ABSTRACT
In the summer of 1991, in the wake of movies such as Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Theltma and Louise, and V. I. Warshawski, all of which feature heroines who resort to violence, a spate of articles appeared in the popular press discussing how gender roles in mainstream movies have changed during the past few years. The representation of women in Hollywood films is not an issue of inclusion or exclusion, as in the case of racial minorities. There is, however, an extraordinary catch, alluded to above: the women who hold elite jobs are much more unlikely to be married at a film's opening and much more interested in romance. Pillow Talk exemplifies the representation of career-oriented single women in the context of romance during the first two decades of the study. It would be difficult to overestimate the changes in Hollywood representations of gender roles and especially of women since the mid-1960s.
