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From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in the Movies
For this edition of her classic study of the feminine role in film, Molly Haskell has written a new chapter addressing recent developments in the appearance and perception of women in the movies.
"An incisive, exceedingly thoughtful look at the distorted lens through which Hollywood has historically viewed women. It is a valuable contribution not just of film criticism but to a society in which the vital role of women is just beginning to emerge."— Christian Science Monitor
"Haskell is interested in women—how they are used in movies, how they use movies, and how the parts they play function as projections and verifications of our myths about women's lot and woman's psyche and even, lately, women's lib."—Jane Kramer, Village Voice
"In examining the goddesses worshipped by an entire nation, Molly Haskell reveals a good deal about our national character and our most cherished sexual myths. . . . Concerned with the deeply ingrained belief of women's inferiority, she analyzes movies as a social product as well as a social arbiter, and she effectively demonstrates how women are encouraged to impose limitations on themselves by fashioning those selves after flickering shadows in a darkened auditorium—sexual creatures who possess neither ability nor ambition beyond their bodies. . . . Both as an examination of film and as sociology, From Reverence to Rape is excellent."—Harriet Kriegel, The Nation
"An incisive, exceedingly thoughtful look at the distorted lens through which Hollywood has historically viewed women. It is a valuable contribution not just of film criticism but to a society in which the vital role of women is just beginning to emerge."— Christian Science Monitor
"Haskell is interested in women—how they are used in movies, how they use movies, and how the parts they play function as projections and verifications of our myths about women's lot and woman's psyche and even, lately, women's lib."—Jane Kramer, Village Voice
"In examining the goddesses worshipped by an entire nation, Molly Haskell reveals a good deal about our national character and our most cherished sexual myths. . . . Concerned with the deeply ingrained belief of women's inferiority, she analyzes movies as a social product as well as a social arbiter, and she effectively demonstrates how women are encouraged to impose limitations on themselves by fashioning those selves after flickering shadows in a darkened auditorium—sexual creatures who possess neither ability nor ambition beyond their bodies. . . . Both as an examination of film and as sociology, From Reverence to Rape is excellent."—Harriet Kriegel, The Nation
444 pages, Paperback
First published November 30, 1974
76 people are currently reading
3758 people want to read
About the author
Molly Haskell
21 books44 followersMolly Haskell author and critic, grew up in Richmond, Va., went to Sweet Briar College, the University of London and the Sorbonne before settling in New York. She worked at the French Film Office in the Sixties, writing a newsletter about French films for the New York press and interpreting when directors came to America (this was the height of the Nouvelle Vague) for the opening of their films. She then went to The Village Voice, first as a theatre critic, then as a movie reviewer; and from there to New York Magazine and Vogue.
She has written for many publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian UK, Esquire, The Nation, Town and Country, The New York Observer and The New York Review of Books. She has served as Artistic Director of the Sarasota French Film Festival, on the selection committee of the New York Film Festival, as associate Professor of Film at Barnard and as Adjunct Professor of Film at Columbia University.
She is married to the film critic Andrew Sarris. Her books include From Reverence to Rape: the Treatment of Women in the Movies (1973; revised and reissued in 1989); a memoir, Love and Other Infectious Diseases (1990); and, in 1997, a collection of essays and interviews, Holding My Own in No Man’s Land: Women and Men and Films and Feminists. Her newest book, part of the Yale University Press's American Icon series, is Frankly, My Dear: Gone with the Wind Revisited.
She has written for many publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian UK, Esquire, The Nation, Town and Country, The New York Observer and The New York Review of Books. She has served as Artistic Director of the Sarasota French Film Festival, on the selection committee of the New York Film Festival, as associate Professor of Film at Barnard and as Adjunct Professor of Film at Columbia University.
She is married to the film critic Andrew Sarris. Her books include From Reverence to Rape: the Treatment of Women in the Movies (1973; revised and reissued in 1989); a memoir, Love and Other Infectious Diseases (1990); and, in 1997, a collection of essays and interviews, Holding My Own in No Man’s Land: Women and Men and Films and Feminists. Her newest book, part of the Yale University Press's American Icon series, is Frankly, My Dear: Gone with the Wind Revisited.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
October 28, 2007
I just finished this in a marathon reading session that lasted all day. I have some very mixed feelings about it. Most of it was written right in the middle of the second wave of feminism, so Haskell can be both refreshing in her frank feminist leanings and frustrating in her insistence on psychoanalyzing directors based on their films.
Her history of film is tightly focused on white women, with the barest mention of black women (or any other minority women), something that is disturbing and even more so when you consider the amount of space she gives to discussing the women in D.W. Griffith's films in her chapter on the 1920s.
Still, she makes some interesting points about the popularity of Shirley Temple as "an ideal post-Production Code sex kitten", the difference between Marilyn Monroe and her parody, Jane Mansfield, and the common misrepresentation of Doris Day as a prim and unrelenting virgin. If nothing else, Haskell is ambitious and studied in her attempt to canvass the entirety of American (and European) film history in order to review women's roles from a feminist angle.
Her history of film is tightly focused on white women, with the barest mention of black women (or any other minority women), something that is disturbing and even more so when you consider the amount of space she gives to discussing the women in D.W. Griffith's films in her chapter on the 1920s.
Still, she makes some interesting points about the popularity of Shirley Temple as "an ideal post-Production Code sex kitten", the difference between Marilyn Monroe and her parody, Jane Mansfield, and the common misrepresentation of Doris Day as a prim and unrelenting virgin. If nothing else, Haskell is ambitious and studied in her attempt to canvass the entirety of American (and European) film history in order to review women's roles from a feminist angle.
June 25, 2013
Saw Haskell on TMC recently, and I remembered I used to read her movie reviews. I also remember her calling herself a film critic first, a feminist next, and believing her, so I looked for books she'd written and this title was irresistible. Published in 1974, this edition has a small new introduction in 1987, when Haskell writes the number of women directors had increased tenfold. The book left me longing for an update. What happened from 1974 to 1987 specifically related to women roles and women filmmakers? In 1974 women were going missing from movies; a downward spiral that began in the 1920s with the movie business full of women in all roles, well paid and prolific. The 1930s had strong women roles, actresses that made 3 or 4 movies a year, women directors, screenwriters, studio heads. Then the Production Code and the Hays Office in combination with the flood of money men hitting Hollywood turned that trajectory. 1940s and the star system. Not actresses, movie stars. Stars were groomed, sculpted, dehumanized. Women heads of family, single working women, plain women, old women, women without children, struggling women disappeared. Femme fatales could be strong women but they better be dead by the end of the movie, or in the case of Laura, dead before the movie started. The beginning of the buddy movies. The men - in groups, gangs, pairs, and the women as window dressing, statuary, victim; and depending on the director, reflections of that director's male fantasy. 1950s brought us the American fascination with boobs. I wonder if the Cold War and the fantastical stockpiling of all those shapely rockets had anything to do with that? The 1960s brought us back to the child/woman, the waif of the early 20s, throwing up front and center - again - the myth of women's frailty and inferiority. The Decade of the Vacant-Eyed Model. The 70s - the flame of second wave feminism beginning to ignite - and we get one of the first serious screenplays to show the struggle of balancing work and family life, and the part goes to Dustin Hoffman in Kramer vs. Kramer. This book is a treasure of films to revisit, to avoid, to talk about with friends. It is disheartening, and encouraging both. Haskell writes that the most powerful feminist movies came out of the most totalitarian regimes. In 2013, I am anticipating the pendulum to swing back with the full-throated voice of women who are not discouraged or silenced by the state of the movie industry today.
July 3, 2022
Two things stand out about this book. First is Haskell's detailed knowledge of film, which is reflected not only in her discussions of the narrative events represented in the films, but also in her her vivid descriptions of the images from some of the films. In addition, her study includes a great amount of detail about the history of film in America, including information about the star system, the biographies of different actresses, and discussions of the relations between some actresses and their directors.
The second thing that stands out about this book is Haskell's non-polemical approach to her subject. In her introduction, she writes: "I consider myself a film critic first and a feminist second..." and this is reflected in the way she discusses American film. In addition to criticizing those films that represent women as weak, or as vamps, or as virgins (or as some combination of these), Haskell points out those instances in which women are portrayed as strong and independent (for Haskell, Katherine Hepburn frequently shows these qualities in her roles). In this respect, Haskell takes a very "fair and balanced" approach to the film industry in America--noting that while some films are sexist, not all of them are.
Much of Haskell's study is at the level of description, however. That is, there is little analysis or theorizing here, which is particularly evident in a chapter in which she calls attention to the contrasts between the ways women are portrayed in American film and the ways they are portrayed in European film. She makes some interesting points, but I would have liked to have seen some comment as to the possible reasons for the differences between American and European cinema with regard to their respective representations of women.
Acquired Sept 11, 2008
Gift from Jenn
The second thing that stands out about this book is Haskell's non-polemical approach to her subject. In her introduction, she writes: "I consider myself a film critic first and a feminist second..." and this is reflected in the way she discusses American film. In addition to criticizing those films that represent women as weak, or as vamps, or as virgins (or as some combination of these), Haskell points out those instances in which women are portrayed as strong and independent (for Haskell, Katherine Hepburn frequently shows these qualities in her roles). In this respect, Haskell takes a very "fair and balanced" approach to the film industry in America--noting that while some films are sexist, not all of them are.
Much of Haskell's study is at the level of description, however. That is, there is little analysis or theorizing here, which is particularly evident in a chapter in which she calls attention to the contrasts between the ways women are portrayed in American film and the ways they are portrayed in European film. She makes some interesting points, but I would have liked to have seen some comment as to the possible reasons for the differences between American and European cinema with regard to their respective representations of women.
Acquired Sept 11, 2008
Gift from Jenn
June 6, 2019
Full disclosure, only read the introduction and the "The Twenties" chapter.
It's a middling book, a lot of the time it's impossible to follow her. For one would need to be closely familiar with the movies she talks about, because she keeps descriptions very vague.
For other one often has to take Haskell's opinion simply on face value (or not all) as she makes no space for actual explanation when she for example says:
Where does she come from here?
We never learn that, she never tells.
With Laurel & hardy she seems to take almost personal offense... and apparently minds the easily as homosexual misread undertones of buddy movies in general, or at least this is pretty much all we can take away from what she cares to tell us:
There are some worthwhile, astute observations made by her, too, granted.
But overall her approach to fim critic/feminist critic is "take it or leave it, but don't expect me to explain my ideas."
It's a middling book, a lot of the time it's impossible to follow her. For one would need to be closely familiar with the movies she talks about, because she keeps descriptions very vague.
For other one often has to take Haskell's opinion simply on face value (or not all) as she makes no space for actual explanation when she for example says:
Understandably, women audiences have never responded with great warmth to physical comedy, with its misogynous overtones. As film-buffs, women may appreciate the comedians intellectually, but women in general, responding at a more instinctive level, reject low comedy and knockabout farce.
Where does she come from here?
We never learn that, she never tells.
With Laurel & hardy she seems to take almost personal offense... and apparently minds the easily as homosexual misread undertones of buddy movies in general, or at least this is pretty much all we can take away from what she cares to tell us:
Of all the silent comedians, Laurel and Hardy are perhaps the most threatening to women, as they combine physical ruination with misogyny. One epicene and gross, the other emaciated, they are an aesthetic offense. With their disaster-prone bodies and their exclusive relationship that not only shuts out women but questions their very necessity, they constitute a two-man wrecking team of female—that is, civilized and bourgeois—society. The male duo, from Laurel and Hardy to Abbott and Costello, is almost by definition, or by metaphor, latently homosexual: a union of opposites (tall/short, thin/fat, straight/comic) who, like husband and wife, combine to make a whole.
There are some worthwhile, astute observations made by her, too, granted.
But overall her approach to fim critic/feminist critic is "take it or leave it, but don't expect me to explain my ideas."
July 7, 2025
While stepping in as a replacement teacher for an online Film Studies class based in Bangalore, I found myself gravitating toward foundational texts that challenged not only cinematic form, but also its politics. Molly Haskell’s From Reverence to Rape hit like a thunderclap—sharp, necessary, unapologetic.
This book is more than just a feminist critique of Hollywood—it’s a deep excavation of how cinema, that great dream machine, has shaped, warped, worshipped, and wounded the image of women over the decades. Haskell moves through silent films, Golden Age melodramas, noir, and New Hollywood, tracing how female characters moved from pedestal to punchline—often framed either as Madonna or whore, saint or seductress.
For my students—many of whom were engaging with feminist theory for the first time—this book was eye-opening. It forced uncomfortable but vital questions: How does representation reinforce power? How do aesthetics become ideology? How can we watch better?
Haskell’s writing is lucid, critical, and fiercely intelligent. She doesn’t just blame filmmakers—she examines the socio-political structures that made such portrayals inevitable. Yet, what struck me most was her passion for film itself. She’s not tearing it all down; she’s demanding better because she cares so deeply.
In teaching this book, I found myself rewatching classics I loved—but this time, with a keener eye and a more responsible heart. From Reverence to Rape became not just a text for the course, but a lens through which all our viewings became richer, more critical, more conscious.
A landmark work. And a necessary wake-up call.
This book is more than just a feminist critique of Hollywood—it’s a deep excavation of how cinema, that great dream machine, has shaped, warped, worshipped, and wounded the image of women over the decades. Haskell moves through silent films, Golden Age melodramas, noir, and New Hollywood, tracing how female characters moved from pedestal to punchline—often framed either as Madonna or whore, saint or seductress.
For my students—many of whom were engaging with feminist theory for the first time—this book was eye-opening. It forced uncomfortable but vital questions: How does representation reinforce power? How do aesthetics become ideology? How can we watch better?
Haskell’s writing is lucid, critical, and fiercely intelligent. She doesn’t just blame filmmakers—she examines the socio-political structures that made such portrayals inevitable. Yet, what struck me most was her passion for film itself. She’s not tearing it all down; she’s demanding better because she cares so deeply.
In teaching this book, I found myself rewatching classics I loved—but this time, with a keener eye and a more responsible heart. From Reverence to Rape became not just a text for the course, but a lens through which all our viewings became richer, more critical, more conscious.
A landmark work. And a necessary wake-up call.
October 20, 2021
Took on this feminist classic because of its historical importance, but ended up being completely dazzled by it. Of its time & a few aspects haven't dated the best, but not nearly as the polemical as the eyebrow-raising title implies, and WOW can Haskell write! (A quality lacking in far, far too much writing about cinema.)
My favorite observation in a book now full of underlined passages: "Lubitsch brought with him a new kind of sexual champagne, dry and delicious, to an American parched with prohibitionist—and puritanical—thirst."
[Read #14 of "2021: My Year of (Mostly) Midcentury Women Writers"]
My favorite observation in a book now full of underlined passages: "Lubitsch brought with him a new kind of sexual champagne, dry and delicious, to an American parched with prohibitionist—and puritanical—thirst."
[Read #14 of "2021: My Year of (Mostly) Midcentury Women Writers"]
July 23, 2022
Maybe too psychoanalytical, probably too heterosexual (which makes sense as a starting point for her model of equality), definitely too white (that's Hollywood for you), and it has its share of blind spots in other areas as well, but this is undeniably a major work: always enlightening and a joy to read with a wealth of deep-cut recommendations and reconsiderations. Unlike most film critics, Haskell is straight-up brilliant at writing about acting.
March 16, 2018
This book was hard to read as a feminist in 2018. It is incredibly dated, and she relies heavily on Freud to analyze both fictional characters and people. But I appreciate some of Haskell’s ideas and her expansive knowledge of film, and I can appreciate that this book was probably revolutionary in its place in history.
June 16, 2010
One word review: dated.
September 21, 2020
"It is one of properties of perspective that from a distance of time or space everyone, like the Chinese, looks alike." (p. 49)
Yikes. This a flawed feminist text. Haskell spends much of her time in the first chunk of the book separating herself from "feminism" by asserting her identity as a film critic before her identity as a feminist—perhaps catering to skeptical readers? Ironically, the rest of book more or less upends this idea as she goes on to mention feminism in name thoroughly throughout the book and of course use its principles to analyze the mythologies of American masculinity and {white} women's role in film up into the 70s. Her analysis of American masculinity and European filmmaking towards the latter half of the book are in my opinion, her biggest contributions from this book. I kept imagining what the cultural landscape and film-loving community would have felt like at this moment in time. The name, after all, is in total panic over where movies are headed at this point in history.
Yikes. This a flawed feminist text. Haskell spends much of her time in the first chunk of the book separating herself from "feminism" by asserting her identity as a film critic before her identity as a feminist—perhaps catering to skeptical readers? Ironically, the rest of book more or less upends this idea as she goes on to mention feminism in name thoroughly throughout the book and of course use its principles to analyze the mythologies of American masculinity and {white} women's role in film up into the 70s. Her analysis of American masculinity and European filmmaking towards the latter half of the book are in my opinion, her biggest contributions from this book. I kept imagining what the cultural landscape and film-loving community would have felt like at this moment in time. The name, after all, is in total panic over where movies are headed at this point in history.
June 22, 2009
From Reverence to Rape is extremely readable, which something I'm always kind of relieved to find out about film and literary criticism. It is also very interesting. A big problem with the book is the fact that Haskell almost entirely neglects women of color, I think they get about a paragraph in the entire book? Which is crappy, and also very weird (actually, there are some comments on race that are really uncomfortable . . . I'm willing to overlook them for the moment because it's been many years since the book was written, so schools of thought and expression have changed, and also they are far between). I mean, I kind of understand why she would make that decision - if it was a decision, because I also think it's possible that Haksell never even thought of investigating that subject - since she is very much talking about women in mainstream film and most of mainstream film is about white people. Oh, but speaking of schools of thought changing! Haskell clearly wrote this book under the influence of the feminist movement going on around her, which makes some of the things she says very much ". . ." to feminists today. Which accounts for a lot of the race stuff, and also some of the things she says about sexuality.
It's a good book and I'm glad I read it.
It's a good book and I'm glad I read it.
February 5, 2021
I’m of two opinions of this book. Haskell’s knowledge of film is expansive. Her fondness of film is apparent and her enthusiasm for certain movies lead me to add many titles, particularly from the 30s & 40s, to my watchlist.
On the downside, due to the period in which it was written, some of her views are dated. There is sense of bitterness toward homosexuality and limited discussion of the challenges faced by woman of colour in film. At times, it can make for frustrating and uncomfortable reading.
Despite these old fashioned views, the book is an enjoyable read with many thought provoking observations. If you love film, it is definitely worth a read.
On the downside, due to the period in which it was written, some of her views are dated. There is sense of bitterness toward homosexuality and limited discussion of the challenges faced by woman of colour in film. At times, it can make for frustrating and uncomfortable reading.
Despite these old fashioned views, the book is an enjoyable read with many thought provoking observations. If you love film, it is definitely worth a read.
September 4, 2009
Fascinating examination of women on and off-screen from silent film through the seventies. Film critic Molly Haskell really knows her subject and offers provocative and intellectual opinion. Includes a wide range of film, but there is a noticeable lack of women of color, perhaps attributable to their limited onscreen presence. Highly recommended for those interested in film and/or social commentary.
June 29, 2016
A classic, though not all the analyses hold up. Still worth reading.
December 31, 2024
A smart work of feminist film theory with a title that’s meant to court controversy; the actual content of the book certainly doesn’t shy away from the same sort of controversy, but Haskell is, first and foremost, a very thoughtful theorist and knowledgeable film scholar. The book is broken up by decade (mostly; there are chapters specifically on women’s films and on European film) and, like so many sweeping surveys, there is greater insight into the older films; her analysis of the 50s and earlier is top notch and eye opening. But as it moves into the more recent past of the 60s and 70s (the book was published in 74, mind you), Haskell’s opinions become a bit more knee-jerk. The way she portrays it, the entire cinema of the 1970s is a chauvinist hellscape with few substantial roles for women; I would argue this is far from true. But it’s not fair to fault a book for when it was written, and the theories and analysis she presents in this book were ultimately important for how film was viewed in the 70s and beyond. So this criticism is more minor than I’ve perhaps made it sound, and I would still call this an essential book on film. For a book that deals in a fair amount of academic theory, it’s highly readable, and even funny; Haskell has a strong voice, strong opinions. And unique insights into the films we (and she) love.
January 29, 2017
First published in 1973 but recently reissued with a clever new introduction by the New York Times’ critic Manohla Dargis, “From reverence to rape” is a landmark book that proves to be timeless and whose relevance, today, is remarkable. The shockwave it created in the seventies remains palpable, nothing of what it says about the treatment of women in old films (and especially in old Hollywood cinema) sounds dated despite the passing of time (when so many other analytical investigations of movies do), and, sadly, a lot of Haskell’s opinions about the sorry state of representation of women in American cinema are still valid and pertinent when it comes to many films made today. That says a lot about the brilliance and clarity of her vision. Haskell is a feminist, but she also loves movies with a passion: it is a combination that allows her to denounce what she calls “the big lie” perpetrated by so many films (the idea that women are inferior), while at the same time she is not afraid to admire some of those titles. She is also able to see how a bunch of movies did tend an extraordinary mirror to the women who were going to see them, and she find in some of them elements that contradict the big lie and even defuse it. She analyzes with stunning acuity and honesty a myriad of films - including many beloved classics - in ways never done before. If the Hollywood studio system has, through the decades, enforced sexism and misogyny (especially through the gaze of male directors who simultaneously revere and fear women), it has nevertheless permitted extraordinary actresses to rise, giving them real power and the ability to change from within the perception of women in society, both through their roles and through their own star persona. She talks with great subtlety of specific actresses that have had a major influence (Mary Pickford, Bette Davis, Carole Lombard, Joan Crawford, Kay Francis, Judy Holiday, Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, among others), and she’s able to explain how the contradictions within the image of some actresses (such as Doris Day) are fascinatingly complicated and, therefore, why so many films and female roles cannot be judged too easily one way or another. Her exploration of the world of Women’s Films, especially through the works of a director like Douglas Sirk, is as astute as it is modern. Haskell is never better than when she explains how and why so many movies of the Hollywood golden age manage to give us complex portraits of women that do escape the limitations that the system was trying to impose. She writes with intelligence, wit, sharpness, and style. Her knowledge of cinema is vast, and her understanding of the male / female dynamic intellectually gratifying. She’s not afraid to challenge popular assumptions – including some made by feminists – and to show that things are, often, much thornier and intricate then they appear, and certainly not as black and white as we may wish they were (for example when she talks about the way European cinema, and European directors like Godard or Bergman, treat women). She does have her favorites that may not be shared by all (she loves To Have And Have Not much more than Casablanca), she does not cite some major titles (among them King Kong, which, considering the ambiguous role Fay Wray plays in it, may have deserved a few lines at least), and there are some recently rediscovered movies she doesn’t write about because she may not have seen them at the time (I’m mostly thinking of many pre-codes movies, such as the fabulous Baby Face). Her volume doesn’t suffer from those minor shortcomings, though, for the ebullient richness of her theories, observations, case studies, and original thoughts – all often delivered with a welcome sense of humor - never stops to enthrall and engage the reader. Haskell, unafraid and bold, can even be quite ahead over her times when, for example, she writes in the mid-seventies about, basically, the necessity to accept gender fluidity as a new model in order to bypass the rigidity of the usual male / female codes that, by the sixties, were starting to feel terribly outmoded. “From Reverence to Rape” is simply one of the best books ever written about cinema and one of the best books written about women.
August 24, 2021
i didn't hate this but it also didn't blow my mind... haskell's cinema knowledge was brilliant, however reading a 1970's piece of literature through a modern lens definitely helped nuance my understandings of some of her arguments.
July 9, 2025
Some hidden gems scattered throughout, but overall outdated and, disappointingly, steep with internalized misogyny.
Haskell seems to hold in contempt women (both fictional and otherwise) who don’t fall into her idea of “sexually liberated.” It’s very bizarre. She goes off into Freudian-tinted tangents which conclude just as unfocused as they began. She berates film heroines’ draw towards (and women audience’s admiration for) “non-sexually aggressive men” who “don’t make sexual demands” as silly and childish.
Haskell is a very specific type of feminist: Baby Boomer, hard third-wave, determined to shun the wisdom of the women before her (throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if you will) in a rage of blind rebellion, like a child in a tantrum.
Not recommended. Read “Backwards and in Heels: the Past, Present, and Future of Women Working in Film” by Alicia Malone instead.
Haskell seems to hold in contempt women (both fictional and otherwise) who don’t fall into her idea of “sexually liberated.” It’s very bizarre. She goes off into Freudian-tinted tangents which conclude just as unfocused as they began. She berates film heroines’ draw towards (and women audience’s admiration for) “non-sexually aggressive men” who “don’t make sexual demands” as silly and childish.
Haskell is a very specific type of feminist: Baby Boomer, hard third-wave, determined to shun the wisdom of the women before her (throwing the baby out with the bathwater, if you will) in a rage of blind rebellion, like a child in a tantrum.
Not recommended. Read “Backwards and in Heels: the Past, Present, and Future of Women Working in Film” by Alicia Malone instead.
July 7, 2021
Extremely interesting insight on the woman's role in cinema during the Golden Age of Hollywood, quickly exploring the misogynistic themes of the 70's, I think this is a must read.
Some parts were hard for me to follow because I didn't know a portion of what she was referencing (I'm new and self taught when it comes to film studies), she gives enough info so that the reader isn't completely misplaced.
Though the book is certainly dated in a couple points, I still enjoyed it and admire Haskell for her work. Will probably revisit this once I'm more familiar with the works mentioned.
Some parts were hard for me to follow because I didn't know a portion of what she was referencing (I'm new and self taught when it comes to film studies), she gives enough info so that the reader isn't completely misplaced.
Though the book is certainly dated in a couple points, I still enjoyed it and admire Haskell for her work. Will probably revisit this once I'm more familiar with the works mentioned.
June 4, 2010
First published back in 1973. Haskell puts forward the interesting thesis that Hollywood from its beginnings to the end of 1930s was very woman-centred and dominated by female stars and movies about women, but that from the 40s onwards to became increasing male-focused. This puts her at odds with much of feminist film theory which sees misogyny as a perennial feature of Hollywood, but I find Haskell’s arguments far more convincing.
November 17, 2008
Loved this book. It is very informative and has great information regarding how women are portrayed in film up through the '60s (it was written in the '70s). I was only going to skim it, but it sucked me right in. It shows where certain images and stereotypes come from and shows the lack of validity other stereotypes have.
December 22, 2015
Incredibly informative! You can definitely tell it's written during second wave feminism because many of the arguments made have evolved today. But if you're interested in cinema and it's history, I recommend.
August 11, 2007
The grandmother of books examining Hollywood from a feminist perspective. I really enjoyed Molly Haskell's hosting on TCM a few weeks ago.
April 18, 2008
The definitive book on the subject. Penetrating insight and wit and encyclopedic knowledge of film. Recommended for all film lovers.
August 11, 2014
Excellent overview of the way women have been portrayed in cinema, from the dawn of silent movies to the 80s slasher
March 28, 2015
I appreciated it for all of the woman-centric film recommendations but the politics here are so passé that it made me cringe.
October 16, 2020
Some of the takes in this book are pretty off the mark in retrospect and the very definition of white feminism.
November 3, 2016
Haskell is another author whose work I was introduced to by the Library of America’s anthology, American Movie Critics, and it was clear from the biography given of her there that From Reverence to Rape was, as her undisputed masterpiece, the clear place to start with her oeuvre. I can say that the book is fully worth all the acclaim it gets, there and elsewhere. I have a bad habit of forming extensive and elaborate preconceptions of books before I even begin them, and here the impression I incorrectly got was that this would be a litigation of the treatment of women throughout the history of the moving picture, an important book and an important read but not necessarily one whose writing would be its greatest virtue (as perhaps opposed to Haskell’s more personal writing, such as in Love and Other Infectious Diseases, which I’ve seen excerpted); I’m happy to say that I couldn’t have been more wrong. It is a blazingly smart and brilliantly composed feminist history of film that goes beyond film to touch on history more generally, literature, mythology, censorship, politics, and visual art. Nor is it actually accurate to categorize it as a history exactly; though Haskell does a marvelous job of creating a through-line of a narrative to keep everything in order as a cohesive whole, From Reverence to Rape is first and foremost a work of film criticism, and thus has the personal and admitted biases of any good criticism (indeed, in addition to responding directly to films themselves, Haskell also responds to specific works of criticism, as well as greater trends in the field).
Haskell’s writing has an expansive feel, as if her incredible knowledge and pointed opinions were compressed into the volume of the book and set to expand once they enter the mind of the reader. Virtually every paragraph has at least one part, and often many more, that simply make you wish she would expound on the thought at chapter-length (had this not been a library book, nearly every page would be marked up). Not that she needs to; she has an incredible ability to capture the essence of a film, an actress, or a mood in the tightest of prose, and beyond that, one of the great pleasures of reading this book is allowing the germs of ideas that she presents to roll around in one’s head as one continues through the book. Nor is Haskell’s goal to answer the questions she raises, or even to operate in a spirit which suggest that there is one set of answers that would be applicable to everyone; at one point she describes a scenario “with audience (and feminists) divided,” where “there is—mercifully—no consensus, no last word as to what is a correct, what a demeaning portrait of a woman,” which reflects her lack of desire to achieve any sort of (impossible) resolution. In a similar spirit of making one yearn for cultural intake beyond the strict scope of the text, Haskell makes one, with pithy summaries sometimes not even granted a full sentence, want to view or re-view every film she mentions (even some of the ones of which she is dismissive), shedding light on films with which one is familiar and giving or furthering the appeal of those yet unseen.
The argument made in this book is, broadly, that even as American cinema has gained liberation from Hollywood’s rigorously-enforced, puritanical censorship and as women’s lib came into effect, the portrayals of women in the movies has, counterintuitively and perversely, actually regressed instead of progressed. Haskell always builds her critique by dwelling on specific examples rather than conducting broad, scattershot litigation. Each chapter works impeccably as a discreet unit, with the beginning and ending of each structured so well as to be able to serve as a standalone essay (as the chapter “The Woman’s Film” did in American Film Critics); this shouldn’t exactly be newsworthy, necessarily, but I’ve found it to be a very rare occurrence in my reading. There are occasional lengthy paragraphs comprised of a long list of movies, actresses, directors, roles, etc., the sight of some of which upon flipping through may have lead to my mistaken initial impression of the tone of this book; these lists are neither used as filler material, an excessive abundance of evidence, but are judiciously (and rarely) deployed for forcefulness and maximum impact to hammer home certain points at critical junctures. Haskell anticipates when a choice might be questioned and addresses potential criticisms head-on, and early, noting at one point, for example, "Decades are artificial divisions, full of contradictions, particularly in film where there is always a partial lag,” despite structuring her book by decade, interspersed with chapters containing broader commentary not strictly fixed in time. She addresses dangers of veering too far into applying modern standards, especially feminist ones, onto the world of the past, a mistake that still, 40 years later, it seems most film critics can’t avoid.
Even at its best, early on, Hollywood’s treatment of women comes across as dismal as in every other arena, if not more so because of official codifying backed by the added power of fused sight and sound, projected, at the time, to a monolithic audience who largely all consumed all of the same material; the implication that even in consciously created artifical fantasies, interesting and imaginative roles for women are a bridge too far makes one despair for the state of art and the world, and yet is so perfectly American at the same time. Haskell nails the degree to which rules, created for the ostensible "protection" of women (as if they needed them), actually ended up punishing those women via the same "protective” system for merely daring to transgress their rigidly defined limitations. There’s a transgressive, caper-like thrill to reading about the ways in which women, and occasional male allies in director’s chairs, subverted at every chance a system stacked against them; one of Haskell’s most memorable points was the way in which the Hays Code’s simplistic requirement of punishment of the women by the end of the film allowed for a transparently tacked-on and untruthful ending that wouldn’t be nearly as memorable to the viewing audience as the entirety of the film preceding it, in which actresses portrayed actual women with actual interests, thus “earning” their punishment and needing to be put back in their place, on display for a male-dictated idea of propriety that was outdated from its inception.
There are some flaws, but the book is such that it makes them seem not worth mentioning here; none of them will be among the many things that linger in my mind from this reading experience, and frankly they rarely lingered for even the length of a sentence. This is the kind of book that absolves its sins as it proceeds; most books do so to a greater or lesser degree, but this one ends up with the rare clean slate. Multiple times per page, Haskell points out something that you instantly realize and can confirm as true, but which you had never realized, and she also just makes brilliant points about the world at large; I didn’t always agree with her conclusions or arguments--sometimes almost violently not--but the book might actually be the better for that, contributing to its feeling more like a seminar than a lecture, and also permitting me to trust my exuberant reaction more than if it were just a text confirming my previously-held opinions at every opportunity. The last two chapters (“The Sixties” and “The Age of Ambivalence”) are slightly weaker, not to say in bad in any way, just not quite capable of hitting the highs established in the earlier chapters, as if Haskell lost some speed off her fastball as her pitch count increased. Nevertheless, my overwhelming feeling while reading From Reverence to Rape was that of not wanting it to ever end; luckily, the conceit ensures that it never has to. I read this in the second edition, with “The Age of Ambivalence,” addressing the years (1974-1987) tacked on in an unmatched typeface characteristic of later edition additions, and while I would have liked it if both the seventies and eighties got a full chapter each, I was happy to see Haskell given the chance to reflect backwards on her work. I especially liked that she left the original text untouched, an academic honesty not often present in later editions, where authors get to shave or trim their more grievous errors but in so doing only make themselves seem like less original and less unique thinkers. She notes that she views "the dialectic between past and present" as "the major theme of, and logical approach to, the treatment of women in the movies”; I couldn’t agree more, and wish there were even more frequent updates so that we can see views and industry evolving in something closer to real-time. For now, I can’t wait to read the 2016 third edition of this, with an additional introduction by Haskell and a foreword by the great Manohla Dargis.
It’s a bit hackneyed to say that a book will change one’s way of thinking, even in the rare case when such a statement is actually true, and it’s certainly too premature to suggest such right after a first reading, but I will note that I already find myself thinking about this all the time. Four hours after finishing the book, I found myself at a community meeting in which three hyperintelligent, hyperarticulate women presented a vision of a university’s interaction with the community while being essentially heckled by dimwitted amateur men who presumed to know better than the professionals; just as From Reverence to Rape didn’t establish so much as enhance my feminist lens for film criticism, this wasn’t a scene that wouldn’t have been equally infuriating, but it was infuriating in a new way, allowing me to be, as usual, embarrassed to have to be a man, but from more angles than I’m used to, and with more variety. As I was reading, I didn’t take notes so much on the book qua book as the ways in which it will be of use to me, as a man, a film viewer, and especially as a writer. It’s not the sort of nonfiction book that coasts to greatness largely through the inherent value of the material, but which earns its greatness thanks to the top-tier thought of the writer. As I alluded to earlier, recency bias is a factor here, but From Reverence to Rape is the kind of book I already imagine myself re-reading in the future on my first time through, and which makes me want to start proselytizing on its behalf and forcing it on everyone--I should add here that, given the power, I would make this required reading for everyone, including those disinterested, or even uninterested, in film generally.
Haskell’s writing has an expansive feel, as if her incredible knowledge and pointed opinions were compressed into the volume of the book and set to expand once they enter the mind of the reader. Virtually every paragraph has at least one part, and often many more, that simply make you wish she would expound on the thought at chapter-length (had this not been a library book, nearly every page would be marked up). Not that she needs to; she has an incredible ability to capture the essence of a film, an actress, or a mood in the tightest of prose, and beyond that, one of the great pleasures of reading this book is allowing the germs of ideas that she presents to roll around in one’s head as one continues through the book. Nor is Haskell’s goal to answer the questions she raises, or even to operate in a spirit which suggest that there is one set of answers that would be applicable to everyone; at one point she describes a scenario “with audience (and feminists) divided,” where “there is—mercifully—no consensus, no last word as to what is a correct, what a demeaning portrait of a woman,” which reflects her lack of desire to achieve any sort of (impossible) resolution. In a similar spirit of making one yearn for cultural intake beyond the strict scope of the text, Haskell makes one, with pithy summaries sometimes not even granted a full sentence, want to view or re-view every film she mentions (even some of the ones of which she is dismissive), shedding light on films with which one is familiar and giving or furthering the appeal of those yet unseen.
The argument made in this book is, broadly, that even as American cinema has gained liberation from Hollywood’s rigorously-enforced, puritanical censorship and as women’s lib came into effect, the portrayals of women in the movies has, counterintuitively and perversely, actually regressed instead of progressed. Haskell always builds her critique by dwelling on specific examples rather than conducting broad, scattershot litigation. Each chapter works impeccably as a discreet unit, with the beginning and ending of each structured so well as to be able to serve as a standalone essay (as the chapter “The Woman’s Film” did in American Film Critics); this shouldn’t exactly be newsworthy, necessarily, but I’ve found it to be a very rare occurrence in my reading. There are occasional lengthy paragraphs comprised of a long list of movies, actresses, directors, roles, etc., the sight of some of which upon flipping through may have lead to my mistaken initial impression of the tone of this book; these lists are neither used as filler material, an excessive abundance of evidence, but are judiciously (and rarely) deployed for forcefulness and maximum impact to hammer home certain points at critical junctures. Haskell anticipates when a choice might be questioned and addresses potential criticisms head-on, and early, noting at one point, for example, "Decades are artificial divisions, full of contradictions, particularly in film where there is always a partial lag,” despite structuring her book by decade, interspersed with chapters containing broader commentary not strictly fixed in time. She addresses dangers of veering too far into applying modern standards, especially feminist ones, onto the world of the past, a mistake that still, 40 years later, it seems most film critics can’t avoid.
Even at its best, early on, Hollywood’s treatment of women comes across as dismal as in every other arena, if not more so because of official codifying backed by the added power of fused sight and sound, projected, at the time, to a monolithic audience who largely all consumed all of the same material; the implication that even in consciously created artifical fantasies, interesting and imaginative roles for women are a bridge too far makes one despair for the state of art and the world, and yet is so perfectly American at the same time. Haskell nails the degree to which rules, created for the ostensible "protection" of women (as if they needed them), actually ended up punishing those women via the same "protective” system for merely daring to transgress their rigidly defined limitations. There’s a transgressive, caper-like thrill to reading about the ways in which women, and occasional male allies in director’s chairs, subverted at every chance a system stacked against them; one of Haskell’s most memorable points was the way in which the Hays Code’s simplistic requirement of punishment of the women by the end of the film allowed for a transparently tacked-on and untruthful ending that wouldn’t be nearly as memorable to the viewing audience as the entirety of the film preceding it, in which actresses portrayed actual women with actual interests, thus “earning” their punishment and needing to be put back in their place, on display for a male-dictated idea of propriety that was outdated from its inception.
There are some flaws, but the book is such that it makes them seem not worth mentioning here; none of them will be among the many things that linger in my mind from this reading experience, and frankly they rarely lingered for even the length of a sentence. This is the kind of book that absolves its sins as it proceeds; most books do so to a greater or lesser degree, but this one ends up with the rare clean slate. Multiple times per page, Haskell points out something that you instantly realize and can confirm as true, but which you had never realized, and she also just makes brilliant points about the world at large; I didn’t always agree with her conclusions or arguments--sometimes almost violently not--but the book might actually be the better for that, contributing to its feeling more like a seminar than a lecture, and also permitting me to trust my exuberant reaction more than if it were just a text confirming my previously-held opinions at every opportunity. The last two chapters (“The Sixties” and “The Age of Ambivalence”) are slightly weaker, not to say in bad in any way, just not quite capable of hitting the highs established in the earlier chapters, as if Haskell lost some speed off her fastball as her pitch count increased. Nevertheless, my overwhelming feeling while reading From Reverence to Rape was that of not wanting it to ever end; luckily, the conceit ensures that it never has to. I read this in the second edition, with “The Age of Ambivalence,” addressing the years (1974-1987) tacked on in an unmatched typeface characteristic of later edition additions, and while I would have liked it if both the seventies and eighties got a full chapter each, I was happy to see Haskell given the chance to reflect backwards on her work. I especially liked that she left the original text untouched, an academic honesty not often present in later editions, where authors get to shave or trim their more grievous errors but in so doing only make themselves seem like less original and less unique thinkers. She notes that she views "the dialectic between past and present" as "the major theme of, and logical approach to, the treatment of women in the movies”; I couldn’t agree more, and wish there were even more frequent updates so that we can see views and industry evolving in something closer to real-time. For now, I can’t wait to read the 2016 third edition of this, with an additional introduction by Haskell and a foreword by the great Manohla Dargis.
It’s a bit hackneyed to say that a book will change one’s way of thinking, even in the rare case when such a statement is actually true, and it’s certainly too premature to suggest such right after a first reading, but I will note that I already find myself thinking about this all the time. Four hours after finishing the book, I found myself at a community meeting in which three hyperintelligent, hyperarticulate women presented a vision of a university’s interaction with the community while being essentially heckled by dimwitted amateur men who presumed to know better than the professionals; just as From Reverence to Rape didn’t establish so much as enhance my feminist lens for film criticism, this wasn’t a scene that wouldn’t have been equally infuriating, but it was infuriating in a new way, allowing me to be, as usual, embarrassed to have to be a man, but from more angles than I’m used to, and with more variety. As I was reading, I didn’t take notes so much on the book qua book as the ways in which it will be of use to me, as a man, a film viewer, and especially as a writer. It’s not the sort of nonfiction book that coasts to greatness largely through the inherent value of the material, but which earns its greatness thanks to the top-tier thought of the writer. As I alluded to earlier, recency bias is a factor here, but From Reverence to Rape is the kind of book I already imagine myself re-reading in the future on my first time through, and which makes me want to start proselytizing on its behalf and forcing it on everyone--I should add here that, given the power, I would make this required reading for everyone, including those disinterested, or even uninterested, in film generally.
February 5, 2024
This was a great follow up read to Laura Mulvey’s Visual and Other Pleasures. If Mulvey provides a skeleton key and lays out the theoretical framework on which to analyze cinema from a feminist lens, Haskell fills out this blueprint with an endless parade of vividly described examples--film after film, actress after actress--as well as making some broader thematic points that come out of her own insight and experience as an American southerner rather than a British theoretician. Haskell’s prose is clear, vivid, and beautifully rendered. In short, she’s a really great writer, and I nearly always reserve my highest marks on this website for great writing above all; I suppose I am a helpless formalist, but this book is just brilliantly entertaining and well written. Most of all, Haskell’s insight sparkles on every page, not only in the stylization of her prose but in the depth of her analysis and the strength of her arguments.
Although Haskell too rarely brings class into her analysis and race nigh at all, within her own slightly limited wheelhouse the insight is practically continuous throughout these four hundred pages. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Haskell’s takes (I had plenty of quibbles and questions) her withering compassion and moral rigor are on full display. She beautifully illustrates the ways in which men (and women) deceive themselves and (especially in America) stay willfully stranded in a kind of permanent adolescence. For anyone who is trying to navigate the vexed world of adulthood, responsibility, and compromise this is required reading. Many (particularly men) stay in a (fantasy) world of excuses and evasions.
Speaking of evasions, people of color are conspicuously (almost) absent from her analysis, and though the book only goes up to 1987 and film has since become a good deal more diverse, I mean, come on Molly (where’s Kathleen Collins for instance)… The book is really about (white) American cinema, which isn’t a bad thing since it gives her analysis focus, but then she writes a whole chapter on “The Europeans.” This is one of the most entertaining chapters in the book (even if not quite as profound as Haskell’s insights on America, which she knows better). Still, after reading it, one pines for a chapter about Asia, which isn’t mentioned at all. Imagine the insight a discussion of “Mizoguchi’s women” for instance would lend alongside the examination of Bergman’s women or any of the American counterparts. It is this lack of a wider context that ultimately makes this text not a definitive statement on the entire landscape of cinema, but really on Western and Anglo/American cinema in particular, which of course is no mean feat. I’ve been reading reviews on here that throw the pejorative “dated” at this book and I couldn’t disagree more. This is an absolutely essential book for any true cinephile to read, such are the depths of Haskell’s insights regarding women (often actresses though sometimes directors) in the cinema as well as the changing depictions of them. Her x-ray vision obliterates and dismantles stereotypes and gets to the heart of the collective unconscious. She puts a mirror up to our culture (and therefore us) and it may not be flattering, but we have to look and listen if we want to grow. Though things aren’t what they were when Haskell wrote the book, it is essential for an understanding of how we got here, and frankly, even in this confused and enlightened age of shifting gender roles, the political and artistic project of feminisim(s) is still a long way from complete. Chauvinism and extremism are ever present even if the forms they've taken and the terms of the battlefield have shifted. Ultimately, one cannot influence the future without a knowledge of the past, and we all owe Haskell and this wonderfully idiosyncratic book for helping us in this monumental task.
Although Haskell too rarely brings class into her analysis and race nigh at all, within her own slightly limited wheelhouse the insight is practically continuous throughout these four hundred pages. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Haskell’s takes (I had plenty of quibbles and questions) her withering compassion and moral rigor are on full display. She beautifully illustrates the ways in which men (and women) deceive themselves and (especially in America) stay willfully stranded in a kind of permanent adolescence. For anyone who is trying to navigate the vexed world of adulthood, responsibility, and compromise this is required reading. Many (particularly men) stay in a (fantasy) world of excuses and evasions.
Speaking of evasions, people of color are conspicuously (almost) absent from her analysis, and though the book only goes up to 1987 and film has since become a good deal more diverse, I mean, come on Molly (where’s Kathleen Collins for instance)… The book is really about (white) American cinema, which isn’t a bad thing since it gives her analysis focus, but then she writes a whole chapter on “The Europeans.” This is one of the most entertaining chapters in the book (even if not quite as profound as Haskell’s insights on America, which she knows better). Still, after reading it, one pines for a chapter about Asia, which isn’t mentioned at all. Imagine the insight a discussion of “Mizoguchi’s women” for instance would lend alongside the examination of Bergman’s women or any of the American counterparts. It is this lack of a wider context that ultimately makes this text not a definitive statement on the entire landscape of cinema, but really on Western and Anglo/American cinema in particular, which of course is no mean feat. I’ve been reading reviews on here that throw the pejorative “dated” at this book and I couldn’t disagree more. This is an absolutely essential book for any true cinephile to read, such are the depths of Haskell’s insights regarding women (often actresses though sometimes directors) in the cinema as well as the changing depictions of them. Her x-ray vision obliterates and dismantles stereotypes and gets to the heart of the collective unconscious. She puts a mirror up to our culture (and therefore us) and it may not be flattering, but we have to look and listen if we want to grow. Though things aren’t what they were when Haskell wrote the book, it is essential for an understanding of how we got here, and frankly, even in this confused and enlightened age of shifting gender roles, the political and artistic project of feminisim(s) is still a long way from complete. Chauvinism and extremism are ever present even if the forms they've taken and the terms of the battlefield have shifted. Ultimately, one cannot influence the future without a knowledge of the past, and we all owe Haskell and this wonderfully idiosyncratic book for helping us in this monumental task.
November 23, 2024
This is an excellent book. Molly Haskell's deep viewing knowledge of a vast array of films is the key to making this an expansive historical analysis of women's representation in cinema. It is especially focused on Hollywood, but there are some insightful comparisons with European films, and different national cinemas' distinctive ways of presenting women.
This book does what any academic book should do, and make you want to watch the films being analysed. Helpfully, Haskell shows command of a wide field and avoids focusing too much in depth on specific case studies. She prefers to dissect the narratives of the full range of film output.
Haskell argues that 1920s-40s films had a varied and evolving repertoire where women more than held their own, shifting more into the workplace with the onset of the Second World War and adapting to the reduction in sexual material due to the Hays Production Code from 1934. The Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy film, Adam's Rib (1949) is highlighted as the apotheosis of genuinely adult Hollywood cinema, a rare instance whereby the complex negotiations of marriage, love and work are explored in an entertaining and pleasurable way.
Haskell goes onto detail a sad decline through the 1950s-70s, tracing women's gradual erasure in films of this time - or at least their simplistic reduction. There are tantalising reflections on the impact of East Coast theatre and television's sociological realism which could have been drawn out more, especially as she praises Cagney and Lacey and Katie and Allie late on.
However, it is a convincing argument that women and cinema itself were diminished in the masculine rush to escape Classical Hollywood's studios and make films with violence first, sex second and love utterly relegated.
The final chapter documents an impressive 1980s resurgence of women creators behind the camera, and most especially performers in front, with 1970s Second Wave feminism belatedly influencing a staggering variety of performances which formed a counter-attack to Reaganite social conservatism.
Such an impressive book, this; Haskell's style is laconic and sophisticated and unafraid to depart from conventional wisdoms of the past and indeed it will give people today much pause for thought and feeling.
This book does what any academic book should do, and make you want to watch the films being analysed. Helpfully, Haskell shows command of a wide field and avoids focusing too much in depth on specific case studies. She prefers to dissect the narratives of the full range of film output.
Haskell argues that 1920s-40s films had a varied and evolving repertoire where women more than held their own, shifting more into the workplace with the onset of the Second World War and adapting to the reduction in sexual material due to the Hays Production Code from 1934. The Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy film, Adam's Rib (1949) is highlighted as the apotheosis of genuinely adult Hollywood cinema, a rare instance whereby the complex negotiations of marriage, love and work are explored in an entertaining and pleasurable way.
Haskell goes onto detail a sad decline through the 1950s-70s, tracing women's gradual erasure in films of this time - or at least their simplistic reduction. There are tantalising reflections on the impact of East Coast theatre and television's sociological realism which could have been drawn out more, especially as she praises Cagney and Lacey and Katie and Allie late on.
However, it is a convincing argument that women and cinema itself were diminished in the masculine rush to escape Classical Hollywood's studios and make films with violence first, sex second and love utterly relegated.
The final chapter documents an impressive 1980s resurgence of women creators behind the camera, and most especially performers in front, with 1970s Second Wave feminism belatedly influencing a staggering variety of performances which formed a counter-attack to Reaganite social conservatism.
Such an impressive book, this; Haskell's style is laconic and sophisticated and unafraid to depart from conventional wisdoms of the past and indeed it will give people today much pause for thought and feeling.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews