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Reel to Real: Race, class and sex at the movies
Movies matter – that is the message of Reel to Real, bell hooks’ classic collection of essays on film. They matter on a personal level, providing us with unforgettable moments, even life-changing experiences and they can confront us, too, with the most profound social issues of race, sex and class. Here bell hooks – one of America’s most celebrated and thrilling cultural critics – talks back to films that have moved and provoked her, from Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction to the work of Spike Lee. Including also her conversations with master filmmakers such as Charles Burnett and Julie Dash, Reel to Real is a must read for anyone who believes that movies are worth arguing about.
321 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 22, 1996
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About the author
bell hooks
162 books14.2k followersbell hooks (deliberately in lower-case; born Gloria Jean Watkins) was an African-American author, feminist, and social activist. Her writing focused on the interconnectivity of race, class, and gender and their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and domination. She published over thirty books and numerous scholarly and mainstream articles, appeared in several documentary films and participated in various public lectures. Primarily through a postmodern female perspective, she addressed race, class, and gender in education, art, history, sexuality, mass media and feminism.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
March 29, 2014
I’m really not the audience for this book. In the last 20 years or so I have watched probably a dozen American films – two-thirds of which would have been Disney crap with my daughters when they were quite young. I haven’t seen Reservoir Dogs or anything with Denzel Washington in it, and I haven’t seen a single film by Spike Lee. When what’s his face died recently from a heroin overdose I honestly had no idea who he was when he suddenly appeared all over my social media feeds. It ended up that I had seen one of his films, the one on the life of Capote, but couldn’t really recommend it, I assume his other work was better. American films tend to be so boringly predictable, violent, sexist and formulaic that the idea of ‘choosing’ to go to see one just makes me depressed. Oddly, in the last year I’ve actually seen three, The Great Gatsby, Blue Jasmine and Short Term 12. For the first, read the book, the second is a street car without desire, and the third is fine until it becomes so daft I wanted to damage the cars of everyone involved in the film, just to let off some steam. It is important to remember while watching American films that you are supposed to be incredibly stupid, thinking while watching is likely to lead to disappointment, or much, much worse.
So, a book of film criticism focused entirely on American films probably isn’t the most obvious book for me to read. However, bell hooks is a wonderful critic, so it is a delight to read her. Nothing she said here in the least made me want to track down or see any of these films, if anything it merely reinforced my loathing, but I would be more than happy to listen to her tell me about just about anything all day long.
If you have made the mistake of wasting part of your life watching American cinema and know any of the films discussed here, I suspect you would get much more out of this book than ultimately I did – reading this book will perhaps also open your eyes to the disgraceful way African Americans, women and poor people are treated in American cinema – you know, as two dimensional ‘extras’ at best. Hooks loves cinema and that passion comes through in her writing, I loath it and I suspect that might just come through in mine.
So, a book of film criticism focused entirely on American films probably isn’t the most obvious book for me to read. However, bell hooks is a wonderful critic, so it is a delight to read her. Nothing she said here in the least made me want to track down or see any of these films, if anything it merely reinforced my loathing, but I would be more than happy to listen to her tell me about just about anything all day long.
If you have made the mistake of wasting part of your life watching American cinema and know any of the films discussed here, I suspect you would get much more out of this book than ultimately I did – reading this book will perhaps also open your eyes to the disgraceful way African Americans, women and poor people are treated in American cinema – you know, as two dimensional ‘extras’ at best. Hooks loves cinema and that passion comes through in her writing, I loath it and I suspect that might just come through in mine.
April 22, 2014
As someone who cares a lot about representation in film, and is a fan of hooks from her other work, I was excited to read this book. Some of the essays interested me more than others. I tend to agree with her in what she says, and I wouldn't have thought I'd say this but I think she fails in her intersectional analysis at times. In particular the text on paris is burning left a kind of poor aftertaste.
Her comments regarding the problem of the director as anthropologist, and the predominantly white audience's reactions to the film are relevant and valid. All her opinions regarding race in relation to the film are pretty on point in my opinion, and I also appreciate that she criticizes the film's tendency to juxtapose tragedy and spectacle in ways that potentially could allow audiences to view the film as primarily "entertaining".
However, the recurring and generalizing use of "gay men" to describe the characters seems weird at best and erases the fact that a large number of the people in the film are decidedly NOT male-identified. Her discussion of how drag queens are not personifying real women was uncomfortably gender-essentialist. In saying that the film was made in a way that "makes it appear that the characters are estranged from any community beyond themselves" and that "families, friends, and the like are not shown" she ignores the fact that many of the characters actually discuss how they have created the community they have (which includes families) partially because gay people, and in particular gender-nonconforming gay men and transwomen were (and are) subject to violence in their families of origin. I agree that the film would have been better had it focused more on the ways they supported each other but saying that the characters wasn't shown with friends or family is like saying that queer friends doesn't count as friends.
Her comments regarding the problem of the director as anthropologist, and the predominantly white audience's reactions to the film are relevant and valid. All her opinions regarding race in relation to the film are pretty on point in my opinion, and I also appreciate that she criticizes the film's tendency to juxtapose tragedy and spectacle in ways that potentially could allow audiences to view the film as primarily "entertaining".
However, the recurring and generalizing use of "gay men" to describe the characters seems weird at best and erases the fact that a large number of the people in the film are decidedly NOT male-identified. Her discussion of how drag queens are not personifying real women was uncomfortably gender-essentialist. In saying that the film was made in a way that "makes it appear that the characters are estranged from any community beyond themselves" and that "families, friends, and the like are not shown" she ignores the fact that many of the characters actually discuss how they have created the community they have (which includes families) partially because gay people, and in particular gender-nonconforming gay men and transwomen were (and are) subject to violence in their families of origin. I agree that the film would have been better had it focused more on the ways they supported each other but saying that the characters wasn't shown with friends or family is like saying that queer friends doesn't count as friends.
August 17, 2016
bell hooks critiques cinema (both underground and mainstream) with an extreme passion and rigor that inspires the reader to either become film critics themselves, out of envy, or filmmakers who would simply "do better." hooks views cinema as a pedagogical tool that holds the possibly of teaching theory to a wide audience (2008, 3). With this in mind hooks fervently believes that cinematic images should strictly adhere to the representation of the "real." Cinematic images that disavow the belief that they are not constructed social realities fall victim to realism which hooks argues is the main hegemonic tool used in cinema to sustain the representation of whiteness (123). With this theoretical argument in tow, hooks delivers marvelous commentary and critique on the work of Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, and Larry Clark. I particularly enjoy her critique of Clark's Kids (1995) as she points out that a film is not subversive for "all the forms of transgression the teenagers embrace are just violently exaggerated mirroring of the dominant conservative values of culture. That so many viewers see this film as documenting a shocking hidden world of teenage transgression shows that most folks are in denial about the values they collectively uphold and perpetuate (81)." Although hooks provides plenty of critique, she also praises films that break this mold of perpetuating dominant social orders and introduces the readers to the radical alternative Black feminist cinematic work of Julie Dash, Zeinabu irene Davis, and Camile Billops.
September 10, 2023
What are movies ACTUALLY saying about sexism and racism? The intent of the director is not always how messages in film get received by different audiences.
Very great fuel for lovers of critical discussion and film.
Very great fuel for lovers of critical discussion and film.
January 29, 2022
What value does a reader who doesn’t watch many movies get from a book about them? Reel to Real is a gathering of hooks’ most popular essays and interviews on the topic of film. Engaging with works from Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, and Isaac Julien, as well as interviewing film directors like Camille Billops and Charles Burnett, hooks provides a landscape survey of Black film and aesthetics from the 1980s and 1990s.
Reel to Real is not difficult to follow. Most people have read film reviews, have themselves acted as mini-reviewers when talking with friends about the latest films. It is an accessible form of entertainment, and most adult movie-goers are aware of ongoing criticisms in the film industry such as the lack of female leads in movies (unless they’re ‘kick-ass’, ‘strong’ female leads), or the never-ending series of announcements that Disney has finally given us queer representation. While hooks writes with a slightly higher register, she approaches familiar, if not adjacent territory – for example the way female sexuality is wielded, the way Black life is presented, and the necessary intersection between blackness and female sexuality on screen. Not all of the essays feel groundbreaking – for they articulate viewpoints that have now become mainstream and accepted – but hooks writes with clarity. Without watching these films, I could still follow the threads of her arguments; whether or not I agreed with her conclusions is a separate matter.
What retains if not appreciates in value is hooks’ interviews with film directors. In them, she is able to discuss the difficulties of creating new and exciting figurations of Black life with creators, and this leads tointeresting results. In her essay ‘Artistic Integrity: Race and Accountability’, hooks points out that filmmakers from marginalized groups struggle with having the confidence to create films that are fully representative of their artistic vision. “Most black filmmakers raised in a white supremacist culture wherein the vast majority of cinematic images are constructed in ways that preserve and uphold this structure of domination feel compelled to assume responsibility for producing resisting images.”
However, her ideals are challenged in her interview with Charles Burnett, who argued that artistry is never fully able to transcend audience concerns. The interview records a tension between hooks and Burnett, as hooks’ assumptions that more radical apparatuses of funding films (a supply side solution) were criticized:
Burnett’s response is relevant even now. Making and distributing films is capital-intensive, leading to risk-averse behaviour in studios. Many of the gathered interviews hold similarly intriguing fragments, giving tantalizing glimpses into the industry. Where hooks finds firmer ground is when she returns to the role of a critic in relation to art. Critics, hooks rightly says, have a duty to build long-term:
I agree with hooks: reviewing must help open ways to view and understand a text. I’m averse to letting emotion take over, and by extension suspicious of reviews which privilege an “I” of pure sensation. While this book is best suited for film studies majors, there are enough essays here that can apply themselves broadly to criticism at large. It is a useful reference, at times an interesting read.
Reel to Real is not difficult to follow. Most people have read film reviews, have themselves acted as mini-reviewers when talking with friends about the latest films. It is an accessible form of entertainment, and most adult movie-goers are aware of ongoing criticisms in the film industry such as the lack of female leads in movies (unless they’re ‘kick-ass’, ‘strong’ female leads), or the never-ending series of announcements that Disney has finally given us queer representation. While hooks writes with a slightly higher register, she approaches familiar, if not adjacent territory – for example the way female sexuality is wielded, the way Black life is presented, and the necessary intersection between blackness and female sexuality on screen. Not all of the essays feel groundbreaking – for they articulate viewpoints that have now become mainstream and accepted – but hooks writes with clarity. Without watching these films, I could still follow the threads of her arguments; whether or not I agreed with her conclusions is a separate matter.
What retains if not appreciates in value is hooks’ interviews with film directors. In them, she is able to discuss the difficulties of creating new and exciting figurations of Black life with creators, and this leads tointeresting results. In her essay ‘Artistic Integrity: Race and Accountability’, hooks points out that filmmakers from marginalized groups struggle with having the confidence to create films that are fully representative of their artistic vision. “Most black filmmakers raised in a white supremacist culture wherein the vast majority of cinematic images are constructed in ways that preserve and uphold this structure of domination feel compelled to assume responsibility for producing resisting images.”
However, her ideals are challenged in her interview with Charles Burnett, who argued that artistry is never fully able to transcend audience concerns. The interview records a tension between hooks and Burnett, as hooks’ assumptions that more radical apparatuses of funding films (a supply side solution) were criticized:
(Burnett, responding): I have a little bit of a problem with that suggestion, in a way, because one of the things about film is that there is always an audience problem and funding films is too expensive. […] That’s the dilemma—I mean that’s the dilemma we don’t talk about enough. How much does it take to launch a book? For a film, you’re talking real money.
Burnett’s response is relevant even now. Making and distributing films is capital-intensive, leading to risk-averse behaviour in studios. Many of the gathered interviews hold similarly intriguing fragments, giving tantalizing glimpses into the industry. Where hooks finds firmer ground is when she returns to the role of a critic in relation to art. Critics, hooks rightly says, have a duty to build long-term:
In the future, critics and black filmmakers need to be engaged more with one another. Look at the dearth of critical writing on works by African American filmmakers. If you teach a film class, you want to have this whole body of really sophisticated critical work to refer to because it doesn’t exist yet. I think that these two facets must work together if we are to make new sites for black filmmakers to make whatever they want to. There has got to be a space where that work is given high-quality treatment.
I agree with hooks: reviewing must help open ways to view and understand a text. I’m averse to letting emotion take over, and by extension suspicious of reviews which privilege an “I” of pure sensation. While this book is best suited for film studies majors, there are enough essays here that can apply themselves broadly to criticism at large. It is a useful reference, at times an interesting read.
November 21, 2007
I like bell hooks and I like movies but I don'tlike this book.
June 25, 2024
Not as enlightening as ‘the will to change’ but definitely profound in its own right. I like hook’s attitude towards film criticism, stating that you can like a film and still be critical of it’s shortcomings. For the most part her writing here provides a necessary lens with witch to view predominantly white, patriarchal depictions of ‘black culture’ in cinema. It forced me to interrogate the relationships I have with some of the films I really like and confront the ugliness I overlooked. I’m keen to return to hook’s work at a later point in the year, I think I’ll read ‘about love’ when I travel overseas.
April 10, 2023
bell hooks giving her thoughts on cinema and key films, like She's gotta have it and Waiting to exhale. Have always loved bell hooks, have recently discovered her cultural work and her film critique is on fire. Wonderful.
October 13, 2024
This book starts out with an intro where hooks spells out a frustration she had with some of her students. Her class will talk in-depth about feminism, and Black feminism in particular, a number of the students will tell her that they just don't get it. It's too abstract, too difficult to understand, they just can't put it together. But when she talks to them about these ideas in the context of film, they immediately understand. Suddenly they're all experts on it because film's given them a way to understand it all. And where I'm here like "yeah get their asses, bell hooks!" it's also not lost on me that, this is the first book of bell hooks' writings I've read. Hell, not even that, the first book of James Baldwin's I read was HIS book on film. I simply refuse to see myself as part of this issue.
But I think a good takeaway from this book isn't that this is necessarily an issue, and that this is more of an acknowledgement that a lot of people take their cues for their understanding of the world from movies, tv, pop culture in general, whether they know it or not. Reel to Real as a title is a statement on this: that people can make fictional movies, biased movies, but many of us will walk away without a greater consideration of what's being shown on-screen than having it create or confirm certain stereotypes we have. The fiction committed to film becomes the reality that we take away with us.
As such I think it's a bit of a surprise that her essay on "oppositional gaze" comes so late in the book. Now to me, I generally find conceptions of "gaze" as a concept for film watching to be a bit lacking, especially the way we tend to focus it around the "male gaze." Because you should then ask yourself, which male? Which way of gazing? Are they straight? Are they white? And how are we the audience supposed to consider that gaze? What does the male gaze of Gregg Araki vs a Michael Bay really have in common? And what does that have in common with us as an audience if we don't share that same gaze - eg how movies become camp, how the homoeroticism of male action directors should play out between audiences, &tc &tc &tc. hooks does address this in this essay, suggesting that this way of looking at shooting cinema and viewing cinema can create a sort of "totalizing" effect, where all Men see things like this all Women see things like this all Queer People see it like this, which can serve to erase a lot of further criticism on the works. hooks' conception of an oppositional gaze acknowledges all of this and says, well, if you're going to exclude me from the assumed creator of the film, the assumed audience of the film, and the assumed CRITIC of the film, well, I'll just make my OWN criticism. And more specifically, one that utilizes her own position as an outsider as a way to give her extra tool to hold up to the film and offer a further analysis.
In this she also tries to bridge the issues with feminism itself which has a tendency too erase race from its conception of the world, essentially saying this is also a way to challenge what "woman" has meant for so long, not in a TERFy way, but in a way that say "and why has MY womanhood been excluded from this for so long?" Because any notion of a woman that would exclude her is not a true notion of a woman, and she feels like feminism has reached a point where that happens too often. This book and this essay serve as a way of saying, you can ignore me but you can't silence me. Which, given that this is the kind of work she does in the movie, feels a little strange that it comes at the end, but organizationally it makes some since since she's bookending not just with discussions on She's Gotta Have It but also her views on the importance of movies as something to criticize, and why she does it. A little bit of a like "ok you just read almost 20 essays on films - what should you be taking away, then?"
This is a great read. hooks may have an acid tongue but always with a heartfelt argument behind it - she might be contrarian and ask you to look at a movie opposite the way it might be commonly seen but her writing here often doesn't serve to diminish the entertainment value of something, but instead go, ok here are the further complications in the story that are worth keeping in mind even as you enjoy it. The essay on Hoop Dream probably best showcases this aspect, where she's at once going "this is a great story" while also going "I found this documentary to be self-serving with many glaring omissions" while also ending on like, yeah you should probably go see it. It's one of the best examples of how criticism doesn't mean you're a hater; sometimes criticism means you love so much that all you want is for it to be better.
I could go through movie by movie but I won't because I value both your time, and also, my time.
The only complaint about this book is that it ends in 1996 and hooks had another 20 years in her before passed, which just makes me want more. I was joking a bit earlier about how I was one of the students she was talking about who only care when things apply to film (reading this is partially in prelude to me reading 2 other books about film which might also turn into me reading a dang textbook too) reading bell hooks was something I'd circled around for some time and mostly saw the book about movies as a good Venn diagram for our interests that would be a good first toe dip into her work. And it worked, man, I'm ready to read more of her when I get a chance! The only person to come at Beyonce and live. What a powerhouse.
But I think a good takeaway from this book isn't that this is necessarily an issue, and that this is more of an acknowledgement that a lot of people take their cues for their understanding of the world from movies, tv, pop culture in general, whether they know it or not. Reel to Real as a title is a statement on this: that people can make fictional movies, biased movies, but many of us will walk away without a greater consideration of what's being shown on-screen than having it create or confirm certain stereotypes we have. The fiction committed to film becomes the reality that we take away with us.
As such I think it's a bit of a surprise that her essay on "oppositional gaze" comes so late in the book. Now to me, I generally find conceptions of "gaze" as a concept for film watching to be a bit lacking, especially the way we tend to focus it around the "male gaze." Because you should then ask yourself, which male? Which way of gazing? Are they straight? Are they white? And how are we the audience supposed to consider that gaze? What does the male gaze of Gregg Araki vs a Michael Bay really have in common? And what does that have in common with us as an audience if we don't share that same gaze - eg how movies become camp, how the homoeroticism of male action directors should play out between audiences, &tc &tc &tc. hooks does address this in this essay, suggesting that this way of looking at shooting cinema and viewing cinema can create a sort of "totalizing" effect, where all Men see things like this all Women see things like this all Queer People see it like this, which can serve to erase a lot of further criticism on the works. hooks' conception of an oppositional gaze acknowledges all of this and says, well, if you're going to exclude me from the assumed creator of the film, the assumed audience of the film, and the assumed CRITIC of the film, well, I'll just make my OWN criticism. And more specifically, one that utilizes her own position as an outsider as a way to give her extra tool to hold up to the film and offer a further analysis.
In this she also tries to bridge the issues with feminism itself which has a tendency too erase race from its conception of the world, essentially saying this is also a way to challenge what "woman" has meant for so long, not in a TERFy way, but in a way that say "and why has MY womanhood been excluded from this for so long?" Because any notion of a woman that would exclude her is not a true notion of a woman, and she feels like feminism has reached a point where that happens too often. This book and this essay serve as a way of saying, you can ignore me but you can't silence me. Which, given that this is the kind of work she does in the movie, feels a little strange that it comes at the end, but organizationally it makes some since since she's bookending not just with discussions on She's Gotta Have It but also her views on the importance of movies as something to criticize, and why she does it. A little bit of a like "ok you just read almost 20 essays on films - what should you be taking away, then?"
This is a great read. hooks may have an acid tongue but always with a heartfelt argument behind it - she might be contrarian and ask you to look at a movie opposite the way it might be commonly seen but her writing here often doesn't serve to diminish the entertainment value of something, but instead go, ok here are the further complications in the story that are worth keeping in mind even as you enjoy it. The essay on Hoop Dream probably best showcases this aspect, where she's at once going "this is a great story" while also going "I found this documentary to be self-serving with many glaring omissions" while also ending on like, yeah you should probably go see it. It's one of the best examples of how criticism doesn't mean you're a hater; sometimes criticism means you love so much that all you want is for it to be better.
I could go through movie by movie but I won't because I value both your time, and also, my time.
The only complaint about this book is that it ends in 1996 and hooks had another 20 years in her before passed, which just makes me want more. I was joking a bit earlier about how I was one of the students she was talking about who only care when things apply to film (reading this is partially in prelude to me reading 2 other books about film which might also turn into me reading a dang textbook too) reading bell hooks was something I'd circled around for some time and mostly saw the book about movies as a good Venn diagram for our interests that would be a good first toe dip into her work. And it worked, man, I'm ready to read more of her when I get a chance! The only person to come at Beyonce and live. What a powerhouse.
Read
November 30, 2023Dnf 68% (audio). I feel so bad about this because it's not that it's a bad book it's just that I've been waiting for this to get interesting and to catch my attention but unfortunately I'm not familiar with the movies she's talking about so I keep getting side tracked. I'd like to try this in ebook form another day.
December 1, 2025
even if I don’t agree with every take or opinion, I always find bell hooks’s critiques and writings interesting. she gave me a lot to think about with this one and I enjoyed it. more like a 3.5 ⭐️
March 20, 2024
Este livro é uma série de críticas, ensaios e entrevistas da bell hooks sobre cinema.
E, meu Deus, como fiquei com mais vontade de ler tudo que essa mulher escreveu.
Como alguém crescido na internet e tendo sido constantemente empurrado a consumir lixo e me afastar cada vez mais de algum conteúdo relevante de verdade especialmente em se tratando de cultura pop, a forma como a autora faz crítica de cinema é uma borrifada de ar fresco.
Faz muita falta um conteúdo como esse em algum canal de youtube famoso de “cultura pop” brasileiro. A bell hooks fala com propriedade, com personalidade e vai muito além de “artigos de opinião” sobre obras cinematográficas.
Ela não tem medo de apresentar sua posição política e deixar bem claro de que ponto está saindo ao criticar as obras que consome e isso eleva muito o nível de argumentação, eleva tanto que pra mim todo conteúdo de crítica de cultura pop ou cinema que consumi até hoje (principalmente na internet) se tornou raso e trivial.
Depois de ler esse livro com certeza vou consumir muito mais filmes independentes (já tenho uma lista de indicações que peguei lendo ele).
E, meu Deus, como fiquei com mais vontade de ler tudo que essa mulher escreveu.
Como alguém crescido na internet e tendo sido constantemente empurrado a consumir lixo e me afastar cada vez mais de algum conteúdo relevante de verdade especialmente em se tratando de cultura pop, a forma como a autora faz crítica de cinema é uma borrifada de ar fresco.
Faz muita falta um conteúdo como esse em algum canal de youtube famoso de “cultura pop” brasileiro. A bell hooks fala com propriedade, com personalidade e vai muito além de “artigos de opinião” sobre obras cinematográficas.
Ela não tem medo de apresentar sua posição política e deixar bem claro de que ponto está saindo ao criticar as obras que consome e isso eleva muito o nível de argumentação, eleva tanto que pra mim todo conteúdo de crítica de cultura pop ou cinema que consumi até hoje (principalmente na internet) se tornou raso e trivial.
Depois de ler esse livro com certeza vou consumir muito mais filmes independentes (já tenho uma lista de indicações que peguei lendo ele).
May 9, 2025
banger on banger on banger. bell hooks is Thee essayist. paris is burning essay absolutely giving homo/transphobic tho took a star off for that
March 2, 2009
I haven't read this book in 10 years. I've been reading a lot lately about the independent film scene of the 80s and 90s. As I get older I tend to agree more with her criticism of Spike Lee, and I have always enjoyed her thrashing of John Singleton. I appreciate her conversations with/about Charles Burnett now that I have finally been able to see 'Killer of Sheep'. I've been on a Charles Burnett kick lately, so that was my original reason for retrieving this book off my shelf.
February 1, 2014
bell hook's critical analysis of film offers insights that are woefully lacking from contemporary film criticism. In particular, film critics seem to ignore that our perspectives, framed by our social location, encompassing race, gender, culture, etc. can be problematic in how we read film and further interpreted it.
bell imparts her critical gaze to us as readers and we are all the better for it.
bell imparts her critical gaze to us as readers and we are all the better for it.
Currently reading
December 31, 2008Film criticism by an esteemed feminist writer - as usual with film criticism its hit or miss with me depending on if I believe their argument and if I liked or dislike the movie. In this book, especially good is the "Waiting to Exhale" feminist mockery piece.
June 29, 2011
This anthology of essays of cultural criticism on film encourages readers to re-examine movies they enjoy. It awakens the critical eye to examine beyond the surface when exposed to the media and entertainment.
November 10, 2008
hooks' writing style is too repetitive for my tastes. she certainly beleagures a point. i did enjoy the insights on drag queens in paris is burning.
December 26, 2010
this is an outstanding analysis of how film frames culture and how culture frames film.
January 2, 2011
This is a good book but I have a few issues with her thoughts on some movies. I do think what she talks about concerning "She's Gotta Have It" is very relative and interesting.
July 28, 2015
new left/third wave writer does informal film criticism. effective overall.
December 12, 2013
this collection of essays is pretty solid though i felt it got a bit boring at times. good overall though.
August 18, 2015
After watching Paul Thomas Anderson's horrible Inherent Vice I thought of this book and how its method of critique is screaming to be applied.
May 27, 2025
bell hooks’ Reel to Real is an insightful and often sharp collection of essays and interviews that interrogate the intersections of race, gender, class, and media through the lens of cinema.
One of the book's strengths lies in its range. hooks doesn’t limit her analysis to overtly political films; she dives into Hollywood blockbusters, independent features, and even documentaries, discussing everything from Pulp Fiction to Paris Is Burning. Her reflections are personal as well as political, often referencing her own experiences and reactions as a Black feminist viewer. This adds an engaging, reflective quality that feels intimate without becoming self-indulgent.
That said, Reel to Real can sometimes feel uneven. Some chapters are tightly argued and deeply compelling, while others read more like informal musings or stray into repetition. The organization of the book, which jumps between essay and interview, theoretical critique and personal anecdote, can occasionally be disorienting. At times, hooks’ brilliance feels scattered rather than focused.
Still, even when the prose meanders, the questions she raises remain urgent. Reel to Real is not a definitive guide to media criticism, but it is a powerful invitation to think critically about what we consume—and what consumes us.
One of the book's strengths lies in its range. hooks doesn’t limit her analysis to overtly political films; she dives into Hollywood blockbusters, independent features, and even documentaries, discussing everything from Pulp Fiction to Paris Is Burning. Her reflections are personal as well as political, often referencing her own experiences and reactions as a Black feminist viewer. This adds an engaging, reflective quality that feels intimate without becoming self-indulgent.
That said, Reel to Real can sometimes feel uneven. Some chapters are tightly argued and deeply compelling, while others read more like informal musings or stray into repetition. The organization of the book, which jumps between essay and interview, theoretical critique and personal anecdote, can occasionally be disorienting. At times, hooks’ brilliance feels scattered rather than focused.
Still, even when the prose meanders, the questions she raises remain urgent. Reel to Real is not a definitive guide to media criticism, but it is a powerful invitation to think critically about what we consume—and what consumes us.
October 6, 2023
Like some of hooks' other work, and consistent in this collection of her film criticism, I have a bit of a problem with her theoretical framing. Focusing on the oppression of "white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy," which is her guiding phrase, I find it a) redundant and b) misleading, as though there is another type of capitalism that doesn't promote these things or that is perhaps more morally pure. I know her work enough to know she is plenty complex, and very strong in her opinions (which I respect and find kinship in), but sometimes it makes her writing a bit ungenerous and even slightly narrow. That happens some in Reel to Real, which is a great example of the post-60s pre-Obama years of cultural criticism. However, this is a really good book of criticism, because it inspires a lot of thought, is very engaging, and demands interaction. hooks is challenging, and to me film criticism is all about engaging in a fruitful and loaded conversation. I don't care about agreeing/disagreeing with a film critic, just that they illuminate things about movies and provoke dialogue and thought. Here hooks succeeds greatly at both.
August 8, 2024
This book was printed in 1996 and compiles some articles written as early as 1989. Certainly educational for me but the one internal refrain for me was "if you come with an agenda you can always find fault". The good part is that it does start debate and move you out of your old habits.
I'm very much on her side with her distrust of American films points of view. I really don't think that even yet we have got rid of the strong man, weak women meme and certainly there are stereotype renderings of all people in film (and theatre); but it is part of story-telling to do this to allow us to get into a story and minor characters will always be out of this mould. So I can see some element of this always remaining with us, especially as they will always be part of our history (however much we have changed)
I'd like to know what she is writing today and if she thinks there is improvement in the film offering.
I'm very much on her side with her distrust of American films points of view. I really don't think that even yet we have got rid of the strong man, weak women meme and certainly there are stereotype renderings of all people in film (and theatre); but it is part of story-telling to do this to allow us to get into a story and minor characters will always be out of this mould. So I can see some element of this always remaining with us, especially as they will always be part of our history (however much we have changed)
I'd like to know what she is writing today and if she thinks there is improvement in the film offering.
June 5, 2023
I agreed and disagreed with her in pretty much equal measure, but most importantly her criticism encouraged me to consider new ways of thinking about film. Her brief criticism of Thelma and Louise really threw me for a loop, as I'd always thought of that as a very feminist film. I understood her point though, and I don't think she's necessarily wrong.
The only area where I felt like her criticism was really lacking was in the Paris is Burning essay. She seemed to espouse some very gender essentialist views early on that I felt prevented a proper intersectional analysis.
Nevertheless, I'm really glad I read this.
The only area where I felt like her criticism was really lacking was in the Paris is Burning essay. She seemed to espouse some very gender essentialist views early on that I felt prevented a proper intersectional analysis.
Nevertheless, I'm really glad I read this.
February 5, 2024
Film analysis may not be the first thing you think of when you think of Bell Hooks, but time after time she’s shown to have very passionate thoughts on cinema and the quality (or lack of quality as is too often the case in her mind) of meaningful depictions of portrayals of the lives of black people in mainstream Hollywood films, so a full book dedicated to her thoughts on various movies and conversations with filmmakers suits her very well.
If you’re into her work and like extended thoughts about film that isn’t afraid to call out cinema’s short comings in terms of truly revolutionary topics or messages, this is a no brainer recommendation.
If you’re into her work and like extended thoughts about film that isn’t afraid to call out cinema’s short comings in terms of truly revolutionary topics or messages, this is a no brainer recommendation.
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June 25, 2022I enjoyed this collection of essays on films. bell hooks weaves history, culture, and personal experience to explain her conclusions about popular and influential people in film. while I don't agree with everything she has to say, [Angela Bassett is not a bad actress, imo] I did stop to pontificate her points. The fact that she makes me question what I never questioned before, speaks to her authority as a film critic.
October 10, 2022
bell hooks’ works and critiques, like this book is presenting, would always remain relevant and intriguing. In particular, her critique of Paris is Burning, somewhat could also be applied to today’s certain white audience’s obsession with the new Netflix tv series about Dahmer, the serial killer—in making connections between white gaze of the pains and sufferings of the Black communities. Rest in power, bell hooks!
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