Chapter 7 draws inspiration from the changes wrought by the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 19... more Chapter 7 draws inspiration from the changes wrought by the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, uncovering women's shifting desires and social expectations in The Velvet Vampire (1971) and Group Marriage (1972). Traversing through polyamory, fetish, collective living, and queer worldmaking, these films are speculative imaginings of the possibilities of women's realized desires, sexual and otherwise.
By 1974, Stephanie Rothman had been working in the film industry as a writer, director and produc... more By 1974, Stephanie Rothman had been working in the film industry as a writer, director and producer for a decade, had seven feature directorial credits to her name, and was the Vice President of Creative Development at an independent studio. A few short years later her career was over. Collective filmic history had failed to remember Rothman and—what was then and is now—a significant career for a woman working behind the camera. Her cinematic presence and its corresponding contributions were reduced to parenthetical mentions, brief footnotes, and anecdotal asides, in large part due to Rothman’s incongruity as a woman working in a space overwhelmingly and traditionally populated by and producing for men: exploitation films. This conference paper takes two tracks of inquiry: to trace the manner Rothman’s career was constituted both during her contemporary moment and in the current collective filmic archive(s), and to understand the ways which rhetorical imbrications of gender, taste, ideology, and novelty served to define her role as director and historical (non)entity. This dual approach is constructed with the broader goal of articulating histories of gendered archival erasures and the impact these eradications have on the present condition of women in the film
This introductory chapter traces Doris Wishman’s personal and professional biography. In doing so... more This introductory chapter traces Doris Wishman’s personal and professional biography. In doing so, the authors describe the archival and filmic instabilities found when research and writing about exploitation and adult film. Embracing this destabilization, the chapter presents the volume’s methodology and intellectual pathos as reflective of Wishman herself.
New French extreme cinema combines existentialism with shock, hyper violence, and transgressions ... more New French extreme cinema combines existentialism with shock, hyper violence, and transgressions of women’s bodies. I contend such imagery is best understood as a representation of violence that enables enlightenment in and through the representation of women’s monstrosity and abjection. I examine this phenomenon through four films from New French Extremism’s inaugural cycle. El Nuevo Extremismo Francés combina el existencialismo con el shock, la hiperviolencia y las transgresiones de los cuerpos de las mujeres. En este artículo argumento que dicho imaginario se entiende mejor como una representación de la violencia que permite acceder al conocimiento mediante la representación de la monstruosidad y el abyecto de la mujer. Examino este fenómeno a través de cuatro películas de la primera ola de dicho movimiento.
This dissertation examines the role of gendered authorship in the U.S. film industry and focuses ... more This dissertation examines the role of gendered authorship in the U.S. film industry and focuses on how women's directorial labor is represented in film history and its accumulated archives. Specifically, the project evaluates women's labor in the cinematic paradigm of second wave exploitation films-films produced under the exploitation style from 1960 to 1980-and utilizes a case study of director Stephanie Rothman to articulate the lack of industrial, disciplinary, and archival attention paid to women's directorial labor and the reverberations of this absence on gendered labor parity in the contemporary film industry. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not be possible without the unfailing support of my doctoral committee. I have been incredibly fortunate in working with this group of amazing scholars. Prof. Valdivia has been a tireless advocate for me, my work, and for all graduate students in the Institute of Communications Research. We all owe her a great debt. Prof. Hay's consistent intellectual stimulation has been critical in my development, and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity of being welcomed into the best restaurant in town. Prof. Rodriguez is a model of compassionate and unflinchingly progressive academic inquiry of which I can only hope to aspire. Lastly, Prof. Turnock's mentorship, generosity, and camaraderie have been beyond invaluable. Her passion for her work and her voracious appetite for knowledge are inspirational. Thank you so much, Julie. To my phenomenal network of Illinois friends, all the beautiful weirdos, you have been the best intellectual support and care system anyone could ask for. To those who made Champaign-Urbana home-especially Emily (who hates acknowledgements) and Meghanthank you does not begin to suffice. For the past five years I've said that this project would not have been possible without the aid of amazing staff of the Communications Library and I will say it again: Nick and Erik, you guys are the best. My gratitude to my parents is never-ending, who despite never being quite sure what I am talking about (except to know that I am doing it too loudly and quickly, which I am), support me unconditionally. Arnau and Martina: for life. That's it BD, it's done.
This article examines the film Catfish and the corresponding television program Catfish: The TV S... more This article examines the film Catfish and the corresponding television program Catfish: The TV Show to articulate how genres of the real create entertainment paradigms built on shame and derision as acceptable modes of programming particularly focused on bodies. Understanding these texts as visual culture narratives grounded in shame produced through “failed” classed, fat, and gendered bodies, I argue that when genres of the real focus on shame as entertainment they implicate individuals, rather than systemically enforced normative identity positions, as wholly complicit in their own sociocultural failure.
ABSTRACT This article examines Pinky Violence films, exploitation movies from 1960s and 1970s Jap... more ABSTRACT This article examines Pinky Violence films, exploitation movies from 1960s and 1970s Japan, focusing specifically on radical portrayals of gender and sex. Utilizing the subversive space of exploitation cinema, Pinky Violence films provide alternative constructions of gender and female sexuality through the character of the sukeban: the girl gang boss. An evaluation of both the cultural and the historical factors that led to the development of Pinky Violence films demonstrates how the changing post-war society indelibly influenced new iterations of gender for Japanese women. An assessment of the tropes of the films and an analysis of the ideology behind them pinpoints Pinky Violence as an unvalued, and hence understudied, area in transgressive Japanese cinema. By doing so, the article ultimately attempts to position Pinky Violence films as a valuable source of untapped material that can offer a unique insight into constructions of gender in Japanese cinema.
Chapter 7 draws inspiration from the changes wrought by the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 19... more Chapter 7 draws inspiration from the changes wrought by the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, uncovering women's shifting desires and social expectations in The Velvet Vampire (1971) and Group Marriage (1972). Traversing through polyamory, fetish, collective living, and queer worldmaking, these films are speculative imaginings of the possibilities of women's realized desires, sexual and otherwise.
By 1974, Stephanie Rothman had been working in the film industry as a writer, director and produc... more By 1974, Stephanie Rothman had been working in the film industry as a writer, director and producer for a decade, had seven feature directorial credits to her name, and was the Vice President of Creative Development at an independent studio. A few short years later her career was over. Collective filmic history had failed to remember Rothman and—what was then and is now—a significant career for a woman working behind the camera. Her cinematic presence and its corresponding contributions were reduced to parenthetical mentions, brief footnotes, and anecdotal asides, in large part due to Rothman’s incongruity as a woman working in a space overwhelmingly and traditionally populated by and producing for men: exploitation films. This conference paper takes two tracks of inquiry: to trace the manner Rothman’s career was constituted both during her contemporary moment and in the current collective filmic archive(s), and to understand the ways which rhetorical imbrications of gender, taste, ideology, and novelty served to define her role as director and historical (non)entity. This dual approach is constructed with the broader goal of articulating histories of gendered archival erasures and the impact these eradications have on the present condition of women in the film
This introductory chapter traces Doris Wishman’s personal and professional biography. In doing so... more This introductory chapter traces Doris Wishman’s personal and professional biography. In doing so, the authors describe the archival and filmic instabilities found when research and writing about exploitation and adult film. Embracing this destabilization, the chapter presents the volume’s methodology and intellectual pathos as reflective of Wishman herself.
New French extreme cinema combines existentialism with shock, hyper violence, and transgressions ... more New French extreme cinema combines existentialism with shock, hyper violence, and transgressions of women’s bodies. I contend such imagery is best understood as a representation of violence that enables enlightenment in and through the representation of women’s monstrosity and abjection. I examine this phenomenon through four films from New French Extremism’s inaugural cycle. El Nuevo Extremismo Francés combina el existencialismo con el shock, la hiperviolencia y las transgresiones de los cuerpos de las mujeres. En este artículo argumento que dicho imaginario se entiende mejor como una representación de la violencia que permite acceder al conocimiento mediante la representación de la monstruosidad y el abyecto de la mujer. Examino este fenómeno a través de cuatro películas de la primera ola de dicho movimiento.
This dissertation examines the role of gendered authorship in the U.S. film industry and focuses ... more This dissertation examines the role of gendered authorship in the U.S. film industry and focuses on how women's directorial labor is represented in film history and its accumulated archives. Specifically, the project evaluates women's labor in the cinematic paradigm of second wave exploitation films-films produced under the exploitation style from 1960 to 1980-and utilizes a case study of director Stephanie Rothman to articulate the lack of industrial, disciplinary, and archival attention paid to women's directorial labor and the reverberations of this absence on gendered labor parity in the contemporary film industry. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not be possible without the unfailing support of my doctoral committee. I have been incredibly fortunate in working with this group of amazing scholars. Prof. Valdivia has been a tireless advocate for me, my work, and for all graduate students in the Institute of Communications Research. We all owe her a great debt. Prof. Hay's consistent intellectual stimulation has been critical in my development, and I will be forever grateful for the opportunity of being welcomed into the best restaurant in town. Prof. Rodriguez is a model of compassionate and unflinchingly progressive academic inquiry of which I can only hope to aspire. Lastly, Prof. Turnock's mentorship, generosity, and camaraderie have been beyond invaluable. Her passion for her work and her voracious appetite for knowledge are inspirational. Thank you so much, Julie. To my phenomenal network of Illinois friends, all the beautiful weirdos, you have been the best intellectual support and care system anyone could ask for. To those who made Champaign-Urbana home-especially Emily (who hates acknowledgements) and Meghanthank you does not begin to suffice. For the past five years I've said that this project would not have been possible without the aid of amazing staff of the Communications Library and I will say it again: Nick and Erik, you guys are the best. My gratitude to my parents is never-ending, who despite never being quite sure what I am talking about (except to know that I am doing it too loudly and quickly, which I am), support me unconditionally. Arnau and Martina: for life. That's it BD, it's done.
This article examines the film Catfish and the corresponding television program Catfish: The TV S... more This article examines the film Catfish and the corresponding television program Catfish: The TV Show to articulate how genres of the real create entertainment paradigms built on shame and derision as acceptable modes of programming particularly focused on bodies. Understanding these texts as visual culture narratives grounded in shame produced through “failed” classed, fat, and gendered bodies, I argue that when genres of the real focus on shame as entertainment they implicate individuals, rather than systemically enforced normative identity positions, as wholly complicit in their own sociocultural failure.
ABSTRACT This article examines Pinky Violence films, exploitation movies from 1960s and 1970s Jap... more ABSTRACT This article examines Pinky Violence films, exploitation movies from 1960s and 1970s Japan, focusing specifically on radical portrayals of gender and sex. Utilizing the subversive space of exploitation cinema, Pinky Violence films provide alternative constructions of gender and female sexuality through the character of the sukeban: the girl gang boss. An evaluation of both the cultural and the historical factors that led to the development of Pinky Violence films demonstrates how the changing post-war society indelibly influenced new iterations of gender for Japanese women. An assessment of the tropes of the films and an analysis of the ideology behind them pinpoints Pinky Violence as an unvalued, and hence understudied, area in transgressive Japanese cinema. By doing so, the article ultimately attempts to position Pinky Violence films as a valuable source of untapped material that can offer a unique insight into constructions of gender in Japanese cinema.
Utilizing a series of films which arguably fall into the New French Extremist movement, this conf... more Utilizing a series of films which arguably fall into the New French Extremist movement, this conference paper explores the particular fascination with, and revulsion toward, the physical female body as the space and site upon which the monstrous and horrific is expressed. By moving into conversation the theoretical framework of the abject, the rhetoric of home and motherland, constructions of biohorror, and the violent gaze, this paper attempts to uncover the impact of translating ideas of the monstrous both around, and through, the female body, and how this translation impacts future iterations of women in the horror film.
This paper examines the implication of digital theatrical projection on local, independent, art h... more This paper examines the implication of digital theatrical projection on local, independent, art house theaters. Highlighting exhibition as the “weak link” in the evolutionary chain of digital cinema, this work contends that the financial burden on local exhibitors has forced theaters into precarious business and operational models that further erode the already-diminished local independent theater community. By placing digital projection conversion within a chronology of industrial and technological change, and articulating the impact of these changes through an ethnographic study of the first cooperatively owned for-profit local independent theater, this paper concludes that the impact of digital exhibition must be considered past its technological components. Indeed, it needs be understood for the implications it has in warping, and potentially erasing, the local exhibitor landscape by demanding the adoption of increasing risky, unknown, and untested business models as a base mode of short-term survival.
By 1974, Stephanie Rothman had been working in the film industry as a writer, director and produc... more By 1974, Stephanie Rothman had been working in the film industry as a writer, director and producer for a decade, had seven feature directorial credits to her name, and was the Vice President of Creative Development at an independent studio. A few short years later her career was over. Collective filmic history had failed to remember Rothman and—what was then and is now—a significant career for a woman working behind the camera. Her cinematic presence and its corresponding contributions were reduced to parenthetical mentions, brief footnotes, and anecdotal asides, in large part due to Rothman’s incongruity as a woman working in a space overwhelmingly and traditionally populated by and producing for men: exploitation films.
This conference paper takes two tracks of inquiry: to trace the manner Rothman’s career was constituted both during her contemporary moment and in the current collective filmic archive(s), and to understand the ways which rhetorical imbrications of gender, taste, ideology, and novelty served to define her role as director and historical (non)entity. This dual approach is constructed with the broader goal of articulating histories of gendered archival erasures and the impact these eradications have on the present condition of women in the film
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Papers by Alicia Kozma
This conference paper takes two tracks of inquiry: to trace the manner Rothman’s career was constituted both during her contemporary moment and in the current collective filmic archive(s), and to understand the ways which rhetorical imbrications of gender, taste, ideology, and novelty served to define her role as director and historical (non)entity. This dual approach is constructed with the broader goal of articulating histories of gendered archival erasures and the impact these eradications have on the present condition of women in the film