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Finals Week: 'Monstrous Feminism and the Avenging Amazon'
20 hours ago
Monstrous Feminism and the Avenging Amazon By Paula Graham
On the whole, feminists and lesbians tend to treat the figure of the Amazon as a positive trope for lesbianism and/or feminism. On the one hand, she has the 'masculine' characteristics of strength, physicality and activity and, on the other, she is female-oriented. Her combination of male and female characteristics apparently undermines the exclusivity of gender categories. Her 'chastity' combined with her 'phallic' physicality has obvious lesbian implications. She is perceived by many lesbians and feminists as both 'positive' and 'subversive'...
Representations of the Amazon or female warrior in patriarchal culture, however, may acknowledge a perceived 'threat' of female aggression and seek to neutralise it. Narratives of female militancy tend to enjoy a resurgence in Western patriarchal cultures precisely at historical moments in which there has been an exceptional opening out of gender categories under pressure of social change and political contestation.
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- Superheidi
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Finals Week: 'Lips of Blood: Female sexuality and desire in the modern vampire film'
17 December 2009 3:24 PM, PST
Lips of Blood: Female sexuality and desire in the modern vampire film By Brigid Cherry
The vampire in film has always been associated with elements of sexuality and morality. This association between vampirism and sexuality is related to the violation of taboos, but more importantly allows the identification of the other which is then repressed. Erotic and sexual characteristics are equated with vampirism, which for the female character - who is herself other and therefore subject to repression - means that to embrace the vampire is to embrace sexuality. For that, a forbidden act for the woman who is constrained by patriarchy to suppress her sexuality, she is punished - she is or becomes the vampire and dies, frequently staked through the heart. She is contrasted strongly and starkly with the heroine, the victim who remains coded as virginal, who is therefore pure and can be returned to normality
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- Superheidi
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Notable female genre writers of 2009
16 December 2009 2:31 PM, PST
Women's eNews correspondent Sarah Seltzer pointed out in an article online that women authors have had a great year. She points out several genre accomplishments that we should be applauding in the literary world. Namely, Sarah Waters' novel The Little Stranger, which "uses a ghost story taking place in a mansion to explore deeper themes such as class and life after a war," and Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, which "continued to provoke debate and move copies thanks to new film adaptations." Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood "navigates a post-apocalyptic future with two female survivors."
American Indian writer Louise Erdrich's is noted for The Plague of Doves, the story of an unsolved murder and its consequences for residents of an Ojibwe reservation and a nearby town in North Dakota. Another mention is Suzanne Collins, who "garnered considerable attention and sales" for "Catching Fire", the second installment of The Hunger Games,
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- Superheidi
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'Jennifer's Body' on DVD
16 December 2009 1:18 PM, PST
Start: 12/29/2009
Timezone: America/Los Angeles
Start: 12/29/2009
Timezone: America/Los Angeles
Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment is releasing Jennifer’s Body, written by Diablo Cody and directed by Karyn Kusama (Aeon Flux), on unrated Blu-ray Disc and DVD on December 29, 2009, - just in time to make up a great drinking game for New Year's Eve wherein everytime anyone in the film says something stupid, you drink! You're gonna be wasted.
Megan Fox (Transformers) is Jennifer, a seductive cheerleader who takes evil to a whole new level after she’s possessed by a sinister demon...
Steamy action and gore galore ensue as the male student body succumbs to Jennifer's insatiable appetite for human flesh. Now it’s up to her best friend (Amanda Seyfried) to stop the demonic diva’s reign of terror before it's too late!
Features a strong supporting cast of young Hollywood stars including Adam Brody (“The O.C.”), Johnny Simmons
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- Superheidi
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Finals Week: 'The Ghost as Domestic Inheritance in Ursula Dabrowsky's Film "Family Demons"'
16 December 2009 12:50 PM, PST
Family Demons: The Ghost as Domestic Inheritance by Donna McRae
Low cinematic genres – (as Clover, Williams and Robin Wood and others) have often pointed out – often handle explosive social material that mainstream cinema is reluctant to touch. — Joan Hawkins (1)
Can you make a film about the aftermath of incest and child abuse and its effect on three generations of women in the same family? Would this film contain an inherited ghost running through the narrative that could represent repressed feelings of colonial guilt on another level? Could this film prick the conscience of a nation that might be shuddering in silence for all its past sins? Would you get funding for this film from an Australian funding agency if you didn't have a track record? Would this very serious film fill cinemas, especially Australian ones? Could you get international profile actors to star in your film? Or would Australian film actors like Gracie Otto,
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- Superheidi
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Finals Week: 'Bisexual Horror: Gaze and Desire in David DeCoteau’s The Sisterhood'
15 December 2009 1:54 PM, PST
Bisexual Horror: Gaze and Desire in David DeCoteau’s The Sisterhood by Heidi Martinuzzi
Traditionally, horror films have been made for a straight, white, male audience. Most film studios release their horror movies with young males, aged 14-22, in mind and tend to create storylines to accommodate their perceived tastes; gratuitous amounts of blood and sexualized female nudity. While mainstream cinema has included gay storylines and filmmakers in increasing numbers in recent years, horror movies have invariably catered to a static audience and excluded gay characters (except as villains and comic relief.) This reluctance to sell and make queer horror movies has relegated those films to low-budget releasing and production budgets through select studios like Here!...
David DeCoteau is a queer filmmaker in the low-budget b-movie industry, having directed and written nearly one hundred films involving some level of exploitation of either the male or female body. At the beginning of his directing career,
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- Superheidi
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Finals Week: 'Gender Roles in Scary Movies'
14 December 2009 2:31 PM, PST
Welcome to Finals Week, inspired by real life college finals! We'll have a new academic paper on horror films every day this week!
Gender Roles within Scary Movies by Alex Boles
“What’s your favorite scary movie, Sidney?”
These words haunted American society for at least five years when Scream, Scream 2 and Scream 3 were released in 1996, 1997 and 2000 respectively. At least, the words haunted middle-aged women home alone in their big houses in the middle of nowhere scared to answer the phone at night. The fear and portrayal of women also allowed stereotypes and other characters to form for the future of women roles in scary movies. Sidney, played by Neve Campbell, says at the beginning of the first Scream film after receiving a phone call from one of the killers, that there is no point in watching scary movies because they all display the same representation of women.
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- AlexBoles
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'Family Demons' article; Katt Shea on 'Klute'; and Faye Jackson Interview
14 December 2009 10:28 AM, PST
Check out this awesome interview with vampire movie Strigoi director Faye Jackson (Lump) on one of our fave boy-run sites QuietEarth - Faye Jackson Interview
You should also read this extremely cool academic paper on the brand new horror film Family Demons directed by Ursula Dabrowsky written by Donna McRae - Family Demons: The Ghost of Domestic Inheritence
Katt Shea (Poison Ivy) has a new commentary up on Trailers From Hell for the trailer to Klute. From the bygone days (1971) when studios routinely made the kind of adult material now found mainly in indies. Jane Fonda pulled down a well-deserved Oscar for her portrayal of the call girl without a heart of gold who gets wrapped up in a murder investigation.
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- Superheidi
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