American Postfeminist Cinema

Women, Romance and Contemporary Culture

Add to my list

by Michele Schreiber

Type

Studies

Subject

Sociology

Keywords

women, feminism, romance

Publishing date

2014

Publisher

Edinburgh University Press

Collection

Traditions in American Cinema

Language

English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Hardcover • 208 pages
6 x 9 ¼ inches (15.5 x 23.5 cm)

ISBN

978-0-7486-9336-8

User Ratings

(0 vote)

X

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:
Examines a cycle of postfeminist films that adopt the conventions of romance

In light of their tremendous gains in the political and professional sphere, and their ever expanding options, why do most contemporary American films aimed at women still focus almost exclusively on their pursuit of a heterosexual romantic relationship? American Postfeminist Cinema explores this question and is the first book to examine the symbiotic relationship between heterosexual romance and postfeminist culture. The book argues that since 1980, postfeminism’s most salient tensions and anxieties have been reflected in the American romance film. Case studies of a broad range of Hollywood and independent films reveal how the postfeminist romance cycle is intertwined with contemporary women's ambivalence and broader cultural anxieties about women's changing social and political status.

Key Features
-€¢ Offers a new perspective on both popular American romance films and postfeminist cultural criticism by examining the symbiotic relationship between romance and postfeminism
• Analyses the recurring narrative and discursive patterns of postfeminist cinema
• Includes 13 case studies of popular postfeminist films and other media texts, including television programmes
• Continues the tradition of feminist analysis of romance as a significant media genre for women

About the Author:
Michele Schreiber is Associate Professor of Film and Media Studies at Emory University. She is the author of American Postfeminist Cinema: Women, Romance and Contemporary Culture (Edinburgh University Press, 2014) and articles on postfeminist media and contemporary independent and Hollywood filmmakers. Her work has appeared in Journal of Film and Video and anthologies including American Independent Cinema: Indie, Indiewood and Beyond, Feminism at the Movies and Reclaiming the Archive: Feminism and Film History.

Press Reviews:
Schreiber’s text provides a valuable insight into the continued influence of postfeminist anxieties surrounding heterosexual romance on contemporary American cinema. Her framework of the conventions of the ‘postfeminist romance cycle’ offers a useful method for analysis that could be expanded upon in further research projects. The text will be of interest to scholars in the fields of gender and sexuality, film and romance, in addition to cultural historians and researchers of American Studies in general.– Krystina Osborne, Liverpool John Moores University, CERCLES

In her well-researched and cogently argues book, Michele Schreiber explores the disconnect between the reality of women’s personal, economic, and social gains and cinematic representations of women in the twenty-first century.'– Sarita Cannon, Journal of Popular Film and Television

In her well-researched and cogently argues book, Michele Schreiber explores the disconnect between the reality of women’s personal, economic, and social gains and cinematic representations of women in the twenty-first century.'– Sarita Cannon, Journal of Popular Film and Television

Michele Schreiber’s nuanced, hugely rewarding book is a brilliant analysis of the ways in which the mythology of heterosexual romance continues to regulate as well as to complicate the conventions of postfeminist cinema. Dissolving boundaries between comedy and drama, film and other media, she offers original and lively readings of an array of films that demand mixed responses, concentrating on key topics such as nostalgia, ‘girlhood’, the tensions between female dependency and autonomy, all in a clear and accessible style.– Peter William Evans, Queen Mary, University of London

See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press