From the introduction, '(in)appropriate(d) others or how Vanessa Redgrave turned me lesbian', to the afterwood, 'persistent desires and pleasurable frustrations', Clare Whatling argues that there is no such thing as a lesbian film per se, rather that films are lesbianised by the audiences that watch them. This book is not just about looking lesbian, however; it is more an examination of audiences' interpretations of films in general. In fact, one of the arguments of this book is that the most interesting thing about films are the audiences who watch them. From Streep to Foster, "Maidens in uniform" to "Heavenly creatures", Whatling reinvestigates mainstream feminist and lesbian film theory, and provides an engaging introduction to a complex area, whilst developing new accounts of the relationship between an audience and a film text.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointing Execution of a Promising Subject,
This review is from: Screen Dreams: Fantasising Lesbians in Film (Paperback)
After reading Patricia White's "Uninvited" (which focuses on the effect of Production-era cinema on the formation of contemporary lesbian identities), Clare Whatling's "Screen Dreams" seemed a natural evolution in my reading. Ms. Whatling's ostensible topic is how conteomporary lesbians appropriate modern cinema as subjects of fantasy and desire. Rather than being acted upon, as White's work posits, Ms. Whatling contends that the lesbian viewer acts as much as she is acted upon. This intriguing and potentially powerful argument (which owes much to queer theory), however, is lost amid Ms. Whatling's overeagerness to show that she has the intellectual and academic credentials to make her case. "Screen Dreams" reads like an anxious Ph.d candidate's thesis, full of disavowels (such as her repeated assertion that she is only speaking for herself) and rudimentary summarizations of *other* people's work. In fact, I (not an academic by any means) had actually read most of Ms. Whatling's sources, so much of this already-slender volume offered nothing new. Ms. Whatling makes a powerful supposition (one with which I am inclined to agree), I simply regret that her writing was unable to live up to her subject's promise.
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