Customer Reviews

Holding My Own in No Man's Land: Women and Men and Film and Feminists

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Molly Haskell is NOT a reviewer. She is a wonderful social critic whose feminism informs rather than limits the range of insights she brings to her subjects. Most of the subjects - but not all - have to do with women in movies and television: how they are depicted, the roles available etc. But in this wide-ranging collection, she also discusses makeup, rape fantasies, nudity and the new take-no-prisoners TV female comedians - among other things!

For a more thorough treatment of Women in Film, her book From Reverence to Rape is indispensable. But this collection allows her to ponder a wider range of subject. For those who really love film and popular art and are interested in the assumptions behind so much of our popular culture, this book will delight.

I have trouble suppressing a chuckle at the ponderous, self-important titles of Haskell's review books. Despite the grandiosity of the title of this one--"Women and Men and Film and Feminists": oh, is that all? Just those?--this book is not much more than simple recounting of the casts and the plots of movies she likes. You can probably get more critical information on the Lifetime or Oxygen websites. It's like she's turning film criticism into a parody of the institution itself. It's kind of sad that real feminist film critique has to be lumped in with this "Dear Diary / Love Molly" pablum. Oh, well. Maybe that means I can get *my* diary published!