Marked women : prostitutes and prostitution in the cinema / Russell Campbell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Campbell, Russell, 1944-

Series:

Wisconsin film studies.

Wisconsin film studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Prostitutes in motion pictures.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (465 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, c2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Julia Roberts played a prostitute, famously, in Pretty Woman. So did Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver, Jane Fonda in Klute, Anna Karina in Vivre sa vie, Greta Garbo in Anna Christie, and Charlize Theron, who won an Academy Award for Monster. This engaging and generously illustrated study explores the depiction of female prostitute characters and prostitution in world cinema, from the silent era to the present-day industry. From the woman with control over her own destiny to the woman who cannot get away from her pimp, Russell Campbell shows the diverse representations of prostitutes in film. Marked Women classifies fifteen recurrent character types and three common narratives, many of them with their roots in male fantasy. The "Happy Hooker, " for example, is the liberated woman whose only goal is to give as much pleasure as she receives, while the "Avenger, " a nightmare of the male imagination, represents the threat of women taking retribution for all the oppression they have suffered at the hands of men. The "Love Story, " a common narrative, represents the prostitute as both heroine and anti-heroine, while "Condemned to Death" allows men to manifest, in imagination only, their hostility toward women by killing off the troubled prostitute in an act of cathartic violence. The figure of the woman whose body is available at a price has fascinated and intrigued filmmakers and filmgoers since the very beginning of cinema, but the manner of representation has also been highly conflicted and fiercely contested. Campbell explores the cinematic prostitute as a figure shaped by both reactionary thought and feminist challenges to the norm, demonstrating how the film industry itself is split by fascinating contradictions.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

List of Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Epigraph Credits

1. The Sex Trade and Cinema

2. Depicting Prostitution under Patriarchy

3. Gigolette

4. Siren

5. Comrade

6. Avenger

7. Martyr

8. Gold Digger

9. Nursemaid

10. Captive

11. Business Woman

12. Happy Hooker

13. Adventuress

14. Junkie

15. Baby Doll

16. Working Girl

17. The Love Story

18. Prostitute and Pimp

19. Condemned to Death

20. The Paradigm and Its Challenges

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 391-425) and index.

ISBN:

9786612788291

9781282788299

1282788299

9780299212537

029921253X

OCLC:

669508011