Feminist Film Theory

by Thornham, Sue

• ISBN13: 9780814782439
• ISBN10: 0814782434
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-04-01
• Publisher: New York Univ Pr

Summary

For the past twenty-five years, cinema has been a vital terrain on which feminist debates about culture, representation, and identity have been fought. This anthology charts the history of those debates, bringing together the key, classic essays in feminist film theory.Feminist Film Theorymaps the impact of major theoretical developments on this growing field-from structuralism and psychoanalysis in the 1970s, to post-colonial theory, queer theory, and postmodernism in the 1990s.Covering a wide range of topics, including oppressive images, "woman" as fetishized object of desire, female spectatorship, and the cinematic pleasures of black women and lesbian women,Feminist Film Theoryis an indispensable reference for scholars and students in the field.Contributors include Judith Butler, Carol J. Clover, Barbara Creed, Michelle Citron, Mary Ann Doane, Teresa De Lauretis, Jane Gaines, Christine Gledhill, Molly Haskell, bell hooks, Claire Johnston, Annette Kuhn, Julia Lesage, Judith Mayne, Tania Modleski, Laura Mulvey, B. Ruby Rich, Kaja Silverman, Sharon Smith, Jackie Stacey, Janet Staiger, Anna Marie Taylor, Valerie Walkerdine, and Linda Williams.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(7)
Part I: Taking up the Struggle	7	(44)
Introduction	9	(5)
`The Image of Women in Film: Some Suggestions for Future Research'	14	(6)
Sharon Smith
`The Woman's Film'	20	(11)
Molly Haskell
`Women's Cinema as Counter-Cinema'	31	(10)
Claire Johnston
`The Crisis of Naming in Feminist Film Criticism'	41	(10)
B. Ruby Rich
Further Reading	48	(3)
Part II: The Language of Theory	51	(58)
Introduction	53	(5)
`Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'	58	(12)
Laura Mulvey
`Caught and Rebecca: The Inscription of Femininity as Absence'	70	(13)
Mary Ann Doane
`Oedipus Interruptus'	83	(14)
Teresa de Lauretis
`Lost Objects and Mistaken Subjects'	97	(12)
Kaja Silverman
Further Reading	106	(3)
Part III: The Female Spectator	109	(50)
Introduction	111	(4)
`Women and Film: A Discussion of Feminist Aesthetics'	115	(7)
Michelle Citron
Julia Lesage
Judith Mayne
B. Ruby Rich
Anna Marie Taylor
`Afterthoughts on ``Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema'' inspired by King Vidor's Duel in the Sun (1946)'	122	(9)
Laura Mulvey
`Film and the Masquerade: Theorising the Female Spectator'	131	(15)
Mary Ann Doane
`Women's Genres: Melodrama, Soap Opera and Theory'	146	(13)
Annette Kuhn
Further Reading	157	(2)
Part IV: Textual Negotiations	159	(68)
Introduction	161	(5)
`Pleasurable Negotiations'	166	(14)
Christine Gledhill
`Video Replay: Families, Films and Fantasy'	180	(16)
Valerie Walkerdine
`Feminine Fascinations: Forms of Identification in Star-Audience Relations'	196	(14)
Jackie Stacey
`Taboos and Totems: Cultural Meanings of The Silence of the Lambs'	210	(17)
Janet Staiger
Further Reading	224	(3)
Part V: Fantasy, Horror and the Body	227	(58)
Introduction	229	(5)
`Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film'	234	(17)
Carol J. Clover
`Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection'	251	(16)
Barbara Creed
`Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess'	267	(18)
Linda Williams
Further Reading	282	(3)
Part VI: Re-thinking Differences	285	(68)
Introduction	287	(6)
`White Privilege and Looking Relations: Race and Gender in Feminist Film Theory'	293	(14)
Jane Gaines
`The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators'	307	(14)
bell hooks
`Cinema and the Dark Continent: Race and Gender in Popular Film'	321	(15)
Tania Modleski
`Gender is Burning: Questions of Appropriation and Subversion'	336	(17)
Judith Butler
Further Reading	350	(3)
Copyright Acknowledgements	353	(2)
Index	355