ABSTRACT
In late 1980, cinemas across Britain were being picketed, raided and egg-bombed by activist women’s groups, while posters advertising new release films were being vandalized with feminist graffiti and slogans. One of the particular targets for the ire of such groups was Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). Singled out for particular opprobrium was the now iconic poster campaign that sold the film to audiences using a combination of Jack Torrance’s menace and Wendy Torrance’s fear of her husband’s murderous violence. Kubrick’s film became embroiled in the cultural conversations taking place about the gender politics of sexual murder, the relationship between misogynist media cultures and the real-world enactment of men’s violence against women, and about anti-violence activism in UK second-wave feminism.
Using archive research and historical primary sources, this chapter thus explores a relatively little known and underdiscussed aspect of the cultural history of The Shining concerning its marketing, reception, and release into UK cinemas in the autumn of 1980.
