film which helped create the American public association of chorus girls with gold diggers.

Etymology and usage

The term "gold-digger" was popularised as a slang term in the early 20th century. The term originated in Rex Beach's 1911 book, the Ne'er-do-Well, and was occasionally used in other literature during the 1910s, including My Battles with Vice by Virginia Brooks and Muncey's Magazine.[2] The Oxford Dictionary and Random House's Dictionary of Historical Slang state the term is distinct to women because they were much more likely to need to marry a wealthy man in order to maintain a level of socio-economic reasons.[2][3] In the 1920s, Peggy Hopkins Joyce was considered an example of a gold digger,[4]:143 with some claiming the term was even coined to describe her.[5]

By the 1930s the term had reached the United Kingdom because British film industry made a remake of The Gold Diggers. While the film has been disliked by critics, several sequels with the same title have been made.[3]

Media

Characterisations

The term was popularised by the 1919 play The Gold Digger, which associated chorus girls as wanting to marry rich men, and further reflected in the subsequent film four years later, The Gold Diggers.[4]:143 In 1920s and 1930s American cinema the "gold digger" was the type of femme fatale that gradually replaced the "vamp".[4]:143-144 The character has featured in many films such as the 1953 How to Marry a Millionaire starring Marilyn Monroe, or as a villainous foil, as in both versions of Disney's film The Parent Trap.

Music

Rap music’s use of the "gold digger script" is one of a few prevalent sexual scripts that is directed at young African American women.[6] For example Kanye West's "Gold Digger" references a woman marrying for perceived wealth.

See also

References
  1. Rosenberger, Stephen (2014). The Relation Equation. p. 60. ISBN 9781498202671. OCLC 896840085.
  2. "Entry from October 25, 2009: Gold-digger". October 25, 2009.
  3. Thompson, Sharon. "In Defence of the 'Gold Digger`". Onati Socio-Legal Series.
  4. Sharot, Stephen (2018). Love and Marriage Across Social Classes in American Cinema. Springer. ISBN 9783319824321. OCLC 1049600007.
  5. Rosenblum, Constance (2015). Gold Digger: The Outrageous Life and Times of Peggy Hopkins Joyce. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 9781627798242. OCLC 919319036.
  6. Stephens, Dionne P.; Phillips, Layli D. (1 March 2003). "Freaks, Gold Diggers, Divas, and Dykes: The Sociohistorical Development of Adolescent African American Women's Sexual Scripts". Sexuality and Culture. 7 (1): 3. doi:10.1007/BF03159848. ISSN 1936-4822.
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