Working Girls: Gender and Sexuality in Popular Cinema

by Yvonne Tasker

Book Overview

Working Girls investigates the thematic concerns of contemporary Hollywood cinema, and its ambivalent articulation of women as both active, and defined by sexual performance, asking whether new Hollywood cinema has responded to feminism and contemporary sexual identities.
Whether analysing the rise of films centred around female friendships, or the entrance of pop stars such as Whitney Houston and Madonna into film, Working Girls is an authoritative...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0415140056
• ISBN13: 9780415140058
• Release Date: April 1998
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Working Girls

The best thing about Yvonne Tasker's newest book, "Working Girls" is the clarity with which she discusses her subject. Too many film theorists get bogged down in discussing "theory for theory's sake," but Tasker illustrates each of her theoretical points-- for instance, the idea of "transvestism of class"-- with concrete examples from a number of films (in this case 'Working Girl' and 'Up Close and Personal'). This makes her larger and more abstract points more accessible to people who are interested in the cultural phenomenon of film, but who are "self-taught." Every time I pick up one of Tasker's books (she also wrote a fascinating study of gender and the action film called "Spectacular Bodies") I come away from it feeling educated and a little more confident in my ability to understand film and the ways in which it moves me. I look forward to her next endeavor.