Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the "Frenzy of the Visible", Expanded edition (Paperback)

~ (Author) "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..." (more)
Key Phrases: Marilyn Chambers, Misty Beethoven, Meese Commission (more...)

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.

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.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 380 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (April 27, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520219430
• ISBN-13: 978-0520219434
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #100,877 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #14 in	Books > Nonfiction > Social Sciences > Pornography
  #59 in	Books > Entertainment > Movies > Genre Films

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, May 7, 2004

By	"mytilene" (Scandinavia) - See all my reviews

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.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book on Pornography I Have Ever Read, December 6, 1999

By A Customer

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!

9 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review of Harcore, August 7, 2000

By A Customer

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.