HOLLYWOOD DIVAS, INDIE QUEENS, AND TV HEROINES: Contemporary Screen Images of Women

To examine "the representation of women in film from 1990 to 2003," Kord and Krimmer discuss the work of four actors—Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan and Renée Zellweger—who starred in blockbuster movies during this period. They connect each actor with a theme: Roberts is woman in search of herself, Bullock is "running after... or running away" from something, Ryan is angling for "reconciliation with patriarchal structures" and Zellweger is an ordinary woman trying to escape into the extraordinary. If these actors ever took roles defying those generalizations, they aren't mentioned here. The analyses Kord and Krimmer (professors at University College London and University of California, Davis, respectively) do make reveal more about their own politics than about women in film (for example, they find rampant "implied sex" scenes, such as one in Speed : "the subway train shoots through the billboard like a penis through a hymen"). While the authors go on to discuss women as violent action heroes and female roles in independent films and TV, their visible politics make their evaluations quite predictable (beware movies like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider , for example, where "patriarchal containment of female power" masquerades as "female empowerment"). The authors' habit of ignoring any films that might undercut their perspective and their reluctance to discuss directors or scriptwriters make this book rather shallow. (Feb.)