ABSTRACT
Stanley Kubrick and his movies have been accused of misogyny or of being “woman-hating” by many critics and academics. Considering his daughter Katharina and wife’s rebuff of this accusation, as well as Marisa Berenson’s comments on the shyness of Kubrick, “especially with women,” but also comments on his “misogynistic ambivalence toward women” or stating that “Kubrick goes beyond usual gender boundaries,” this chapter wonders to what extent women in Stanley Kubrick’s films play a larger part than meets the eye, to the point where they can be presented as the main characters in his movies. Three lines of inquiry are followed here: a statistical analysis of the place of all women (characters, cast, and the possible participation of women of his crew in the elaboration of his female characters) in his cinema, a look at the “feminist odyssey” that his films supposedly instantiate, and the ways Kubrick’s films are in dialogue with waves of feminism. In the end, an attempt is made to define an archetype of the Kubrickian female character.
