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Erens, Patricia, ed. Issues in Feminist Film Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990, 320 pp. $18.95 (paper).
Carson, Diane, Linda Dittmar, and Janice R. Welsch, eds. Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1994, 547 pp. $19.95 (paper).
The beginning of a new decade causes scholars in every field to reflect upon the developments of the previous decade and to predict directions for further study. This generalization is especially apt for feminist film studies, which has produced quite a few anthologies in the past five years.
Because the field is barely 20 years old, such retrospective musings might seem a bit premature. Feminist film theory and criticism, in both the U.S. and the U.K., began in small journals, some of which are currently nonextant or have evolved into new forms. Many of these early articles are difficult to locate outside their countries of origin. On the one hand, then, some important essays are not as readily available as feminist film scholars might wish. On the other hand, certain pieces are so frequently reprinted that some scholars have at least six copies of them on their bookshelves. The result is an unevenness, a reliance on the most easily consulted articles, and an oversight regarding other essays that are potentially as important to the new directions feminist film theory is exploring.
Two recent anthologies epitomize the necessity, the strengths, and the weaknesses of collections of feminist film theory and criticism. Patricia Erens's Issues in Ferninist Film Criticism gathers some of the most important feminist writing of the 1980s, demonstrating the range of issues and approaches that have characterized feminist film studies in the past decade. In so doing, Erens perpetuates a canon of scholars, writing, and films that has often been described as white, middle class, and inherently limited.
Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism, edited by Diane Carson, Linda Dittmar, and Janice R. Welsch, strives to question, prod, and test this canon. The essays in this volume discuss the blind spots in feminist film theory to date, offer textual analyses of several films that are not part of the established canon, and provide "course files" that suggest innovative approaches to teaching feminist films and scholarship. But, although Multiple Voices attempts to break...