Feminist Visions

Tracing Feminist Epistemologies in Contemporary Film and Television

Hélène Charlery, Cristelle Maury

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781350417724
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

What does feminist filmmaking in the 21st century look like? This book assesses the influence of Western feminist theory on contemporary film and television - nearly fifty years after Claire Johnston and Laura Mulvey called for a feminist counter-cinema - highlighting the cross-fertilization between feminist film theory and practice.

Is there a #Metoo genre? Have traditional Hollywood genres been reframed? How has intersectional feminist film theory been explored on screen? In essays spanning film and television in a broad range of genres from the US, the UK and India, contributors renew definitions of feminist filmmaking since second wave feminist film scholars first grappled with the image of women in film and the role of women in the film industry. Feminist Visions provides an insightful space for discussion of feminist film theory as applied to recent TV series such as Devious Maids (2013-2016), Unbelievable (2019), Greenleaf (2016-2020), I May Destroy You (2020) and Insecure (2016-2021) and films including Maid in Manhattan (2002), Night Moves (2014), Gone Girl (2014), I Care a Lot (2020) and The Discreet Charm of the Savarnas (2020).

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I: Feminist Tales of Rape: #MeToo Television?
• Chapter 1: Unbelievable (2019): Feminism and Rape
• Chapter 2: ‘Monstrous and Shameless’: Trauma, Control and Narrative (of) Empowerment in I May Destroy You (2020)
• Part II: Postfeminist or Intersectional Television and Cinema
• Chapter 3: Nothing but a ‘Woke Façade’? Postfeminism Turned Intersectional Feminism in Contemporary Reboots of Female-Centric TV Shows
• Chapter 4: ‘God Is Good, All the Time’: Womanism and Black Feminism in Service of Christian Hegemony in Greenleaf (2016–20)
• Chapter 5: Empowering Latina Voices: Exploring the Figure of the Latina Maid in Twenty-First-Century Independent Films
• Chapter 6: The Gaze Is the Message
• Part III: Reclaiming Feminist Film Theory
• Chapter 7: Making Film Noir with a Feminist Gaze in Theory and Practice: The Case of Kelly Reichardt’s Night Moves (2013)
• Chapter 8: Stitching Together Feminism, Genre(s) and Couture in The Dressmaker (2015)
• Chapter 9: A Feminist Archive of Past Future Sounds: Archiveological Reverberations in Lisa Rovner’s Sisters with Transistors (2020)
• Part IV: Feminist Film/Making and Reception
• Chapter 10: ‘He Doesn’t Get to Win’: X, Fan Culture and Gone Girl (2014)
• Chapter 11: Finding Feminist Filmmaking
• Index
• i