Drawing on contemporary critical theories and academic debates, Women in Malayalam Cinema: Naturalising Gender Hierarchies analyses Malayalam cinema and the question of women from different perspectives. In its focus on woman-cinema interface, as depicted in a century of Malayalam cinema, this book addresses a wide range of themes crucial for a nuanced understanding of Malayalam film culture gender stereotyping, marriage and family, the aftermaths of matriliny, caste and gender relations, hegemonic patriarchy, female friendships and soft porn.

This book analyzes the changes in the representation of women in Iranian cinema since the 1960s, and investigates the reasons and motives for this. Iranian cinema, both before and after the Islamic Revolution, has been closely monitored by the ruling power, and has been utilized to relay messages and information that comply with the ruling ideology. However, it was only after the 1979 Revolution and the subsequent legitimization of cinema by the Islamic rule that cinema became widely accessible to the general public. Within this context, this book explores the changing roles of women in film production and their representation in films made between the 1960s and 2000s. Although some aspects of women’s lives became stricter after the revolution, it was in the late 1980s that women took a prominent role both behind and in front of the camera for the first time. It is demonstrated here that such shifts were due to several factors, including factionalism within the Islamic Republic, shifts in the Iranian film industry, and the emergence of a group of highly educated film production teams, in addition to the fuller integration of women into the film industry, which is analyzed in particular detail. This study explores a number of representative female-centric films, with a focus on their cultural, social and cinematic contexts. Discussing these films with respect to the representation of women, it uses textual analysis as its base methodology. Interviews conducted with filmmakers and people active in the industry also serve to place the films into their historical, social, and political context.

Cinema as an aesthetic construct exists in a specific historical and political context, reflecting the society and its aesthetic values. Visual representation of the Ugly, its politics and aestheticization, are deeply rooted in the screen space. Featuring unconventional characters, unembellished visuals, raw and gritty storytelling, the unaesthetic challenges conventional notions of beauty on screen. The physical, psychological, and social manifestations of the ugly are incorporated into the cinematic space through content, theme, physical representations, symbols, setting, dialogue, as well as the camera. Exploring the intricate connection between ugliness and the cinematic medium, the book focuses on identity, gender, and other manifestations of Ugly in contemporary Malayalam cinema. It meticulously analyses the portrayal of ugliness in characters, narratives, and visual aesthetics, thus highlighting societal norms and realities of life. The book is a must-read for film scholars, enthusiasts, and anyone interested in the intersection of aesthetics and storytelling.

Cinema in India is an entertainment medium that is interwoven into society and culture at large. It is clearly evident that continuous struggle and conflict at the personal as well as societal levels is depicted in cinema in India. It has become a reflection of society both in negative and positive ways. Hence, cinema has become an influential factor and one of the largest mass communication mediums in the nation. Social and Cultural Dynamics in Indian Cinema is an essential reference source that discusses cultural and societal issues including caste, gender, oppression, and social movements through cinema and particularly in specific language cinema and culture. Featuring research on topics such as Bollywood, film studies, and gender equality, this book is ideally designed for researchers, academicians, film studies students, and industry professionals seeking coverage on various aspects of regional cinema in India.

Oriental dancers, ballerinas, actresses and opera singers the figure of the female performer is ubiquitous in the cinema of pre-Revolutionary Russia. From the first feature film, Romashkov's Stenka Razin (1908), through the sophisticated melodramas of the 1910s, to Viskovsky's The Last Tango (1918), made shortly before the pre-Revolutionary film industry was dismantled by the new Soviet government, the female performer remains central. In this groundbreaking new study, Rachel Morley argues that early Russian film-makers used the character of the female performer to explore key contemporary concerns from changing conceptions of femininity and the emergence of the so-called New Woman, to broader questions concerning gender identity. Morley also reveals that the film-makers repeatedly used this archetype of femininity to experiment with cinematic technology and develop a specific cinematic language."

This book deepens the understanding of the work carried out by professional women in Spanish film and television since the arrival of democracy, a period of radical changes that saw an emergence of female talent. Although most of the literature on women and media deals with female film directors, this book also addresses television, a medium where the presence of women was significant throughout this period. This book makes an important contribution to the study of the history of women in Spanish media, focusing on the work of some well-known names, while also rescuing from oblivion others now forgotten. It brings together scholars from Spain, the United States and Ireland to analyze films and television programs written or directed by female professionals such as Pilar Miró, Josefina Molina, Cecilia Bartolomé, Rosa Montero, Carmen Martín Gaite, Cristina Andreu, Isabel Coixet and Paloma Chamorro. The book also includes four interviews with screenwriter Esmeralda Adam, television executive Carmen Caffarel, filmmaker Ana Díez and television director Matilde Fernández. Their reflections on personal and professional experiences shed light on the changes that took place in Spanish society during this period and the challenges they have faced in their careers.

In the mid-1990s Turkish cinema experienced a remarkable revival. However, what is particularly unusual about this revival is the emergence of a new representational form: silent, inaudible characters. Equally unusual is the fact that this new on-screen silence had a gender(ed/ing) aspect, since, for the most part, the mute(d) characters were female. This book focuses on these newly emergent silent female characters in the new cinema of Turkey, and explores the relationship between the ‘new’ female representational form, the ‘new’ cinema of Turkey, and the ‘new’ socio-political climate in Turkey after the September 12, 1980 military coup. It investigates two central questions: what are the functions, formations and operations of these silent female characters, and why did this female representational form emerge specifically in this timeframe? Bearing a cinematic function of instrumentality and exposing, one way or another, a close association between point of view and discursive authority in the films studied, the silent female representational form in the new cinema of Turkey is a cinematic symptom of the on-going struggle over the disrupted orders of gender, nation and national memory due to an increase in thus-far silenced or marginalized voices in Turkey. The silent form not only functions as a cinematic instrument to reveal crises in hegemonic power positions, but also becomes a battleground within a struggle for (re)obtaining a position of discursive authority in the realms of gender, nation and past. The silent form in itself becomes an instrument on the discursive level, which enables a response to Turkey’s crises in these three interconnected realms in the post-1980s.

The muscle-bound male body is a perennial feature of classically-inflected action cinema. This book reassesses these films as a cinematic form, focusing on the depiction of heroic masculinity. In particular, Hercules in his many incarnations has greatly influenced popular cultural interpretations of manliness and the exaggerated male form.

This volume explores a variety of iconic female characters in Italian literature, art and film who depict distinct representatives of female identity within this national culture. The contributors here apply various methodologies to characterize the evolution of women’s identity and their representation in such expressive modalities, drawing from literature, film, drama, history, the humanities, media and cultural studies. Cross-genre, cross-cultural, and cross-national explorations are also utilised here in order to underline the multifaceted ways in which de facto female characterization occurred.

Feminism at the Movies: Understanding Gender in Contemporary Popular Cinema examines the way that contemporary film reflects today’s changing gender roles. The book offers a comprehensive overview of the central issues in feminist film criticism with analyses of over twenty popular contemporary films across a range of genres, such as chick flicks, teen pics, hommecoms, horror, action adventure, indie flicks, and women lawyer films. Contributors explore issues of femininity as well as masculinity, reflecting on the interface of popular cinema with gendered realities and feminist ideas. Topics include the gendered political economy of cinema, the female director as auteur, postfeminist fatherhood, consumer culture, depictions of professional women, transgender, sexuality, gendered violence, and the intersections of gender, race, and ethnic identities. The volume contains essays by following contributors: Taunya Lovell Banks, Heather Brook, Mridula Nath Chakraborty, Michael DeAngelis, Barry Keith Grant, Kelly Kessler, Hannah Hamad, Christina Lane (with Nicole Richter), JaneMaree Maher, David Hansen-Miller (with Rosalind Gill), Gary Needham, Sarah Projansky, Hilary Radner, Rob Schaap, Yael D Sherman, Michele Shreiber, Janet Staiger, Peter Stapleton, Rebecca Stringer, Yvonne Tasker, and Ewa Ziarek.