Gender Meets Genre in Postwar Cinemas

by Gledhill, Christine

• ISBN13: 9780252078316
• ISBN10: 0252078314
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-01-15
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

This remarkable collection uses genre as a fresh way to analyze the issues of gender representation in film theory, film production, spectatorship, and the contexts of reception. With a uniquely global perspective, these essays examine the intersection of gender and genre in not only Hollywood films but also in independent, European, Indian, and Hong Kong cinemas. Working in the area of postcolonial cinema, contributors raise issues dealing with indigenous and global cinemas and argue that contemporary genres have shifted considerably as both notions of gender and forms of genre have changed. The volume addresses topics such as the history of feminist approaches to the study of genre in film, issues of female agency in postmodernity, changes taking place in supposedly male-dominated genres, concepts of genre and its use of gender in global cinema, and the relationship between gender and sexuality in film. Contributors are Ira Bhaskar, Xiangyang Chen, Steven Cohan, Luke Collins, Pam Cook, Lucy Fischer, Jane Gaines, Christine Gledhill, Derek Kane-Meddock, E. Ann Kaplan, Samiha Matin, Katie Model, E. Deidre Pribram, Vicente Rodriguez Ortega, Adam Segal, Chris Straayer, Yvonne Tasker, and Deborah Thomas.

Author Biography

Christine Gledhill is a visiting professor in cinema studies at the University of Sunderland. Her many works include Home Is Where the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Woman's Film and Reinventing Film Studies, coedited with Linda Williams.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Refiguring Genre and Gender
The Genius of Genre and the Ingenuity of Women	p. 15
No Fixed Address: The Women's Picture from Outrage to Blue Steel	p. 29
Circulating Emotion: Race, Gender, and Genre in Crash	p. 41
100% Pure Adrenaline: Gender and Generic Surface in Point Break	p. 54
Postfeminism and Generic Reinventions
Troubling Genre/Reconstructing Gender	p. 71
Bodies and Genres in Transition: Girlfight and Real Women Have Curves	p. 84
Private Femininity, Public Femininity: Tactical Aesthetics in the Costume Film	p. 96
Generic Gleaning: Agnès Varda, Documentary, and the Art of Salvage	p. 111
Gender Aesthetics in "Male" Genres
It's a Mann's World?	p. 125
Up Close and Personal: Faces and Names in Casualties of War	p. 135
Gender Hyperbole and the Uncanny in the Horror Film: The Shining	p. 146
Genre and Gender Transnational
Emotion, Subjectivity, and the Limits of Desire: Melodrama and Modernity in Bombay Cinema, 1940s-'50s	p. 161
Woman, Generic Aesthetics, and the Vernacular: Huangmei Opera Films from China to Hong Kong	p. 177
Homoeroticism Contained: Gender and Sexual Translation in John Woo's Migration to Hollywood	p. 191
Generic "Trans-Ings": Between Genres, Genders, and Sexualities
Trash Comes Home: Gender/Genre Subversion in the Films of John Waters	p. 205
Femme Fatale or Lesbian Femme: Bound in Sexual Différance	p. 219
"The Gay Cowboy Movie": Queer Masculinity on Brokeback Mountain	p. 233
Bibliography	p. 243
Contributors	p. 257
Index	p. 261
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