In this now-classic study, Linda Williams moves beyond the impasse of the anti-porn/anti-censorship debate to analyze what hard-core film pornography is and does--as a genre with a history, as a specific cinematic form, and as part of contemporary discourse on sexuality. For the 1999 edition, Williams has written a new preface and a new epilogue, "On/scenities," illustrated with 25 photographs. She has also added a supplementary bibliography.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In academic prose, film professor Williams of the University of California offers a graphic analysis of hard-core porno movies such as Deep Throat , as well as early, anonymous stag flicks. She finds that the newer, "softer" X-rated rental videos "show a more genuinely adult quality" than earlier videos. She ponders the "utopian problem-solving intent" of the hard-core genre and makes specious comparisons between blue movies, Hollywood musicals and films like Dirty Dancing . Sadomasochistic porn films, she claims, let viewers experience "a clearer confrontation with the oscillating poles of our gendered identities and the role of power in them." A critic whose professed goal is to understand film pornography, and who opposes those who would censor it, Williams begins this obfuscating study by analyzing the portrayal of women in the 19th-century kinetoscope, prototype of the motion-picture projector.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
Hard Core traces ". . . the changing meaning and function of the genre of pornography. . . ." As a scholarly study of "'mainstream,' heterosexual, hard-core pornography," that is, as a specific film category, it is both articulate and comprehensive. However, the anticensorship view, while offering some valid arguments, minimizes today's realities--the violence and degradation of women. Perhaps pornography should be about fantasy and sex, but at least for now, it is more about power. As a study of film genre, Hard Core is recommended for upper level students. However, its social context should be tempered by other works.
- Frada L. Mozenter, Univ. of North Carolina at Charlotte Lib.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Frada L. Mozenter, Univ. of North Carolina at Charlotte Lib.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting,
By "mytilene" (Scandinavia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible", Expanded edition (Paperback)
This is an easy to read, comprehensive analysis of visual pornography. Williams is thorough and openminded, and clearly shows that this isn't a homogenous and stereotypical genre. On the contrary, she maintains that all trends visible in other types of movies exist in pornography as well. An interesting read.
8 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best Book on Pornography I Have Ever Read,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible", Expanded edition (Paperback)
Linda Williams gives a scintillating evaluation of the politics of porn. Her detailed and insightful analysis goes beyond mere recitation of plot points and totaling of body parts to an in-depth engagement with the semiotics of pornographized couplings. The pictures were really helpful in conveying the cultural work done by this underevaluated art form. Porn-tastic!
11 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review of Harcore,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible", Expanded edition (Paperback)
This book changed my my mind about I saw pornography. This is a smart and sexy book that dispels many ideas we have about pornography and how the feminist anti-pron rhetoric not only endangers the First Amendment with their calls for taking this protection from porn, but retains the patriarchal concept of female purity that promotes a sexual double standard. This books opens a dialogue and forum for women to talk about pornography. I only wished I hadn't read it ten years earlier, because my copy doesn't have pictures.
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
Toward the beginning of Denis Diderot's 1748 fable Les bijoux indiscrets (The Indiscreet Jewels), the genie Cucufa seeks to gratify the desire of the sultan Mangogul to have the women of his court speak frankly of their sexual adventures. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Marilyn Chambers, Misty Beethoven, Meese Commission, Free Ride, Linda Lovelace, The Resurrection of Eve, Candida Royalle, The Casting Couch, New York, The Gay Shoe Clerk, Busby Berkeley, Kinsey Institute, Mitchell Bros, Steven Marcus, Urban Heat, Hot Pants, Kaja Silverman, Mitchell Brothers, Sandra Chase, United States, Andrea Dworkin, Attorney General's Commission, Loose Ends, Luce Irigaray, Stephen Ziplow New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Toward the beginning of Denis Diderot's 1748 fable Les bijoux indiscrets (The Indiscreet Jewels), the genie Cucufa seeks to gratify the desire of the sultan Mangogul to have the women of his court speak frankly of their sexual adventures. Read the first page Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Marilyn Chambers, Misty Beethoven, Meese Commission, Free Ride, Linda Lovelace, The Resurrection of Eve, Candida Royalle, The Casting Couch, New York, The Gay Shoe Clerk, Busby Berkeley, Kinsey Institute, Mitchell Bros, Steven Marcus, Urban Heat, Hot Pants, Kaja Silverman, Mitchell Brothers, Sandra Chase, United States, Andrea Dworkin, Attorney General's Commission, Loose Ends, Luce Irigaray, Stephen Ziplow New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 100
books:
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44
books
cite this book:
See all 44 books citing this book
- Powers of Desire (New feminist library) by Ann on 4 pages
- Take Back the Night by Laura Lederer on 4 pages
- The World Viewed: Reflections on the Ontology of Film, Enlarged Edition by Stanley Cavell on page 185, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Perspectives on Pornography: Sexuality in Film and Literature by Gary Day in Back Matter (1), Back Matter (2), and Back Matter (3)
- Pornography by Andrea Dworkin on page 20, Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
See all 100 books this book cites
- The Shattering of the Self: Violence, Subjectivity, and Early Modern Texts by Cynthia Marshall in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- White Queen: May French-Sheldon and the Imperial Origins of American Feminist Identity by Tracey Jean Boisseau in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Saturday Morning Censors: Television Regulation before the V-Chip (Console-ing Passions) by Heather Hendershot in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- White Queen: May French-Sheldon and the Imperial Origins of American Feminist Identity by Tracey Jean Boisseau in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- The Threshold of the Visible World by Kaja Silverman in Back Matter
See all 44 books citing this book
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