Feminism at the Movies

Feminism at the Movies: Understanding Gender in Contemporary Popular Cinema examines the way that contemporary film reflects today’s changing gender roles. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the central issues in feminist film criticism with analyses of over twenty popular contemporary films across a range of genres, such as chick flicks, teen pics, hommecoms, horror, action adventure, indie flicks, and women lawyer films. Contributors explore issues of femininity as well as masculinity, reflecting on the interface of popular cinema with gendered realities and feminist ideas. Topics include the gendered political economy of cinema, the female director as auteur, postfeminist fatherhood, consumer culture, depictions of professional women, transgender, sexuality, gendered violence, and the intersections of gender, race, and ethnic identities.The volume contains essays by following contributors: Taunya Lovell Banks, Heather Brook, Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Michael DeAngelis, Barry Keith Grant, Kelly Kessler, Hannah Hamad, Christina Lane (with Nicole Richter), JaneMaree Maher, David Hansen-Miller (with Rosalind Gill), Gary Needham, Sarah Projansky, Hilary Radner, Rob Schaap, Yael D Sherman, Michele Shreiber, Janet Staiger, Peter Stapleton, Rebecca Stringer, Yvonne Tasker, and Ewa Ziarek.

"With the contemporary 'woman’s film' routinely written off as the ultimate disreputable genre, this useful collection reminds us of what is to be gained by thoughtful feminist engagement with the form." —Diane Negra, Professor of Film Studies and Screen Culture, University College Dublin"Exploring pretty boys and lad flicks, girly films and femme fare, chicks with dicks—and concrete saws!—and much more, Feminism at the Movies samples a wide range of post-2000 films. The incisive analyses provided here expand the ways feminist optics are applied to contemporary media debates…a must-read!" —Christine Holmlund, Arts and Sciences Excellence Professor of Cinema Studies and French, University of Tennessee"Radner and Stringer's wonderful anthology offers a startling range of accomplished essays, spanning both broadly popular Hollywood fare (Miss Congeniality, The War of the Worlds) and independent art cinema (Juno, High Tension). The original essays in this vibrant new work both refer back to the foundations of film studies in 1980s feminism, and chart a path toward a new century of critical analysis." —Walter Metz, Professor of Cinema and Photography, Southern Illinois University