ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the practice of criticism and the limitations attendant to a feminist criticism that aims to recover and, hence, foreclose ambivalent possibilities in various cultural narratives that feature addicted women. In E.T., the seven-year-old Drew Barrymore gained notoriety as the adorable little girl who was advised by a homesick alien to “be good.” Barrymore’s acting talent came as no surprise to those who acknowledged her as the legitimate heir to the century-old Barrymore acting dynasty. In the years immediately following her E.T. success, Barrymore went on to star in numerous films as the cute, lovable kid, but never equaling her success as the irrepressible Gertie in E.T. As Hannah Feldman astutely observes, the ghost of Nabokov’s Lolita was first popularly resurrected when her name was used to describe Amy Fisher, the Long Island Lolita who attempted to shoot the wife of an older man, Joey Butafuoco, with whom Fisher was allegedly having an affair.
