ABSTRACT
I began the introduction to this book with a discussion of three images – a snapshot of myself aged seventeen, an image of the Hollywood star Susan Hayward in an advertisement for Lux soap, and a self-portrait of Cindy Sherman. In different ways all three images raise a central question explored throughout the book: how are feminine identities produced and reproduced in relation to idealised feminine images on the Hollywood screen? My commentary upon these three images in Chapter 1 introduced the reader to my primary concern in this study: namely, the cultural inscription of femininity within a complex and contradictory negotiation of the subject and object relations of looking in the cinema.
