Film Studies 241 - GENRE/PERIOD:WOMEN&AMER CINEMA

Topics course. This course provides a broad survey of women in American films from the silent period to the present. It examines the topic at three levels: 1) how women are represented on film, and how those images relate to actual contemporaneous American society, culture and politics; 2) formulations, expectations and realities of female spectatorship as they relate to genre, the star and studio systems, dominant codes of narration, and developments in digital and new media modes; 3) how women as stars, writers, producers and directors shape and respond to, work within and against, dominant considerations of how women look. In other words, we'll be examining how women are seen, how women see, how women are expected to see and be seen, and consider how fields of moving images contribute to what constitutes "women," "Woman," "womanhood," "female," and other terms that refer to bodies, identities, communities, discourses and selves. Among the figures and films we will examine: Marlene Dietrich, Katharine Hepburn, Dorothy Arzner, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, Su Friedrich, Carolee Schneemann, Julie Dash, Kathryn Bigelow, the vamp, the femme fatale, the sacrificial mother, the action heroine, chick flicks, Thelma and Louise, Boys Don't Cry, a range of contemporary works that may include Sex and the City, Girls, Bridesmaids, The Kids Are Alright, and a selection of Internet works.

Topic: Women and American Cinema: Representation, Spectatorship, Authorship.