Liberating Hollywood : women directors and the feminist reform of 1970s American cinema /
Women directors and the feminist reform of 1970s American cinema
Maya Montaņez Smukler.
- New Brunswick, New Jersey : Rutgers University Press, (c)2019.
- 1 online resource (vii, 351 pages) : illustrations.
Includes bibliographies and index.
Introduction -- Prologue : before there was 1970s Hollywood, there was New York City in the 1960s -- Feminist reform comes to Hollywood : new Hollywood, old sexism -- 1970s cultures of production : studio, art house, and exploitation -- New women : women directors and the 1970s new woman film -- Radicalizing the Directors Guild of America -- Epilogue : desperately seeking the eighties.
"Liberating Hollywood examines the relationship between the feminist movement and Hollywood during the 1960s and 1970s, specifically as it pertained to the hiring practices and creative output of women directors. The 1970s was a crucial decade for women directors in Hollywood as it marked a period of significant increase in their employment statistics compared to previous decades. Between the early 1930s and up until the mid-1960s, there were only two women filmmakers in Hollywood: Dorothy Arnzer and Ida Lupino. Smukler's research shows that between 1966-1980 there were an estimated fifteen women making feature films in Hollywood and in the adjacent independent film communities. Liberating Hollywood proposes several important points of investigation: How did the employment of a creative population, paralyzed by forty years of institutionalized sexism, slowly begin to increase? How did the political struggles of the civil rights and feminist movements within the United States impact Hollywood? Who were the fifteen women, the films they made and the production communities in which they worked? By answering these questions, Liberating Hollywood will play a key role in making complete the subject of American film history by highlighting the standout, yet unknown, legacy of women directors during the 1960s and 1970s"--
9780813587493
Women motion picture producers and directors--United States. Women in the motion picture industry--History--United States--20th century. Feminist films--History and criticism.--United States Feminism and motion pictures.