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What lies behind current feminist discontent with contemporary cinema? Through a combination of cultural and industry analysis, Hilary Radner's Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks and Consumer Culture shows how the needs of conglomerate Hollywood have encouraged an emphasis on consumer culture within films made for women. By exploring a number of representative \"girly films,\" including Pretty Woman, Legally Blonde, Maid in Manhattan, The Devil Wears Prada, and Sex and the City: The Movie, Radner proposes that rather than being \"post-feminist,\" as is usually assumed, such films are better described as \"neo-feminist.\" Examining their narrative format, as it revolves around the story of an ambitious unmarried woman who defines herself through consumer culture as much as through work or romance, Radner argues that these films exemplify neo-liberalist values rather than those of feminism. As such, Neo-Feminist Cinema offers a new explanation as to why feminist-oriented scholars and audiences who are seeking more than \"labels and love\" from their film experience have viewed recent \"girly films\" as a betrayal of second-wave feminism, and why, on the other hand, such films have proven to be so successful at the box office.

What lies behind current feminist discontent with contemporary cinema? Through a combination of cultural and industry analysis, Hilary Radner’s Neo-Feminist Cinema: Girly Films, Chick Flicks and Consumer Culture shows how the needs of conglomerate Hollywood have encouraged an emphasis on consumer culture within films made for women. By exploring a number of representative \"girly films,\" including Pretty Woman, Legally Blonde, Maid in Manhattan, The Devil Wears Prada , and Sex and the City: The Movie , Radner proposes that rather than being \"post-feminist,\" as is usually assumed, such films are better described as \"neo-feminist.\" Examining their narrative format, as it revolves around the story of an ambitious unmarried woman who defines herself through consumer culture as much as through work or romance, Radner argues that these films exemplify neo-liberalist values rather than those of feminism. As such, Neo-Feminist Cinema offers a new explanation as to why feminist-oriented scholars and audiences who are seeking more than \"labels and love\" from their film experience have viewed recent \"girly films\" as a betrayal of second-wave feminism, and why, on the other hand, such films have proven to be so successful at the box office. Hilary Radner is Professor and Foundation Chair of Film and Media Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand. She is author of Shopping Around: Feminine Culture and the Pursuit of Pleasure and co-editor of several books including New Zealand Cinema: Interpreting History (forthcoming); Jane Campion: Cinema, Nation, Identity ; Swinging Single: Representing Sexuality in the 1960s ; Constructing the New Consumer Society ; and Film Theory Goes to the Movies , also published by Routledge. \"Radner's work is both compelling and thought provoking, and she successfully pinpoints the media's version of contemporary society's ideal woman.\" —Adrienne Urbanski in Elevate Difference , January 2011 Scholars and women are continually perplexed in our attempts to articulate the overlaps between the \"feminist\" and the \"feminine\" and to understand the historical transformations of these terms, and the recent development of \"postfeminism(s)\" and new forms of femininities. In this spectacular and important new work of feminist film theory, Radner significantly advances the debate about feminism and its \"posts\" with her theory of neo-feminist culture. Using popular Hollywood films effectively to illustrate her argument, Radner traces the history of our culture’s simultaneous incorporation and transformation of feminism in its political, personal, and social dimensions. Her theoretically sophisticated analysis of the complicated influence feminism has had on our popular culture and thinking will be equally useful to cultural and film theorists, students, and general readers. Neo-Feminist Cinema is culturally sophisticated film theory at its best. —Andrea L. Press, University of Virginia author of Women Watching Television, Speaking of Abortion, The New Media Environment, and co-editor of The Communication Review . This is a compelling and much-needed book. Summing Up: Highly recommended. —CHOICE June 2011 issue; reviewed by G.A. Foster, University of Nebraska-Lincoln . Introduction: Reassessing Feminism and Popular Culture. 1. Neo-feminism and the Rise of the Single Girl 2. Pretty Woman and the Girly Film: Defining the Format 3. Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion: Female Friendship in the Girly Film 4. Legally Blonde: \"A Pink Girl in a Brown World\" 5.Jennifer Lopez: Neo-Feminism and the Crossover Star 6. Maid in Manhattan: A New Fairy Tale 7. Hit Movies for \"Femmes\" 8. The Devil Wears Prada: The Fashion Film 9. Sex and the City: The Movie: The Female Event Film 10. Something’s Gotta Give: Nancy Meyers, Neo-Feminist Auteur. Conclusion: Post-feminism and Neo-feminism

Explores the intermedial work of the South Africa born and Dunedin-based artist, describing the range of her fashion label Dada Vintage, as well as her paintings and sculptural ceramics. Explains how she works out of the fashion system and why she gave her label its particular name. Source: National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand Licence.

A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema presents a comprehensive collection of original essays addressing all aspects of French cinema from 1990 to the present day. Featuring contributions from an international cast of established and emerging scholars of French cinema, these innovative essays highlight the diversity of French films and filmmaking techniques that have emerged since the New Wave era. Themes and topics covered include the social, political, and cultural contexts of recent French cinema; contemporary filmmakers and performers; genres, cycles, and cinematic forms; gender and sexuality; and emerging trends and innovative new filmmaking forms. Among the French films examined in depth are hit comedies including Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis and Intouchables, blockbusters such as The Crimson Rivers, police films like 36th Precinct, historical films such as Farewell My Queen and Days of Glory, celebrated animated features such as Kirikou and the Sorceress, films representative of the \"new French extreme,\" such as Romance, Baisemoi, and Trouble Every Day, and numerous auteur films ranging from Bruno Dumont's Hors Satan and François Ozon's shorts to Pascale Ferran's Lady Chatterley and Alain Guiraudie's L'Inconnu du lac. Combining cutting-edge scholarship with wide-ranging methodological approaches and perspectives, A Companion to Contemporary French Cinema is an invaluable resource for students and scholars of French film, as well as all those interested in the evolution of this celebrated cinematic tradition.

New Zealand has produced one of the world's most vibrant film cultures, a reflection of the country's evolving history and the energy and resourcefulness of its people. From early silent features like The Te Kooti Trail to recent films such as River Queen, this book examines the role of the cinema of New Zealand in building a shared sense of national identity. The works of key directors, including Peter Jackson, Jane Campion and Vincent Ward, are here introduced in a new light, and select films are given in-depth coverage. Among the most informative accounts of New Zealand's fascinating national cinema, this will be a must for film scholars around the globe.

The much heralded end of cinema, as well as the less loudly proclaimed end of fashion, raise crucial issues with regard to the relations between film as a social institution and the growth and propagation of consumer culture particularly in the form of dress and other items of self-adornment. Exploring the economic, cultural and technological changes that have lead to significant shifts in the nature of both cinema, as a social institution and a mode of representation, and the fashion system suggests continuities as well as breaks from the past, the consequences of which will not be fully encompassed without further significant interdisciplinary research.

In the era of the global, we often forget that lived experience takes place at the local level. 'Variety', published in the USA, with an arguably global readership, looking at New Zealand from abroad, facetiously (and quite probably erroneously) reported that 'three percent of the country's population attended the New Zealand premiere' of 'The Return of the King', which was filmed in that country ('Variety', 8 Dec. 2003, 79). The national media landscape that 'Variety' evokes is an impoverished one in which New Zealanders are sent rushing to the theatre at those rare moments when New Zealand achieves global prominence. Though New Zealand and New Zealanders only occasionally make it to the big screen, the need felt by New Zealanders to read about themselves results in the regular consumption of magazines, conceived and tailored to its market by parent companies such as Australian Consolidated Press (ACP). The New Zealand distributor, Gordon and Gotch entices prospective clients: 'Did you know that New Zealanders are world leaders in magazines?