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Spinsters, widows and chars : the ageing woman in British film / Claire Mortimer.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Mortimer, Claire, 1964- author.
- Series:
- Edinburgh scholarship online.
- Edinburgh scholarship online
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Older women in motion pictures.
- Motion pictures--Great Britain--History.
- Motion pictures.
- Motion pictures--Social aspects--Great Britain.
- Great Britain.
- Genre:
- History.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (242 pages)
- Place of Publication:
- Edinburgh : Edinburgh University Press, [2021]
- Summary:
- Actresses like Maggie Smith, Cicely Courtneidge and Sybil Thorndike have established the enduring appeal of the ageing actress in British film. Historicising and contextualising this archetypal figure, this book establishes a taxonomy of female ageing in British cinema, from the 1930s to the present day. Arguing that the prevalence of various iterations of the character actress is essential in understanding the nature of British cinema, specifically in how it has developed to define itself against Hollywood, employing archetypes which draw on well-established mythologies regarding ageing femininities.
- Contents:
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgements
- 1. Introduction: Ageing Women and British Cinema
- 2. Immobile Women? Ageing Women and Wartime Cinema
- 3. ‘It ain’t natural her not having a husband’: Spinsters and the Post-war Settlement
- 4. ‘Dangerous and unwholesome’: The Spinster Teacher
- 5. Battleaxes and Chars: Working-Class Matriarchs
- 6. ‘Not having it so good’: Widowhood, Anomalous Ageing and the Welfare State
- 7. ‘Infertile, domestically unnecessary and jealous’: Hags, Witches and the Magic Spinster
- 8. ‘Senior-bait cinema’: Female Ageing in Contemporary British Film
- Bibliography
- Index
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on May 10, 2022).
- Also issued in print: 2021.
- Other Format:
- Print version: Mortimer, Claire Spinsters, Widows and Chars
- ISBN:
- 1-4744-5285-X
- 1-3995-0906-3
- 1-4744-5284-1
- OCLC:
- 1312726173
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