Feminist Film Theory and Pretty Woman

Add to my list

by Mari Ruti

Type: Essays
Subject: One Film > Pretty Woman
Keywords: Garry Marshall, feminism
Publishing date: 2016
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Collection: Film Theory in Practice
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 216 pages
5 x 8 inches (12.5 x 20.5 cm)

ISBN

978-1-5013-1942-6

User Ratings

(0 vote)

Average rating:

0	rating	= We can do without
0	rating	= Good book
0	rating	= Excellent book
0	rating	= Unique / a reference

Your rating: -

Book Presentation:
In Feminist Film Theory and Pretty Woman, Mari Ruti traces the development of feminist film theory from its foundational concepts such as the male gaze, female spectatorship, and the masquerade of femininity to 21st-century analyses of neoliberal capitalism, consumerism, postfeminism, and the revival of “girly” femininity as a cultural ideal. By interpreting Pretty Woman as a movie that defies easy categorization as either feminist or antifeminist, the book counters the all-too-common critical dismissal of romantic comedies as mindless drivel preoccupied with trivial “feminine” concerns such as love and shopping. The book's lucid presentation of the key concerns of feminist film theory, along with its balanced reading of Pretty Woman, shed light on a Hollywood genre often overlooked by film critics: the romantic comedy.

About the Author:
Mari Ruti (PhD, Harvard University) was Distinguished Professor of Critical Theory and of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada. She was the author of numerous important works, including thirteen books The Singularity of Being: Lacan and the Immortal Within (2012); Between Levinas and Lacan: Self, Other, Ethics (Bloomsbury, 2015); The Age of Scientific Sexism (Bloomsbury, 2015); Feminist Film Theory and Pretty Woman (Bloomsbury, 2016); Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings: The Emotional Costs of Everyday Life (2018); Distillations: Theory, Ethics, Affect (editor; Bloomsbury, 2018); and Critical Theory Between Klein and Lacan: A Dialogue - with Amy Allen (Bloomsbury, 2019).Todd McGowan is a Professor in the Department of Film and Television Studies at the University of Vermont. His many publications include Capitalism and Desire: The Psychic Cost of Free Markets (2016) and Enjoying What We Don’t Have: The Political Project of Psychoanalysis (2012).

See the publisher website: Bloomsbury Academic

See Pretty Woman (1990) on IMDB ...

> On a related topic: