ABSTRACT
Feminism, film studies, and activism are historically enmeshed. In the 1970s, the women’s movement aimed to increase the presence and agency of women, whilst film studies recognized the value of visibility and popular culture within what is essentially a political project. Women and Film, a journal launched in 1972, saw women marginalized in industry, representation, and academe in lower level jobs, objectified images, and absence from the concern of male critics who celebrated auteurs and denigrated “women’s pictures.” 1 Cinema offered a site for identifying and combating subjugation. The debates and discussions have become more complicated over the years. Poststructuralism and identity politics challenged any claims to uniformity of womanhood (if ever any existed). Neoliberalism gave rise to a pernicious postfeminism, which suggested gains had been achieved and that empowerment could be found in the marketplace. And according to Sue Thornham, “We can no longer […] assume a straightforward relationship between the film theorist and the political activist.” 2 At the same time, the contemporary terrain of screen media (now expanded to include television and, more importantly, Internet technologies) has given rise to a robust and complex site where debates and discussions take place, and where the discoveries and concerns of feminists from the second wave find expression. Despite an increasingly depressing social and cultural landscape, where women disavow feminism, where they continue to occupy so little space in the industry, where rights seem to be stripped away, and where objectification is still widespread, feminist praxis – that combination of theory and politics – persists. Here we can find sites of feminist activism as scholars and filmmakers respond to contemporary issues of representation and industry.
