Femininity in the Frame

Women and 1950s British Popular Cinema

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by Melanie Bell

Type

Studies

Subject

Countries > Great Britain

Keywords

Great Britain, 1950s, women

Publishing date

2009

Publisher

I.B.Tauris

Collection

Cinema and Society

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 240 pages
5 x 9 ¾ inches (13 x 24.5 cm)

ISBN

978-1-84885-159-7

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Book Presentation:
It's widely assumed that Britain in the 1950s experienced a return post-war to traditional gender roles and that popular cinema represented this era of the mythological ""happy housewife"" with boys-own tales of derring do. Melanie Bell challenges such received understandings with this sharply observant account of how British cinema engaged with femininity and women's roles during an important period of social and cultural change. In a lively and accessible manner, she shows that the period was marked by social unease and anxiety about gender roles and femininity through analyzing marginalized figures such as prostitutes, criminals and 'femmes fatales' and addressing themes of modernity, marriage and female friendship. This revealing book shows how many British films, like The Perfect Woman or Young Wives' Tale, expressed proto-feminist ideas and explored new forms of femininity in a manner that has not until now generally been recognized.

About the Author:
Melanie Bell is Lecturer in Film, Newcastle University. She has contributed to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and co-edited British Woman's Cinema (2009).

See the publisher website: I.B.Tauris