International Cinema and the Girl

From the precocious charms of Shirley Temple to the box-office behemoth Frozen and its two young female leads, Anna and Elsa, the girl has long been a figure of fascination for cinema. The symbol of (imagined) childhood innocence, the site of intrigue and nostalgia for adults, a metaphor for the precarious nature of subjectivity itself, the girl is caught between infancy and adulthood, between objectification and power. She speaks to many strands of interest for film studies: feminist questions of cinematic representation of female subjects; historical accounts of shifting images of girls and childhood in the cinema; and philosophical engagements with the possibilities for the subject in film. This collection considers the specificity of girls' experiences and their cinematic articulation through a multicultural feminist lens which cuts across the divides of popular/art-house, Western/non Western, and north/south. Drawing on examples from North and South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, the contributors bring a new understanding of the global/local nature of girlhood and its relation to contemporary phenomena such as post-feminism, neoliberalism and queer subcultures. Containing work by established and emerging scholars, this volume explodes the narrow post-feminist canon and expands existing geographical, ethnic, and historical accounts of cinematic cultures and girlhood.

“International Cinema and the Girl (2016), edited by Fiona Handyside and Kate Taylor-Jones, is a welcome and important contribution at the intersection of girls studies and feminist film theory. … This is a balanced and exciting collection of essays. … The editors have achieved their aim of assembling an impressive collection of essays that reassert the specificity of the girl on screen in her local and individual context, while also attending to the global issues that the films address.” (Elspeth Mitchell, Girlhood Studies, Vol. 10 (1), 2017)

Fiona Handyside is Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of Exeter, UK.   Kate Taylor-Jones is Senior Lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield, UK.