Female spectators: looking at film and television

Part of the British socialist feminist series "Questions for Feminism," which is edited by Michele Barrett, Annette Kuhn, Anne Phillips, and Ann Rosalind Jones, this collection of essays addresses the most recent issues in feminist film and television criticism. It includes theoretical essays (by Jackie Byars and Teresa de Lauretis); new interpretations of films central to the feminist argument (Mildred Pierce and Rear Window); and essays on women filmmakers' practical concerns (by Michelle Citron and Alile Sharon Larkin), audience response (black women's readings of The Color Purple), and popular culture (E. Ann Kaplan on MTV and Christine Gledhill on cultural production). The overall aim of the collection is to "reconcile women's lived experiences with their cinematic experiences'" and construct differences as "diversity and disagreement." In this respect, this volume goes beyond earlier criticism, as in the collection Re-vision: Essays in Feminist Film Criticism, ed. by Mary Ann Doane et al. (CH, Nov '84). In its totality this is a provocative and representative summary of the most recent directions taken by feminist cinema and television critics. Of interest to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and certain general readers.