From La Strada to The Hours

The book covers a wide range of cinematic femininities: It starts with Marilyn Monroe¿s cool phrase "We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle", which self-confidently marked her profession - with a wink, because she did not say "to sparkle". The (self-) staging of women also ironically plays its being tailored to the male gaze. In this section we discuss movies like Some like it hot, Breakfast at Tiffany¿s, Cet obscur objet du désir and Le Mépris¿- with a notable chapter by Laura Mulvey. Moreover, some fifty films later, the book ends with a section on Self-Empowerment and Identity, featuring films like Thelma & Louise, The Hours, Blue Valentine and Carol. Are women in film really just those who are seen and displayed? Where are the ones who see and who point to something themselves? Where are the women in the audience, behind the camera? If, as feminist psychoanalytical film criticism rightly observes, the stars and starlets, especially in Hollywood mainstream cinema, are sup