The new avengers: feminism, femininity and the rape-revenge cycle

Abstract

Part 1 Introduction - feminism and popular culture - the structure of the book: narratives of transformation - the rape-revenge cycle from romance to revenge - sleeping with the enemy. Part 2 Pre-feminism: rape-revenge and mass cultural fictions of femineity - the silent era to 1970, rape, the silent era - 1915-1929, the sound era - 1930-1970, rapists and their victims, transformation, revenge. Part 3 Feminism: popular film/popular feminism - the critical reception of the rape-revenge film - The Accused, Thelma and Louise frontier femmes -rape-revenge and the western variations on - frontier femmes and the vengeance variation, hard women and soft men - post-modernism, post feminism and backlash. Part 4 Post-feminism: rape-revenge in post-modern Hollywood - having it all - The Last Seduction, of vamps and avengers - Batman Returns from feminism to family values - the maternal avenger - the maternal avenger and the vigilante-mom made-for-TV film, melodrama and the maternal avenger. Conclusion: textual and theoretical negotiations. Filmography of primary and secondary texts.

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