Books in French are on www.livres-cinema.info
On a related topic:
Conspiracy Films (2011)
A Tour of Dark Places in the American Conscious
The Vigilante Thriller (2024)
Violence, Spectatorship and Identification in American Cinema, 1970-76
by Cary Edwards
States of Danger and Deceit (2024)
The European Political Thriller in the 1970s
Dir. Rachel Hayward, Ellen Smith and Andy Willis
History and Story in the American Political Thriller Film (2023)
Hollywood in the Labyrinth
British Thrillers, 1950–1979 (2020)
845 Films of Suspense, Mystery, Murder and Espionage
Sexy Thrills
Undressing the Erotic Thriller
by Nina Martin
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Book Presentation:
How erotic thrillers impact contemporary ideas about feminism and femininity
Unlike the bulk of soft-core pornography, direct-to-video erotic thriller films are made specifically to appeal to women. Nina K. Martin argues that this makes them a valuable resource for investigating female sexuality, subjectivity, and gender construction, and her Sexy Thrills is the first study to use them to examine the construction of female desire.
The heroines of these productions have overtly sexual adventures, often dabbling in a variety of sex work roles--including call girl, stripper, and exotic dancer--to get in touch with their sexual desires. Martin explains, however, that the films highlight a fundamental tension between endorsing an empowered, sexually experienced female heroine ("the sexy bad girl") and reenforcing more conventional, constructed standards that limit the acceptable forms of feminine sexuality. While the sexual explicitness of the films acknowledges the increasing appeal of pornography to female heterosexual viewers, erotic thrillers remain couched in romanticized narratives and settings that speak to very traditional understandings of femininity and desire.
By analyzing the way the specifics of this hybrid genre have been shaped by pop cultural products targeting women, including romance novels, women's magazines, and talk shows, Sexy Thrills unpacks the construction of female desire to reveal how sex is marketed to heterosexual women.
About the Author:
Nina K. Martin is an assistant professor of film studies at Connecticut College.
Press Reviews:
"Martin's engaging book builds (as she makes clear) on the work of other who have examined the world of the soft-core erotic thriller. . . . Highly recommended."--Choice
“Martin makes a series of impressive arguments about the themes, subtext, and stylistic innovations of the format that could send academic audiences back to their Tivo for more than simply cheap thrills.”--Sexuality & Culture
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