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SUPER BITCHES AND ACTION BABES: THE FEMALE HERO IN POPULAR CINEMA, 1970-2006 Rikke Schubart. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2006, 368 pp.
All too seldom, in reading about film, I have the experience of picking upa book that proves to be a revelation. Super Bitches and Action Babes is precisely that- a groundbreaking work that not only sheds new light on a trend in films, but also provides a fresh theoretical framework in which to situate its argument.
Typical previous examinations of women in action roles have seen them as masquerading in male guise in a manner that ultimately is subsumed within white patriarchy. Only female stars of 1910s serials have been generally regarded as succeeding in transgressing male dominance, largely the result of a formative era in film when the audience was largely female. However, in Super Bitches and Action Babes, author Rikke Schubart peels away old standbys, especially "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," Laura Mulvey's essay on woman as created by the object of the male gaze in cinema.
Instead, Schubart outlines a far more convincing case, which she describes as postfeminism. Here, filmmakers, audiences, and stars are able to construct a variety of possible readings of screen texts. "Feminine" and "masculine" traits are not cast in stone for each gender, but fluid. The result moves beyond traditional definitions of feminism to Schubart's postfeminism, which allows for this polysemy. Postfeminism permits a greater fluidity and playfulness (as indicated by the title of the book itself) in gender roles, a willingness to mock expectations and use...