Representations of Femininity in American Genre Cinema: The Woman's Film, Film Noir, and Modern Horror

David Greven

Apr 2011 · Springer

About this ebook

The theme of female transformation informs the Hollywood representation of femininity from the studio era to the present. Whether it occurs physically, emotionally, or on some other level, transformation allows female protagonists to negotiate their own complex desires and to resist the compulsory marriage plot. A sweeping study of Hollywood from Now, Voyager, The Heiress, and Flamingo Road to Carrie, the Alien films, The Brave One, and the slasher horror genre, this book boldly unsettles commonplace understandings of genre film, female sexuality, and Freudian theory as it makes a strong new case for the queer relevance of female representation.

About the author

David Greven is Associate Professor of English at the University of South Carolina, USA. His books include Psycho-Sexual: Male Desire in Hitchcock, De Palma, Scorsese and Friedkin; The Fragility of Manhood: Hawthorne, Freud, and the Politics of Gender; and Men Beyond Desire: Manhood, Sex, and Violation in American Literature. Greven's essays on film have been published in journals such as the emQuarterly Review of Film and Video, Cinema Journal, Genders, Jump Cut, CineAction, and emCineaste and he is on the editorial boards of emCinema Journal, Genders, and Poe Studies.